On Tuesday, Media Research Center posted an article about how the American media is reporting on the baby formula shortage in America.
The article reports:
The Biden administration continued to unravel last week, spiraling into the 30s in several approval polls. But the network evening newscasts are doing their best to protect the President from responsibility when it comes to the many crises threatening his presidency. The latest example is the baby formula shortage with which millions of parents across the country are facing.
Media Research Center NewsBusters analysts looked at every baby formula shortage story on the evening newscasts from when they started covering it regularly. (For ABC and NBC, that was May 9. For CBS, it was May 10.)
Do the thirty percent who actually support President Biden buy food or gasoline?
The article continues:
According to our analysis, out of the 54 evening newscast stories on the formula crisis, only 10 featured mentions of culpability or blame for the Biden administration. The other 44 did not.
ABC’s World News Tonight offered the most stories: 22 total. Of those, however, 17 had no suggestions of blame for Biden and only three hinted that the President could have some responsibility. The CBS Evening News produced 17 total stories. Fourteen had no mention of blame compared to just three that did. Finally, Nightly News managed 15 stories on the shortage. Eleven with no mention of blame and four that dared to suggest that Biden may be responsible for things happening in the country.
Instead, ABC’s World News Tonight, the CBS Evening News and the NBC Nightly News projected Biden as proactive, taking decisive action to solve the spiraling crisis. On the May 18 NBC Nightly News, Lester Holt trumpeted, “Breaking news tonight, the major move by President Biden to tackle the nationwide baby formula shortage.” This is despite the fact that Biden’s FDA didn’t move to increase foreign imports of baby formula from abroad until mid-May.
As USA Today noted on May 26, “The problem was apparent months ago, long before the White House appeared to kick into high gear to respond to the crisis.”
The article concludes:
Whether one thinks it’s fair to blame the Biden administration for the shortage, we know that the Trump administration (and Republican presidents in general) don’t get the benefit of the doubt on things like this. Also, as I explained in a May 24, 2022 study for NewsBusters, journalists had no interest in assigning blame on Biden for the skyrocketing gas prices.
Afghanistan, inflation, gas prices, the baby formula shortage. When it comes to network reporting, nothing seems to be Joe Biden’s fault. The American public clearly don’t agree with this assessment, but the press is doing its best to cover for the President.
Can you imagine what President Trump could have accomplished if he had had this kind of media coverage?