Stocks closed up Monday on Wall Street. You could almost hear the collective groan from the Trump-hating corporate media.
As irresponsible as ever, the Pravda Press have pumped up their doom-and-gloom coverage of President Trump’s tariff policies to DEFCON 1. Per usual, the usual left-bending media suspects have used the tariff battles and the volatile markets as a cudgel to politically pound Trump with, churning “recession” chatter while all but ignoring positive news in the U.S. economy.
A new report from media tracker NewsBusters shows just how slanted the coverage has been.
‘Intensions Clear as Day’
On April 4, the day the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported hiring in March had surged by a stronger-than-expected 228,000 jobs, the broadcast networks over the 24-hour period devoted 62 times more coverage on the Trump tariffs and market declines, according to the report, exclusively provided to The Federalist.
“Nobody’s faulting the media for covering an ongoing trade war or a dramatic dip in the stock market. But when they can’t even spare a full minute to cover an incredibly positive jobs report, they make their intentions clear as day,” Bill D’Agostino, Media Editor for NewsBusters and Senior Research Analyst for the Media Research Center’s News Analysis division, told The Federalist.
The hyperbolic networks devoted 10 times more coverage to the tariff story than to last week’s report of declining consumer prices . While the Consumer Price Index dipped, led by lower prices at the pumps, ABC News had nothing to say about the aggregate CPI decline, NewsBusters found. The broadcast news network did air 16 seconds on slightly rising egg prices, according to the report.
Corporate news outlets in general couldn’t help but drown the good news on inflation in worries over Trump tariffs.
“U.S. consumer prices unexpectedly fell in March amid cheaper gasoline and used motor vehicles, but the benign inflation reading is unlikely to be sustained after President Donald Trump doubled down on tariffs on imported Chinese goods,” Reuters proclaimed in an April 10 story.
Broadcast coverage of the tariffs between April 2 and April 11 totaled 422 minutes and 45 seconds — more than 7 hours-worth.
Total tariff coverage by the three networks, according to NewsBusters’ review:
› ABC: 148 minutes, 41 seconds
› CBS: 130 minutes, 5 seconds
› NBC: 143 minutes, 59 seconds
Meanwhile, the networks devoted a measly 45 seconds to the April 4 jobs report over the 24-hour period, compared to 46 minutes, 50 seconds of tariffs coverage. Total jobs report coverage by the three networks vs. tariff reporting:
› ABC: 14 seconds (vs 17 min 53 sec tariffs)
› CBS: 20 seconds (vs 12 min 7 sec tariffs)
› NBC: 11 seconds (vs 16 min 50 sec tariffs)
The networks spent a total of 173 seconds covering March’s Consumer Price Index decline over the 24-hour period beginning on April 10. Meanwhile they, devoted nearly 31 minutes to tariff talk over the same period.
Total CPI coverage by the three networks vs. tariff reporting:
› ABC: NONE (vs 11 min 54 sec tariffs)
› CBS: 9 sec (vs 13 min 28 sec tariffs)
› NBC: 165 sec (vs 5 min 27 sec tariffs)
D’Agostino asserts the flood of tariff coverage isn’t born out of a concern for the economy; it’s about damaging the Trump administration’s image. The song remains the same for an accomplice media that has spent the past decade trying to crush Trump and the MAGA movement.
“Every news item we study, it’s always the same story. The corporate media are only ever on the hunt for bad news about the President,” the media analyst said.
‘Fear-Mongering’ First
The Dow Jones Industrial Average on Monday closed up 312 points, or 0.8%, while the S&P 500 climbed 0.8% and the tech-driven Nasdaq Composite rose 0.6%. The Trump administration’s announcement that smartphones, computers, semiconductors, and other devices and components would be exempt from reciprocal tariffs — at least for now —eased investors’ minds, while the panic peddlers continued to push imminent doom.
The temporary move was a “step back from the cliff,” the ever-hyperbolic ABC News reported, quoting an investment source warning Monday’s tech sector upswing could easily give way to more steep declines.
There’s no denying the volatility in the markets, nor the financial concerns the tariff battles have brought, particularly to those in or nearing retirement. There’s also no denying the accomplice media’s role in stoking the flames of fear — as they have done time and time again when it comes to Trump and his policies. The same media outlets that allowed Democrats to redefine the actual recession Americans suffered through during the Biden presidency are now claiming Trump’s attempts to hammer out fair trade deals will send the U.S. economy plunging into ruin.
“The liberal media can’t get enough of talking about a recession,” Curtis Houck, managing editor of NewsBusters, told me Monday afternoon on the “Vicki McKenna Show.”
Case in point, MSNBC and Axios teamed up on Monday to tell the few viewers the leftist cable news network has that, “There’s a pretty good chance we’re in a recession.” This doomcasting less than a month after the Federal Reserve Board reported that recent indicators suggest that economic activity continues to expand at a solid pace.
“The unemployment rate has stabilized at a low level in recent months, and labor market conditions remain solid,” the fed’s board of governors concluded in March, noting that “Inflation remains somewhat elevated.” The board acknowledged growing uncertainty around the economic outlook but felt good enough about the overall health of the economy that it kept its benchmark interest rate unchanged, much to the dissatisfaction of Trump.
“That’s what we’ve really been seeing, the general fear-mongering, instead of just saying, ‘Here’s what might happen that’s good, here’s what might happen that’s bad, but we just have to see’” Houck said.
NewsBusters’ latest data show the biggest players in corporate media are much more interested in fear-mongering than the full story.
Matt Kittle is a senior elections correspondent for The Federalist. An award-winning investigative reporter and 30-year veteran of print, broadcast, and online journalism, Kittle previously served as the executive director of Empower Wisconsin.
