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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer in WNYC. Who do you think gets worse press, Joe Biden or Donald Trump? According to a media content analysis done at the request of Washington Post columnist, Dana Milbank, who will join us in a sec, Biden actually gets as much negative press as Trump, and sometimes worse. How can that be considering the magnitude of the threats and failures each man objectively deserves to be criticized for, as compared with the other or at least questioned about? Let's find out with Washington Post columnist, Dana Milbank.

His column is called, The media treats Biden as badly as -- or worse than -- Trump. Here’s proof. Dana thinks this isn't just a problem for Joe Biden, but a problem for democracy. Dana, thanks for coming on. Welcome back to WNYC.

Dana Milbank: Pleasure to be with you, Brian.

Brian Lehrer: Would you start at the beginning and tell us what you were noticing that led you to ask someone to do a data analysis of this?

Dana Milbank: Sure. I was noticing the headlines in my paper and in others, and listening to cable news. Not your show. You're not to blame in any of this, but it seemed like it was particularly negative. I went to this group called FiscalNote, and they have a unit called Forge.AI. They did this for me. I commissioned it in a sense, but they did it on their own dime. They used a database of some 200,000 articles from 65 publications. We're talking tens of millions of word about Joe Biden in 2021, and they compared it to Donald Trump in 2020 and 2019.

The database didn't go back further so we couldn't do a more extensive comparison. The interesting thing to me, Biden started out with a bit of a honeymoon in the press, but if you look at the last four months he has done, he has gotten coverage that is as bad as, in a couple of months, worse than Donald Trump got in those same four months, August through November of last year. Remember this is the time when Trump was making nice with the Proud Boys, with QAnon, the pandemic was raging. He was saying, "I'm not going to necessarily honor the results of a free and fair election," and then he didn't honor the results.

It seems to me that something is terribly wrong. Biden love him, hate him, whatever, the guy is fundamentally trying to cobble democracy back together.

Brian Lehrer: How did this data analysis measure negative coverage of Biden and Trump? What were they specifically looking for?

Dana Milbank: They have their own special sauce algorithms. It's often used in financial markets to see how well companies are doing. They'll look at adjectives, favorable and negative adjectives, where they're placed in the story, give weight to, higher in the story, the proximity to the president's name. There's a lot of hocus-pocus involved, but it does work in other fields. Some have raised questions about, does it actually apply here? I will note that we don't really have anything to compare it to. Nobody actually goes through the coverage and analyzes it this way.

The Pew Research Center does do it in the first three months of each president's presidency, and our results were consistent with those results from Pew. That leads to some confidence that it's a meaningful contribution to the debate. Is it the final word? Absolutely not, but it's an indication of where things are.

Brian Lehrer: Intuitively, I'll be honest, this finding surprises me, and I find myself a little skeptical. Maybe I'm living in a bubble, but it seems to me that except in the explicitly right-wing media ecosystem, which is obviously very large, except for that, if you're talking about mainstream, supposedly non-ideological news organizations, my impression is that Biden is covered as a normal president with normal range successes and failures. Trump is covered as an existential threat to democracy and truth. At least those are the questions that surround Trump, those existential ones.

Even more so after January 6th, which I would tend to see as more negative than whatever, Biden has handled the Afghanistan withdrawal, or whether inflation is partly his fault. Questions come up about him. What am I missing?

Dana Milbank: I think that's exactly the point that you would think that the coverage would be more negative. What I'm saying is the tone of the coverage is as negative on Biden botching the pullout from Afghanistan, failing to get his Build Back Better through Congress, is basically being treated the same as, or even worse than these threats to democracy. I think that's the problem. The other piece of this that we found is Trump got literally twice as much coverage a year ago, as Biden gets now. He was much more dominant in the headlines, and Biden has a bit of a vacuum that allows other people to define him.

My conclusion from this was not that we should all go out and be nice to Joe Biden, but we should recognize that these are not ordinary times. We've basically gone back to our traditional role as the adversarial press, holding the powerful to account. Of course, we need to do that, but we also have to recognize that the people who are bringing down Joe Biden are also, in many ways, bringing down democracy. That's why I think we need to cover it differently.

Brian Lehrer: Let's talk about that. Let me invite the listeners in as well. Your calls for Dana Milbank, Washington Post columnist, on comparative media coverage of Biden and Trump this year, and the data analysis of hundreds of thousands of news articles that Dana commissioned that found Biden's coverage is as negative as, and sometimes worse than Trump's. Do you see it, listeners? Do you see reasons for it, or what should be done about it, or what kinds of coverage in the national media would be right, in your opinion?

The implications for democracy, which Dana is most centrally concerned about, and that we'll get to in a sec, 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. Everybody loves being a media critic, now, it's your turn.

212-433-9692, or tweet @BrianLehrer. Your conclusion about the meaning of these findings, Dana, is- I'm reading, this is a quote now from you- that your media colleagues are serving as accessories to the murder of democracy. Why do you think democracy is at stake in this critical coverage of Biden?

Dana Milbank: Look, I don't think it's very easy to dispute that the fate of democracy is up for grabs here. We have very active threats in at least 10 states, put in place a system whereby the state legislature can overrule the vote of the people. We see the threats to the democracy, the rule of law, on a regular basis. My view is not that we need to be extra nice to poor Joe Biden, it's that we have to recognize what the constant threats are to our democracy. We need more of that coverage, more of where the norms are being broken at each step along the way.

Not to say we need to talk more about how eloquent and handsome Joe Biden is. We don't need more of that press coverage. I don't think the press is doing anything deliberately nefarious. I just think we have returned to where we were pre-Trump, but we're not back to where we were pre-Trump because the Republican party still has these same authoritarian instincts that he injected into it.

Brian Lehrer: Do you think these findings do something to explode a belief, maybe a myth, that the major national media run liberal? There have been surveys by conservative media watchdogs indicating that those journalists, meaning the ones who work for New York Times, Washington Post, the major networks, vote in the main for Democrats for president. Where would any of that and the findings that you just got, fall into this storyline that the major national media run liberal?

Dana Milbank: These two things can be true at the same time. I think temperamentally, ideological, the mainstream press leans Left. I don't think there's any point in really disputing that, but I don't think that's the main thing that drives coverage. We want clicks, we want eyeballs, we want ears. How do we get that? We get it through conflict. The old saying, if it bleeds, it leads. Whatever one may think about Donald Trump, he was really good for the news business. He unbroke the business model, and we all had tremendous numbers of readers, listeners, viewers, and that has really dropped off a cliff.

I think the media have retreated to their adversarial position, which is the default position, and that has worked well for us all along. I think the main thing that's driving the Biden coverage, and the main thing that drives media coverage generally, is being adversarial, and being interested in conflict.

Brian Lehrer: Let's take a phone call. Pedro in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC with Washington Post columnist, Dana Milbank. Hi, Pedro.

Pedro: Hi. I just have to take it off speakerphone for a moment. Give me a second.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you.

Pedro: I'm a little surprised by all of this because the media is failing left and right. You were unable to call Trump as the leading candidate for the last election. Brian, you had someone on about two weeks ago, talking about how January 6th is the symbolic moment. When the democracy, it's an illustration of how deeply in trouble we are, and how, if the Democrats don't do something drastic, it will fail. You both went on about it as though it was just news. I don't hear alarm, I don't hear concern. I don't hear anything of that sort. This is merely another example, what we're discussing now, what you're discussing now, of how both parties are the same.

I've given both parties up. Whomever runs as a third party, I will vote for because there's no difference between the two parties at all. Joe Biden is a disappointment. He was going to be. He's the biggest mistake this country has ever made. That's where we are, in a sea of disappointment.

Brian Lehrer: The biggest mistake this country has ever made?

Pedro: Yes.

Brian Lehrer: Go ahead. Do you want to make that case for [unintelligible 00:11:56]?

Pedro: He's guaranteeing that the last president will be reelected. This is just the beginning of the disappointment in Biden. It was a mistake. We had other candidates, we had another great candidate, and we chose Biden. We chose Joe Biden, and look at what's happening.

Brian Lehrer: Pedro, thank you very much. Pedro's call is very interesting, in part, because if the survey you commissioned, or the data analysis of news stories that you commissioned, found a lot of negative coverage of Joe Biden, some of the criticism of Biden that causes press coverage is from doubts about him in his own party. There have been a few like that recently about progressives like Pedro not seeing Biden fighting hard enough from their point of view. I have a New York Times article here from the other day, Democrats Struggle to Energize Their Base as Frustrations Mount.

"Even as President Biden achieved some significant victories, Democrats are warning that many of their most loyal supporters see inaction and broken campaign promises." That goes on to mention voting rights, climate protections, immigration reform, gun law reforms, as these issues all bog down in a divided Congress. How does that factor into the big picture of press coverage?

Dana Milbank: Brian, that's actually a critical piece of the study that I didn't mention earlier. Part of the reason Biden gets such negative coverage is he's getting it from the Right as well as from the Left. When Trump was president, he was getting remarkably favorable coverage from the bright parts of the world, from Fox News, but there's no equivalent on the Left. We found that left-wing outlets, Huffington Post, for example, were sharply critical of Biden, Now, they're critical of him from the Left, saying he's not being progressive enough. I think there's a real difference there, that there's a right-wing press that is partisan for the party, for the candidate.

The left-wing press isn't really partisan, it's ideological. It holds the Democrats to account for not being pure enough. That is a very key part of it. I understand the caller's frustration. I think that's reflects a lot of the coverage on the Left. I suppose the argument counter to that is, Biden is all we've got. I don't mean we as capital D Democrats, I mean lower case D democrats. It's him, or people who are working to undermine democracy.

Brian Lehrer: Emil in Westchester, you're on WNYC. Hi, Emil.

Emil: Hey, how are you? I feel like the idea of talking about pre-Donald Trump and comparing the current administration in a world where-- You're almost comparing apples to elephants. That is, Trump changed so much in terms of use of Twitter, and in terms of use of social media. Even Obama, as he was allowed, at a certain point, to use his phone. The world has changed, and we're on a certain trajectory, but the comparisons seem just a little bit skewed when you think of the ability to cover one president verse another president, even in the period that might have been the first 100 days or the first year.

2017 versus 2021, the world has changed, and look how many other elements we're dealing with. The pandemic, economic disaster, all the things that Biden is pushing through. I do think similar, many other presidents, that his numbers are going to pick up, that you got to do the hard work in the first year. I think the view of Biden is going to completely turn around.

Brian Lehrer: Emil, thank you very much. Dana, anything you want to say to that? His call reminds me that one thing you found in comparing Trump and Biden press coverage was just the volume of coverage Trump gets as an ex-president compared to Biden who's actually in office. Maybe you want to talk about that in the context of however you want to respond to that call.

Dana Milbank: Yes, Trump got dramatically more coverage. We could look at that two ways and say, "It was more since his coverage was just as negative, that's twice as much negative coverage." But I really think what was happening during the Trump presidency, and as we in the media were following whatever he was tweeting that day, we were very much, positive or negative, expressing outrage [unintelligible 00:17:05]. We were very much following his agenda. Biden is not setting the agenda that way. I think it's a deliberate strategy to bring calm and not constant strife and crisis.

It brings down the national blood pressure, but it also creates this vacuum. I think his opponents have filled the vacuum with notions that he doesn't have his wits about him, that he's a pedophile, or whatever else is bubbling up through the dark web into the mainstream publications on the Right. I think that is a very big factor that's in play here.

Brian Lehrer: Maybe it makes sense that Trump is getting a lot more coverage than other previous presidents when they leave office.

Because if we consider Trump an ongoing and looming threat to democracy, who is still influencing Kevin McCarthy and other party leaders in office, to do destructive things today, we should be covering Trump a lot.

Dana Milbank: Yes. Should be covering him not in the way we traditionally do of, "Look what he said today," or, "Look what he said," but actually focusing on the substance and saying, "Hey, this is not normal. This has never happened before in American democracy. This is a danger to the Republic for the following reason." As I mentioned earlier, we did very well, business-wise, as the media under Trump. It still is true if you mention Donald Trump's name, you are going to get more clicks, but it really matters the way we're discussing him.

Brian Lehrer: Tom in the Bronx, who says he worked on the Biden campaign. Tom, you're on WNYC with Washington Post columnist, Dana Milbank. Hi.

Tom: Hey, Brian. First time, long time. Hi, Dana, how are you?

Dana Milbank: Hi.

Tom: I just wanted to say we're talking about Joe Biden as he relates to, I don't know, society at large, or how he's portrayed in the media. I think one thing that we have to look at is, you have key demos. You have, who's getting their news from where, who's getting their news when, who's getting their news how. CNN, MSNBC, these are not channels that have brought appeals to the key demo. If it is negative criticism about Biden, where is it coming from? Does it have to strictly be from the right-wing? It doesn't necessarily have to, and the idea of the left boogeyman who could be anyone.

It could be Jimmy Dore, it could be breaking points. They're there, but they're getting, at least not so much Jimmy Dore, but other forms of Left media, they're giving an earnest report on him. They're giving an earnest report on what I went out and campaigned on, which was these policies that should have been in Build Back Better, or student loan debt cancellation. There have been false promises that were made, and people are not seeing them delivered on. It's just, I think that's where you get some negative cover for Biden.

It's not that Joe Biden controls Silk Road in the dark web, and that he's some nefarious Pizzagate guy. It's just straight-up failures and sucks.

Brian Lehrer: Tom, thank you very much. Some of the tweets coming in, "I 100% agree that the media is failing coverage of the methodical deterioration of our democracy, but we must hold Biden to his promises." Another one, "Republican efforts to undermine voting rights is not equivalent to democratic efforts to promote policies." Another one, "We are in an information and education crisis. The media's need to provide what they consider balanced coverage is often bogus." Another one, "I think it is important to point out that President Biden is trying to straddle a middle line, and consequently, is not making everyone happy."

Another one, pushing back on the first caller. "First caller to Brian Lehrer talking to Milbank, is some young dude, bro, declaring the parties are exactly the same. How is this a thing people can possibly still think?" Another one along those lines, "Caller saying there is no difference between parties is a huge part of the problem, but he is also the type of person--" Sorry, this just flipped off my screen, "He is also the type of person who will never accept responsibility for his actions." I don't know who that refers to, but there's some of the-- Oh, and one more.

"What I don't like is they say Democrats control Congress as if mansion and cinema vote with the Democrats." You're sparking a big Twitter response, Dana. Really interesting. Let me get one more caller in here. Dan in Flatbush has a big picture analysis, even bigger picture analysis that he's going to try to throw at this. Dan, you're on WNYC.

Dan: Thanks so much for taking my call. Yes, I think we're in a place in this country, where our expectations and our living standards are on a downward trajectory. I think there's a lot of righteous and rightful anger towards the center in politics, and in a larger sense, a crisis of legitimacy of the government at large. I think it's no surprise that a very centrist politician like Joe Biden, who represents all that, is going to take the heat. I think it's right.

Brian Lehrer: Dan, thank you very much. The way our screener heard that call, and let me get you to make a last comment, Dana, as we run out of time, to what you heard Dan actually say, and the idea that he also threw out there that I think is really interesting, that this whole conversation speaks to a withering away of legitimacy in general. That it doesn't matter who is president, it's a general sense of negativity out there. I saw somebody talking about your column on cable TV, I don't remember who, saying when they started in journalism, they were told there are two kinds of stories about government.

One is, "Government is doing something good for the people, yay," and the other is, "Government is doing something bad, boo." Now, it's overwhelmingly, "Government is doing something bad, boo."

Dana Milbank: Yes, that's true. I agree, and that is the nub of it. There is a crisis of legitimacy, not of Biden, of American government, of a democratic representative government. That's why I'm saying the media need to be partisan, not for one party over the other, but pro-democracy, pro-truth because there is a struggle right now, between democracy and this creeping authoritarianism, and between truth and this alternative facts universe of conspiracy theories. We need to be partisan and take a stand in that battle. That doesn't mean we got to write nice stories about Joe Biden.

We just have to be clear-eyed about what's happening to our country.

Brian Lehrer: Hey, you want to give us a 30-second throw to our next segment? Because we're going to have Liza Featherstone on her essay in The New York Times about Josh Hawley, the conservative Republican senator from Missouri, criticizing liberals for deconstructing manhood in America. I see you also wrote a column about that. Just give us what will amount to a 30-second tease for our next segment. Okay?

Dana Milbank: Yes. Josh Hawley is talking about manly virtues as being traditional, competitive, aggressive. I'm looking at what a judge said recently in one of the insurrection cases. He said Al Gore took his defeat like a man and Donald Trump didn't. There's competing views of manhood. One is tied to honor and integrity, and the other one is tied to aggression and competition. Let your listeners take their pick.

Brian Lehrer: Yes. Liza Featherstone, who's going to come on and talk about it as a guest with our listeners coming up. As we end here, we thank Washington Post columnist, Dana Milbank, for starting the conversation about the media that you started. Thank you so much.

Dana Milbank: Oh, thanks a lot, Brian. Appreciate it.

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