Image via Flickr - Gage Skidmore
According to a new Pew Research Center study, coverage of President Trump’s first 60 days in office was over three times more negative than that of President Obama's.
“News stories about President Trump’s first 60 days in office offered far more negative assessments than they did of prior administrations,” writes Pew. “About six-in-ten stories on Trump’s early days in office had a negative assessment, about three times more than in early coverage for Obama and roughly twice that of Bush and Clinton.”
Only 5 percent of news stories from national print newspapers, Newsweek, and network TV shows covering Trump's first 60 days were coded as "positive" by Pew.
“Coverage of Trump’s early time in office moved further away from a focus on the policy agenda and more toward character and leadership,” the research center adds.
Image via Pew Research Center
The Pew study also found that “Democrats and Republicans disagree now more than ever on the news media’s ‘watchdog’ role.”
“Roughly nine-in-ten Democrats [89%] say news media criticism keeps political leaders from doing things that shouldn’t be done, compared with 42% of Republicans who say this – the widest gap in Pew Research Center surveys conducted since 1985,” Pew reports. “This stands in stark contrast to early 2016, when similar shares of Democrats (74%) and Republicans (77%) supported the media’s watchdog role.”
Image via Pew Research Center
It is no secret that President Trump feels the news media is out to get him.
He continues to wage a "war" against networks he deems as biased and propagandists of “fake news,” going so far as to threaten to challenge their licenses and ask his supporters to help him award a lucky news network a “Fake News Trophy” by the end of the year.
“Americans are sick and tired of being lied to, insulted, and treated with outright condescension,” reads an email sent to supporters on Thursday. “That’s why President Trump is crowning the 2017 KING OF FAKE NEWS before the end of the year.”
“There’s no point in pretending that some journalists are anything more than peddlers of falsehoods and liberal propaganda,” it continues.
Trump suggested the competition back in November, saying that major news networks like CNN “are all bad,” with the exception of Fox News Channel.
On the campaign trail, Trump called the media "the most dishonest people in the world."
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