#TrumpWon First Debate – US Public
Corporate News Outlets Assert the Opposite
By James F. TracyIt’s no secret that the same interests exerting ownership of major media regard Donald Trump’s candidacy as a very real threat to the status quo. This is reflected in the severely negative news coverage of the Trump campaign, particularly when contrasted with that of its counterpart–you know, the wife of the man who gave corporate media so much of their booty by signing into law the 1996 Telecommunications Act.
Unsurprisingly in the immediate wake of the first presidential debate of 2016 major cable news outlets unanimously argued that Donald Trump lost the matchup, or, at the very least it was “not his night.” For example, veteran MSNBC presstitute Chris Matthews effused that Clinton “cleaned [Trump’s] clock” and was the “home run debater–the Babe Ruth of debaters.”
Yet it wasn’t simply MSNBC that lauded Clinton’s performance. FoxNews’ Dana Perino, Brit Hume and Juan Williams all pointed to Trump being “on the ropes” and “on the defensive” through much of the exchange.
When Trump appeared in the media’s “spin room” shortly after leaving the stage to talk with reporters–an unprecedented move for a presidential candidate following a debate–CNN’s Jake Tapper suggested it was to reinforce his message which presented so weakly during the debate itself.
CNN’s roundtable of Democratic prognosticators disparaged the Republican candidate while later touting a professional poll the network commissioned of 521 voters that even they note “skews Democratic” in an effort to further drive home the notion of Trump’s mediocre performance.
The networks pundits’ assessment of who won the first debate contrasted sharply with the broader public, as reflected in a wide array of online snap polls capturing the nation’s collective interpretation of which candidate was victorious in the initial hours following the event.
Granted, such polls do not meet specific social scientific protocols of academic institutions or polling firms–the latter of which often tailor surveys toward client preferences, as CNN’s commissioned poll suggests. Yet the spontaneous nature and presence of such polling across an array of online media catering to various political persuasions vis-a-vis the cable news talking points provide a glimpse of how much American public opinion appears to be at variance with the media monopoly that still controls what many mistake for actual public sentiment.
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