MSN and the Rest of the 21st Century Media Have Found Their Guy for 2016

When Ted Cruz complained about all the free advertising Donald Trump was getting on TV, via news talk shows we knew he was right. The only real debate was how much that media exposure would have cost a normal candidate. Cruz's estimate was $5 billion. That seemed a tad high at the time, but a number which could be eclipsed before this campaign is over.

Unfortunately for all of us, television isn't the only place where Trump's orange tinted face shows up constantly for free.

I use MSN's news feed as the home page on my PC.  Now, I'll be up front in admitting I don't have a clue as to how it is put together, who does it, or who decides to roll it over from time to time with updates.

I personally divide the page into two sections. What I call the header is that slide show at the top--an ever shifting large photo with a headline and sometimes an abbreviated list of related stories. Then there is what I refer to as the scroll down where all the other stories are shown.

All in all it felt like a little survey was in order. Indeed--a count of the number of times El Don's name, or photo appeared on different stories compared to the exposure Hillary Clinton, her husband, Bernie Sanders, and even Barack Obama were getting. It didn't matter if the story was unflattering, or not. It was simply an audit of the sheer number of times, MSN displayed his name in a headline, or showed his photo. In some cases there was an overlap, as both Trump and Clinton were mentioned in the same lead, so that counted as one each.

Yesterday at 1:30pm CDT, in the header, Trump's name and, or photo was seen three times. Mrs. Clinton's name was mentioned once. It spiraled out of control from there. Eyeing the scroll down was a dizzying lesson in the old adage, there is no such thing as bad press. Donald Trump's name, or photo appeared 30 different times in story leads. In comparison, Hillary Clinton's showed up 14 times--15 if you want to count one piece about Bill Clinton. Barack H. Obama's name, or photo appeared four times and Senator Bernie Sanders was there on five different posts.

Hey, it must be an anomaly right? Why would MSN be so enamored with a complete loon like Don Trump?

Today at 1:30 pm the experiment was repeated.

Neither Trump, or Clinton were featured in the header. In the scroll down the president of the United States of America was featured in six stories, Bernie Sanders in 10, and Bill Clinton hit the page four different times. His wife, the person who will be running against the Trump blitzkrieg, showed up 16 times, while the presumptive republican nominee headlined 45 separate entries.

In short, within 24 hours Donald Trump's name, or photo appeared on the MSN news feed in 78 instances, while Hillary Clinton's showed up a mere 31 times.

No wonder the evil fuck won the nomination and could well end up president of the United States. His contorted mug shows up everywhere we look. Yes, he might tell his supporters the media is out to ruin him, but the truth is he owns it. In fact their coverage of Don Trump has been so slavishly extensive the whole industry should be charged with aiding and abetting a criminal enterprise.

In the end, why should any of us be surprised? The media doesn't care about anything other than sales and ratings and they're willing to provide an endless stream of free advertising to any sort of monster in order to get both. After all, Time Magazine declared Adolf Hitler its 1938 man of the year. Less than 12 months later his troops were running amok in Poland.

Tragically, as Time did so many years ago, it's obvious MSN and the rest of the 21st century media have found their guy for 2016. And, just like Time, they don't give a rat's ass what he stands for, or is capable of doing.

Ladies and gentlemen, for reasons we all understand, the bar is most certainly open.


5-19-16