OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
President Joe Biden’s Thanksgiving Day message was more of the same dour doom-and-gloom that characterized the bulk of his term during an event in Nantucket with police and first responders.
“exceedingly small” number of people tuning in to mainstream media outlets warning journalists that they have a “tough job” ahead in a message for “worried” Americans.
Biden complained about the “exceedingly small” number of people who are still tuning in to mainstream media outlets as he warned journalists that they have a “tough job” ahead reaching “worried” Americans.
Biden addressed journalists who asked him whether he had a message for Americans “worried about the future this holiday season” — a question that, in and of itself, defines why the vast majority of people have tuned out legacy journalists, given that a majority of the country is hopeful about incoming President-elect Donald Trump’s term.
“My message is to just remember who we are. Look, you’ll have a very tough job. I’m not being solicitous, a really tough job,” Biden began.
“Think about it… I remember a couple weeks ago that survey done how people they feel about where they are, 62 percent felt they’re doing pretty well. Asked what they about the direction of the country, only 35 percent said we’re moving in the right direction. I think there is an explanation for that,” Biden said without noting that the survey dropped while he is president.
“This is not a criticism of the press, you know me too well. When you turn on the television, [people] don’t see a lot of good news, even stuff that is good news doesn’t seem to sell very well,” Biden continued. “And so when you turn on TV, everything looks bad. Everything!
“And now you have to deal with the exceedingly small number of people watching mainstream television and reading the newspapers. I forget the number, you’d know better than I would, but the numbers are way down. So where, where do you get your news?” he added.
“How do we know [you’re hearing is not] what you’re just we looking for as opposed to what’s [really] happening… not because of you… I’m not being critical of the press,” the president added.
He then turned to the transition of power from his administration to Trump.
“I want to make sure this transition goes smoothly. I make sure it goes smoothly and all this talk about what he’s going to do, I think there may be a little bit of internal reckoning on his part… So it remains to be seen,” Biden said.
WATCH:
“You turn on the television you don’t see a lot of good news. Even if something is good news it doesn’t seem to to sell very well. If you turn on TV everything looks bad. Exceedingly small number of people watching mainstream television & reading newspapers”
– Biden in Nantucket pic.twitter.com/73cnfMrLeG
— Howard Mortman (@HowardMortman) November 28, 2024
A Gallup survey released in September found that Americans’ trust in the mainstream media is at just 32 percent — an all-time low, a result that “reflects both the changing media landscape and the values of media consumers,” Voice of America reported.
“Nearly 250 years since the principle was enshrined in the U.S. Constitution, a majority of Americans still agree that a free press is crucial to a democratic society, according to polling by the Pew Research Center. But how they feel about the existing press is a different matter,” VOA noted.
“The same polls show that only one-third of Americans believes the country’s media report the news objectively,” the outlet added, noting that this is the fault of the news organizations themselves, most of which lean left and have lied to readers for years about things like ‘Trump-Russia collusion’ and Hunter Biden’s laptop being a Russian intelligence operation.
The media have also been horribly wrong when it comes to political polling, consistenting under-polling Trump in favor of Hillary Clinton in 2016 and Kamala Harris this year.
“Accordingly, self-identified Republicans report less trust in media, reaching a low of 11% compared with 58% for Democrats,” VOA noted.
