It’s no secret by now that the mainstream media will go to any lengths to say something — anything — negative about President Trump.
The Democrats are in a bit of a conundrum with their 2020 presidential hopeful field, which now numbers 6,245 candidates.
They keep celebrating the field’s youth and diversity, which is valid. It does feature younger and more diverse candidates.
Just not at the top of the polls.
I tweeted this several weeks ago after one of the first “Biden is officially running” polls was released:
Two white guys with a combined age of 153 are the front-runners for the party of youth and diversity. https://t.co/bCPPTvffd9
— SFK (@stephenkruiser) April 30, 2019
Almost a month and a half later, nothing has changed at the top.
The age factor appears to be at least hanging around the periphery of the the concerns of some leftmedia types:
https://twitter.com/KFILE/status/1138123461493174273
Yay for the candidate who will only be 70 on Election Day!
Looks like the age factor could end up being problematic for the Democrats, right?
Not in Bizarro MSM World:
Age might be one of the challenges facing President Trump as he seeks re-election in 2020, new Reuters/Ipsos poll finds https://t.co/VJDt39Gr7l pic.twitter.com/sloCQwyNGO
— Reuters (@Reuters) June 10, 2019
That was prompted by a new Reuters/Ipsos poll that found “Americans are more likely to say they would reject a candidate older than 70 than a candidate who is gay,” swapping out one bias for another.
There are two ways that the age aspect of this could have been framed for a more honest discussion.
The first would be the problem that this presents for the Democrats who are presently senior citizen-heavy at the top of their polls.
The second would be questioning how that would affect a contest in which both of the major party nominees were in their seventies.
Instead, they frame the teaser as merely a problem for Trump.
They sort of get to it in the post, but still dance around it:
The survey also called attention to one of the challenges facing President Donald Trump, who will be turning 73 next week, as he seeks re-election in 2020.
Democrats will select their nominee from a field that so far includes 24 candidates and a record number of women and non-white candidates. Among those running are two septuagenarians – former Vice President Joe Biden and U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders
Trump’s age gets specific mention, along with the fact that it will be a challenge. Crazy Joe the Wonder Veep and Sanders get a whitewashing with the blanket “septuagenarians” description. That sounds nicer than noting that they will be turning 77 and 78, respectively, this year. No mention of the challenges associated with pushing 80.
This is how media bias is done. It’s subtle. It relies on careful semantics. And in the social media era, it relies on teaser headlines that will often be the only thing anyone reads.
Journalism is only under attack from disingenuous journalists.
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