Seth Masket: “It is a longstanding tradition among those covering politics that you’re not supposed to appear biased toward a candidate or incumbent. Particularly with presidential candidates, you’re supposed to provide negative coverage…”
“But it also means that when there’s not enough obvious things to criticize, political journalists will try to find some. That is, they have a negative coverage bucket to fill. Now, Trump makes it easy on them, involving himself in countless scandals, lawsuits, and criminal investigations and making multiple statements throughout each day that defy political norms, offend large portions of the country, and threaten the rule of law…”
“But there’s something of a curse if you’re successful at avoiding scandal. Biden’s was hardly an error-free administration, but he did the basic parts of governing well and without major scandals… And for political reporters, that makes filling the negative coverage bucket more challenging. So they ended up focusing on a small number of things that seemed problematic. For Biden, that was a) the pullout from Afghanistan that resulted in the deaths of 13 U.S. servicemembers; and b) being old.”
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