How U.S. media handled Trump’s speech
As the president threatened sanctions for those who didn’t cover his address live Thursday night, the nation’s broadcast and cable news operations struggled to "balance delivering the news with handing over their airwaves to potential falsehoods about the 2020 elections,” says The Associated Press.
The coverage ended up being "largely united by one common strategy: real-time fact-checking as much as was possible even while the president was still speaking,” AP says.
Fox News and Fox Broadcasting aired Trump's speech live.
CBS preempted a summer rerun to air a special report anchored by Tony Dokoupil. The report joined the live speech a few minutes in, at 9:06 p.m. Eastern, and left it before the end, at 9:23 p.m.
ABC and NBC stayed with their regular programming but provided live coverage on their streaming channels. “In the still-young era of streaming, that is increasingly a decision that allows network news to play it both ways,” says AP.
MS NOW aired the speech but cut away for analysis and commentary after 17 minutes.
CNN didn’t run the speech live.
Here are headlines from the other major news outlets.
NYTimes: 'Takeaways from Trump's address claiming election vulnerabilities'
"Documents released by the Trump administration to support the president’s claims did not back up his most aggressive statements."
WPost: 'Trump’s speech stops short of offering evidence of vote tampering’
"The president’s prime-time address emphasized vulnerabilities rather than actual tampering.”
WSJ: ‘Trump ramps up effort to sow doubt about 2020 election’
”Trump didn’t provide any evidence of voter fraud, prove that people had cast ballots in the U.S. who shouldn’t have or reveal that election outcomes had been altered because of interference.”
Reuters: ‘Trump puts election security at center of Republicans' midterm fight’
"U.S. President Donald Trump escalated his effort to make election security a central issue in November's midterm elections, asserting that China interfered in the 2020 presidential campaign despite a U.S. intelligence assessment that found no evidence to support that claim.”
AP: ‘Trump doubles down on US election attacks in his primetime speech’
"A twice-elected president complained about his one personal defeat, alleged a cover-up by officials in his own first administration and surfaced claims about countries attempting to harm his own prospects while staying silent on steps taken by other nations to boost him.”
And, from our friend, Robert Reich: 'The real message of Trump's address to the nation’
“He will call into question the votes of every state and city that chooses a Democratic senator or representative in the 2026 midterm elections."
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