<\/a>Hillary Clinton gets far less air time and far fewer column inches in\u00a0 mainstream media coverage<\/a> than does Donald Trump. \u00a0And while that\u2019s a huge problem, it\u2019s not the only evidence of lopsided coverage: The tone is out of balance, as well. Trump\u2019s outrageous pronouncements, outright lies, and non-policies are frequently quoted as the \u201ctruth-telling\u201d statements of a political outsider; while Clinton\u2019s in-depth policy ideas and long record of public service are ignored, as right-wing manufactured non-scandals are highlighted, and she is portrayed as the dishonest politician.<\/p>\n

That inequality of coverage\u2014especially in the way the media characterizes each candidate– is the subject of Paul Krugman\u2019s column in the New York Times today<\/a>. Krugman draws a parallel between this year\u2019 media coverage and that of George W. Bush vs. Al Gore in 2000. And we all know how that ended.<\/p>\n

You see, one candidate, George W. Bush, was dishonest in a way that was unprecedented in U.S. politics. Most notably, he proposed big tax cuts for the rich while insisting, in raw denial of arithmetic, that they were targeted for the middle class. These campaign lies presaged what would happen during his administration \u2014 an administration that, let us not forget, took America to war on false pretenses.<\/p>\n

Yet throughout the campaign most media coverage gave the impression that Mr. Bush was a bluff, straightforward guy, while portraying Al Gore \u2014 whose policy proposals added up, and whose critiques of the Bush plan were completely accurate \u2014 as slippery and dishonest. Mr. Gore\u2019s mendacity was supposedly demonstrated by trivial anecdotes, none significant, some of them simply false. No, he never claimed<\/a> to have invented the internet. But the image stuck.<\/p>\n

And right now I and many others have the sick, sinking feeling that it\u2019s happening again.<\/p>\n

True, there aren\u2019t many efforts to pretend that Donald Trump is a paragon of honesty. But it\u2019s hard to escape the impression that he\u2019s being graded on a curve. If he manages to read from a TelePrompter without going off script, he\u2019s being presidential. If he seems to suggest that he wouldn\u2019t round up all 11 million undocumented immigrants right away, he\u2019s moving into the mainstream. And many of his multiple scandals, like what appear to be clear payoffs to state attorneys general<\/a> to back off investigating Trump University, get remarkably little attention.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, we have the presumption that anything Hillary Clinton does must be corrupt, most spectacularly illustrated by the increasingly bizarre coverage of the Clinton Foundation.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Krugman accuses the media of using many misleading, loaded words in its reporting about Clinton, but fewer of these same terms regarding Trump. .<\/p>\n

\u00a0If reports about a candidate talk about how something \u201craises questions,\u201d creates \u201cshadows,\u201d or anything similar, be aware that these are all too often weasel words used to create the impression of wrongdoing out of thin air.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And he offers sound advice on how to evaluate candidates:<\/p>\n

\u2026the best ways to judge a candidate\u2019s character are to look at what he or she has actually done, and what policies he or she is proposing. Mr. Trump\u2019s record of bilking students, stiffing contractors and more is a good indicator of how he\u2019d act as president; Mrs. Clinton\u2019s speaking style and body language aren\u2019t. George W. Bush\u2019s policy lies gave me a much better handle on who he was than all the up-close-and-personal reporting of 2000, and the contrast between Mr. Trump\u2019s policy incoherence and Mrs. Clinton\u2019s carefulness speaks volumes today.<\/p>\n

In other words, focus on the facts. America and the world can\u2019t afford another election tipped by innuendo<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hillary Clinton gets far less air time and far fewer column inches in\u00a0 mainstream media coverage than does Donald Trump. \u00a0And while that\u2019s a<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2119,2421,77],"tags":[2459,2422,2740,1992],"yoast_head":"\n