There seems to be little doubt that the mainstream media uses a double standard in all that it does. It has one standard for Democrats, it had another one for Barack Obama and it has an altogether different standard for Republicans, and most particularly, Donald Trump.
We also see that double standard in the justice system as well. There was clearly one standard for Hillary Clinton. There has been a completely different standard for Donald Trump. There seems to have been no standard at all for Barack Obama. Obama even stated after he left the Presidency that he "didn't have any scandals."
It is true that he never had an independent counsel investigation to contend with. That is interesting itself when you consider some clear scandals such as "Fast and Furious", "Benghazi", "Hillary's Private Server" "The Use of the IRS to target conservative groups", "The Domestic Spying on Reporters like James Rosen and Sharyl Attkisson", and the "Payment of $1.7 billion in cash to Iran (a terrorist state) with funds that by law were supposed to only be paid to terrorist victims". A double standard? You decide.
I recently read a book that The Washington Post published shortly after Donald Trump secured the GOP nomination (but before he was elected) entitled "Trump Revealed".
There is little doubt that Trump has a very complicated personality. I have read most of Trump's books and I have also tried to read many of the other unauthorized biographies of Trump to get a better sense of the essence of who he is.
I was not expecting to get a flattering portrayal of Trump in this book in that this was authored by two Washington Post reporters. One of the reasons I read it was to get another perspective. However, I immediately saw something interesting on the first page of the book that showed how deep the double standard goes with The Washington Post.
"The Post assigned more than twenty reporters, two fact-checkers, and three editors to examine Trump's life. In about three months, they were to produce this book and more than thirty articles for the Post, with the goal of chronicling and understanding everything from Trump's family background through his childhood, career, and political evolution. We sent reporters to his ancestral homes in Germany and Scotland, to his childhood neighborhood in Queens, and his boarding school in upstate New York, to his college campuses in the Bronx and Philadelphia, and to his boarding ventures in Atlantic City, Panama, Russia, and Azerbaijan. We visited and spoke with Trump's relatives, classmates, friends, competitors, business partners, executives and employees, boosters, and critics."
Twenty reporters? Two fact-checkers? Three editors? Trips to Germany and Scotland?
That is well and good. That is what reporting is all about.
However, I was curious. Did they do anything similar with regard to candidate Barack Obama in 2008. Did they send out twenty reporters to check into everything about his life and background and write a book about him in the lead-up to the 2008 election? After all, little was known about Obama's background in 2008. There was undoubtedly much to learn. Compare that to the decades that Trump had been in the public eye.
If The Post did anything of that magnitude, I could not find any evidence of it on a Google search. The closest it seemed to get was assigning David Marannis to cover biographical details relating to Obama in its 2008 election coverage. Marannis later used this and other material to write a book about Obama (Barack Obama: The Story) that was published in 2012
In fact, the Post's own ombudsman, Deborah Howell, concluded that there had been "An Obama Tilt in Campaign Coverage" over the previous year in a report published the Sunday after the 2008 general election.
In my research I found that The Washington Post did publish a book about Obama. It may not have had the time to extensively research Barack Obama's background in 2008 but it did have time to write a puff piece on "Obama's Legacy" shortly before Trump was inaugurated.
This is how the book is described in the promotional material by the publisher.
Notice how Obama is portrayed by these Washington Post writers?
"Figure of hope." "Symbol of change". "Countless programs and policies that have made an impact"
"the indelible mark".
Compare that to how the Trump book was described by the authors. (This is from the updated and revised book from after Trump was elected President that is now on sale),
Notice the words to describe Trump by these Washington Post reporters?
"A man certain of his views", "hugely confident in his abilities", "not terribly well informed", "quick to take offense".
Do we have fake news? I am not sure that fake news is as big a problem as is biased and slanted coverage of reporters with an agenda.
Do we have a double standard? Look at these two books from The Washington Post and you can decide.
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