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Comment by r00fus | Hacker News Reader

> Election was lost to a TV personality even though mass media was supposed to prevent it.

This is not something I can follow. Trump got the most screen time of any candidate, Clinton included (Sanders got the least of the top 4).

If the media was supposed to "stop" Trump, why did they pen so much ink and cut to Trump's random assertions in the middle of major policy positions of his adversaries.

Based purely on a "google fight" comparison of screentime, it was clear who the media wanted to win, and who would win.

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Trump brought ratings, and Clinton thought she had a lock so she denied interviews and press time. It's as simple as that in this case. Cable outlets clearly wanted Clinton to win, it's just that once they figured out Trump had a shot, Clinton was on a death slope from her own sloppy campaigning. The last 4-5 months of the campaign (once Trump as the nominee) was spent attacking Trump relentlessly in media outlets. The press, imo wanted Trump as the GOP nominee because they thought Clinton would destroy him and thought he would implode the GOP. The last part is still playing out, but their blindness to seeing Clinton's scandals the way middle America did allowed other outlets to step into the fold to cover them. Since the media attempted to ignore many of her faults early on, when they suddenly had a shot to jump on board they were mocked.

The "screentime" argument, not a very good one. Trump has had more criticism and negative press flung at him than probably anyone alive EVER in just the last year, from almost every country on earth. Eastern Europe was getting just as much anti-trump media as the United States. I guess you could call that "screen time" too.

Just saying Trump had more screen time is a small picture of what the media have been doing to Trump. The lack of screentime for Clinton was a benefit as we saw. We actually saw correlation with lower national polling the more screen time she got. The more she was under wraps (remember the LONG countdown since she had had a press conference, it had been something like 250 days I think). Many talking heads were saying that was on purpose.

The more coverage that Trump got for "outlandish" behavior, the more immune we all became to it. He, and the media, normalized his shocking behavior.

Such a contrast to John Kerry's swiftboating... Somehow Trump repelled any smear attempts. Personality? Media? Society?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiftboating

The original "Teflon" (the opposite of one who is swiftboated) president was Ronald Reagan. Like Trump his base was "states rights". He announced his campaign for presidency at the Neshoba county fairgrounds [1] trumpeting "states rights" - a dog-whistle for white nationalists.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reagan%27s_Neshoba_County_Fair...

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