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In the final weeks of the presidential campaign, major newspapers are giving former President Donald Trump’s federal criminal indictment for alleged crimes related to the January 6 insurrection a fraction of the coverage they gave former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server in 2016, according to a new Media Matters study. Media Matters reviewed print coverage in five newspapers — Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post — for stories mentioning Trump’s indictment in the week following U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan’s October 2 unsealing of special counsel Jack Smith’s latest filing, which reveals damning new evidence of the former president’s alleged crimes. We found the papers ran 26 combined articles mentioning Trump’s indictment in the week after the unsealing of Smith’s filing. But those same papers published 100 combined articles — nearly 4 times as many — that mentioned Clinton’s server in the week after then-FBI Director James Comey’s notorious October 28, 2016, letter on new developments in that probe, as we documented in a 2016 study. The papers ran more than 6 times as many combined front-page stories that mentioned Clinton’s server (46) as they did front-page stories that mentioned Trump’s indictment (7) over those periods. Obsessive news media focus on Clinton’s server in the final weeks of the 2016 presidential campaign helped Trump to victory, even as Comey ultimately reconfirmed that no charges were appropriate in the case. But eight years later, with one presidential candidate facing active prosecution for federal charges related to his attempt to subvert an election, outlets are making different choices.
OK, but these two things aren’t the same. This indictment came out in August or 2023, then was thrown out almost a year later due to the immunity ruling, but the prosecutor immediately vowed to refile, which he did in late August, and now he’s released a bunch of Grand Jury documents that flesh out the case he’s been working on for 14 months.
It’s damning stuff, but not shocking, given that this story has been developing for over a year. It’s certainly not as shocking as the FBI director announcing that in investigation into a presidential candidate, which everyone thought had been concluded 2 months prior, has been reopened 11 days before an election.
The news media chases clicks. It’s bullshit, but that’s what happens when advertising revenue dictates the media’s interests. Knowing that, it makes a lot of sense that the story, “Documents released regarding last months refiled Trump indictment,” got less coverage than, “FBI director suddenly announced Clinton probe reopened! What are in the mysterious new emails?”