Cable news networks profited enormously by giving Trump free media coverage

Evidence

By some estimates, the cable news networks gave Trump nearly $5 billion in free media during the 2016 election. But of course, it was in their self-interest to do so. Trump was the golden goose, and even while he profited by their coverage, the TV networks benefited as well. Did they let this cloud their responsibility to check some of Trump’s lies? Many think they did, as few networks applied any higher standard of truth telling than the “false equivalence” tactic they had already used on scientific topics, whereby they included both Trump and Clinton supporters on their pundit panels. — Lee McIntyre, Post-Truth, 188

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Partisan cable news abandoned objectivity to confirm viewer biases at the public’s expense — Lee McIntyre, Post-Truth, 142; Television manufactured Trump’s business-genius persona before his political rise — W. David Marx, Blank Space: A Cultural History of the…, 422

Broader Connections

• Partisan cable news abandoned objectivity to confirm viewer biases at the public’s expense #complicates (0.75) — Lee McIntyre, Post-Truth, 142
• Television manufactured Trump’s business-genius persona before his political rise #complicates (0.72) — W. David Marx, Blank Space, 422