Clownish: HuffPo breaks Trump political scoop in Entertainment Section
In trying to beclown The Donald, HuffPo news beclowns itself.
On July 17, 2015, two senior political reporters at Huffington Post announced that all future coverage of Donald Trump’s campaign would take place in the Entertainment section of HuffPo, not the Politics section.
HuffPo played it up on its Homepage, with a graphic meant to get attention:
We reported about the decision at the time:
Ryan Grim (Washington bureau chief for The Huffington Post) and Danny Shea (Editorial Director, The Huffington Post), have announced that because Donald Trump in their eyes is a sideshow, any news about Trump will be banished from the “Politics” section of HuffPo News to the Entertainment section, A Note About Our Coverage Of Donald Trump’s ‘Campaign’:
After watching and listening to Donald Trump since he announced his candidacy for president, we have decided we won’t report on Trump’s campaign as part of The Huffington Post’s political coverage. Instead, we will cover his campaign as part of our Entertainment section. Our reason is simple: Trump’s campaign is a sideshow. We won’t take the bait. If you are interested in what The Donald has to say, you’ll find it next to our stories on the Kardashians and The Bachelorette.
….Sam Stein, Political Editor and White House Correspondent for HuffPo, defends the decision, asserting it’s only a matter of which “vertical” Trump-related news appears under….
That defense, of course, is complete and utter BS. It is a political decision by HuffPo to impose on readers its view of Trump in the most pernicious way — not as part of an explicit and open editorial process but by corrupting HuffPo’s own news process.
In what universe, other than the liberal media bias, is a candidate currently leading national polls and all but guaranteed to be included in the first debate not a political issue?
You can hate Trump’s campaign, but it’s still politics.
Many (but not all) media types criticized HuffPo’s decision
Trump now is bigger political news than ever. In fact, he’s dominating almost every news cycle and, at least for now, is the center of the domestic campaign news universe.
Yet HuffPo is still standing by its position, with its Editorial Director Danny Shea being mocked last week on Morning Joe for the decision. Shea defended HuffPo’s decision by declaring it the media’s role to decide how to cover a candidate:
Fast forward to yesterday, August 26. Stein and Grim just broke a story which, if true, would be a major political event in the Republican primary — Trump supposedly telling Republican leaders that he will not run third party:
Businessman Donald Trump has told several top Republicans that he will swear off the possibility of an independent bid and commit to running his presidential campaign under the party’s banner, according to several sources.
Such a move could endear Trump further to Republican voters who have remained skeptical about his allegiance to a political party he joined relatively recently. Trump had drawn sharp criticism from GOP leaders concerned that a third party bid would effectively guarantee a Democratic win in the general election.
Clearly, it’s a political story. But having been boxed in by their own snarky decision to relegate all Trump news to the Entertainment section, the story ran under the Entertainment banner:
HuffPo’s news operation is the one looking like the clown now. For how long will it continue to treat the biggest political news of the season as not political news just because it doesn’t like the guy generating the news?
Just admit you made a mistake and that you ended up trapping yourself, not The Donald. Put the coverage where it belongs, in the Politics section.
In trying to beclown The Donald, you’re beclowning yourselves.
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Comments
The real shame (crime?) is that HuffPo is treated by news aggregation sites as if equal to Reuters, AP, etc. You visit a Google or Yahoo or Bing news page, for example, and HuffPo pieces show up as if a peer to WaPo.
HuffPo is more TMZ without an interesting website design. But it gets treated as if it is the Wall Street Journal by some.
That’s why I don’t use any of those search sites. Oh, and because they track your every eye blink.
Try http://www.duckduckgo.com.
The old Uff Po just gave press exposure to millions and millions who would not have seen anything about Trump in the news or political section.
Thanks a few million for the new Trump supporters Uff Po!
Wait.
Are you trying to suggest that Huff-Poop is an actual “news” site? I stopped thinking that YEARS ago.
It will be interesting to see what MSNBC has to say if Trump is actually the nominee. They have never covered, literally a single instant of anything but lambasting the GOP. If you were a martian and you came to earth and watched MSNBC you would not know who the president is or that the Democratic party even existed. So how will they or Huffpo react when they can’t cover the one guy who’s newsworthy?
SOooooo, which right-leaning site will be the first to put Clinton campaign announcements & news in the ‘Crime & Punishment’ section?
First, you have to FIND a right-leaning news reporting site…
Used to be FOX, but…
One America News?
Try http://www.oann.com
That’s funny, I thought all Huffington posts were under the entertainment banner.
If they are trying to be entertaining, they are failing badly.
Entertaining, sorta like horoscopes. Rational people don’t take them seriously, but read them to laugh, while gullible, anti-science types accept them as holy writ.
Pretty crazy of Huff since Trump dominates the election news on the news channels. So HuffPo is clearly abdicating their responsibility as journalists and surrendering to the activist side. (which as others pointed out, happened long ago)
Our government has been ruling against the majority, for the benefit of the few over the many. Trump is tapping in on that, as Repub squishes fear offending their big donors, or try to position themselves for the general.
HuffPo ignores Trump’s ability to play against the 11% approval rating of Congress, and his harnessing of the rage of the citizenry. His appeal is not mostly comedic. Citizens really want to make America great again.
I’m wondering if Roger Ailes will push the rumored “Trump can’t win so we will destroy him” meme. Perhaps Trump inoculated himself from that, to some degree. He won’t be seen so much as the FOX candidate.
But Trump is pretty squishy on detailed policy, and diverts to his blusterous talking points. But maybe that works, at least for now.
The Donald: “Then I’ll Huff, and I’ll puff, and I’ll blow your straw house in.”
There should be a new website: “The Donald Daily Discourse”, Editor-in-Chief: Scrooge McDuck.
I must be in Bizarro-World. I always thought that Huffpo was a joke, but that left-wing MSNBC would never say so; and that Morning Joe would never ever say anything good about the Republican frontrunner, or complain that Huffpo was being stupid with their childish “policy.”
OK, I admit it, I was wrong! I thought Fox News was “fair and balanced” and I was wrong again!
I thought Donald Trump was just some celebrity, but he’s actually got a well-thought-out campaign, that is beating the other candidates like they are worn-out rugs; so I was wrong again! I got tired of being wrong, so I now support Donald Trump, as I too want to Make America Great Again!
If you want to know more about the “well-thought-out campaign,” see The Conservative Treehouse:
http://theconservativetreehouse.com/