At the time, the New York Time released a statement denying the claim but that did not prevent Trump from attempting to discredit journalists throughout his appointment era. Trump often labelled the mainstream media in the States as biased, claiming the publications as promoting ‘fake news’.
On September, 30 2018, the BBC reported the San Diego Union-Tribune, for the first time in history endorsed a Democrat candidate, Hillary Clinton, It was also a first in 126 years for the Arizona Republic.
During his first campaign, Donald Trump was not popular with America's newspapers. Whilst more than 200 newspapers supported Clinton, Trump received the backing of less than 20, and only 2 of the top one hundred circulation print papers endorsed him.
Therefore, it is of no surprise that his election success in 2016 was a brutal kick in the teeth to the thousands of journalists who had spent months trying to warn the public against him, and it seemed to prove the failure in communication between the two.
Today, 4 years since the outgoing President Donald Trump claimed the mainstream media as the 'enemy of the people', millions of Americans are left questioning the validity of the news they are consuming.
Significantly, Trump's relentless discreditation of mainstream media platforms have made way for a spew of pro-republican journalists and commentators to personally target the race, gender and personal life of the 2024 Democratic Presidential Nominee, Kamala Harris.
Kamala Harris broke countless boundaries as the first female and first African-American and Asian-American to become Vice President of the United States. Throughout her campaign however, Vice President Harris has been subjected to endless amounts of sexism in the form of gendered media coverage.
Whilst the media is meant to act as a pivotal line of unbiased and trustworthy communication between politicians and the public, it seems to cater to the success of male candidates and simultaneously, the targeting of female candidates.
Whether intentionally or not, it mimics societal norms, values and ideas that establish the political arena as a place for men and not women. This is clear in the way Harris is demonised for demonstrating typically masculine traits or skills.
Most commonly, she is described using terms like ‘uncooperative’ and ‘unlikable’ whereas men are instead described as ‘determined’ or ‘headstrong’. This phenomenon of gendered language is not limited to just Harris' campaign. For example, gendered media coverage towards Hillary Clinton was rampant in the lead-up to the 2008 election, notably targeting her physical appearance, particularly her preference for pantsuits over skirts.
Subsequently, this led to a study that revealed sexism as one of the most influential factors in the voting behaviours of the American electorate, with over 20% of the country stating that they would be ’disappointed’ by the prospect of a successful female candidate.
There is no doubt that this correlates with the media's blatant favouring of male candidates by offering fewer and inferior quality discussions of their female counterparts. Conclusively, rampant sexism, spurred by biased media, is a limiting factor to the success of female candidates.
Despite her recent growth in popularity, Kamala Harris is no exception to this phenomenon, spearheaded by Donald Trump. Building upon his previously established sexist rhetoric, Trump asserted that fellow foreign leaders would regard Harris as a ‘play toy’, referred to her as unintelligent. As he did with previous race runner Hillary Clinton, to commenting upon her physical appearance.
In a similar sexist vein, his campaigners have turned to weaponising Harris' past romantic relationships, presenting them as important campaign issues. One conservative commentator went as far as referring to Harris as the ‘original hawk tuah girl’, a vulgar sexual innuendo, on Fox Business News.
Political media has always understood that it is the responsibility of a journalist to inform the public of the intentions of each candidate, without bias, so they can go into a voting booth and make decisions as a nation.
Trump and his encouragement of retributive violence towards perceived opponents has hindered this as many reporters no longer feel safe to do so. As a result, reporters supporting the political right, have been free to spread misinformation and private information to aid Trump's campaign, without retribution.