BROADCAST BIAS: Networks turn Trump’s plane switch into a fancy scandal
The coverage of political scandal is one of the most obvious fields of study for anyone looking at media bias. The same people who unconvincingly claimed President Barack Obama's presidency was "largely scandal-free" can manufacture a scandal a day under President Donald Trump.
The allegedly outrageous scandal of this week happened in Turkey, where the Secret Service advised Trump to switch to a different military plane to fly home while the press (and top administration officials) stayed on Air Force One, but were not told the president wasn't on board. As soon as The Washington Post had the story, the anti-Trump spin kicked in. The press were left on a "decoy" plane that could have been shot down by the Iranians.
While the broadcast networks love to open their newscasts with severe weather updates to grab viewer attention, this mini-scandal led CBS and NBC on Tuesday night, and ABC jumped in right after the weather.
On PBS, "News Hour" anchor Geoff Bennett exemplified the tone: "How unusual is it for the Secret Service to turn Air Force One and its passengers, to include White House staff, the traveling press, into a decoy?" Correspondent Nick Schifrin explained that this happened before with President Bill Clinton in Pakistan in 2000.
On NPR's "Morning Edition" on Wednesday, they brought on former Secret Service agent Robert McDonald, who tried to reassure the audience that he was sure Air Force One still had Air Force protection in the air, so, "I think the premise that those two planes were left out on their own, I think, is a little bit reaching." Anchor Michel Martin resisted: "But you don't know that for a fact." McDonald acknowledged that, but found it hard to believe two Air Force 747s "would be left to fend for themselves."
Journalists went on for days with "decoy" outrage, but it's hard to argue Trump left them in danger, since top aides were still on the plane – Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and domestic policy adviser Stephen Miller, among others.
Everyone in the media knows that covering a president carries the risk of being in the crossfire if someone makes an assassination attempt. They just witnessed it in the first attempt at the White House Correspondents' Dinner this spring.
What's astonishing is how little they seem to care about Trump's vulnerability to assassination, even after he was shot in the ear in one of several foiled attempts to murder him.
On Aug. 4, a 38-year-old California man named Jeanine John Taele was arrested at the Trump National Golf Club Los Angeles after he was spotted taking photos and monitoring security preparations two days before a scheduled visit by the president. Taele had a 16-round magazine with ammunition in his pocket, and authorities recovered a loaded pistol in his car. But in the case of the switched planes, the press sounded like they only worried about their own safety, and they act like Trump endangers himself with his rhetoric and by waging war on terrorist regimes in the Middle East.
Some people thought the Secret Service tactics were grounds for levity. As the story broke on Monday night, MS NOW hosts Rachel Maddow and Lawrence O'Donnell had giggles over the concept of the president being moved from plane to plane on a catering cart, saying that he "lost complete control" of his situation. On Tuesday night, Aug. 11, O'Donnell proclaimed, "No president has ever done more than Donald Trump to reveal himself to be a deeply cowardly man," when he wasn't at all like Harrison Ford's terrorist-punching president in the movie "Air Force One."
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Subbing on ABC's "Jimmy Kimmel Live," actor Anthony Anderson wisecracked: "Let's give it up to the Secret Service. Do you know how hard it is to sneak a pig out of Turkey?" He added: "I'm no security expert, but if I was trying to find Donald Trump, a catering truck is the first place I'd look. Next time, hide his ass in a bookmobile."
I was a White House reporter for two years, so I can sympathize with journalists feeling strongly about the concept of being endangered overseas. But they all should understand the Secret Service has a job to do, and it's to keep the president safe. Everyone on that plane was safe. So why did they have to treat it as a scandal? Because manufacturing daily outrages seems to be their job in covering President Trump.