{"id":35840,"date":"2017-10-07T14:23:37","date_gmt":"2017-10-07T21:23:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=35840"},"modified":"2017-10-07T14:26:32","modified_gmt":"2017-10-07T21:26:32","slug":"donald-trump-wants-equal-time-on-tv-and-the-unintended-reason-thats-a-fantastic-idea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=35840","title":{"rendered":"Donald Trump Wants &#8216;Equal Time&#8217; on TV &#8211; And the Unintended Reason That&#8217;s a Fantastic Idea"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It wouldn&#8217;t be Saturday morning without Donald Trump posting a flurry of frantic Tweets. True to form, his latest Twitter tantrum unleashed a stream of nonsense with more tedious swipes at the media. As usual he&#8217;s upset that there are reports that he considers negative. He&#8217;s right. But it isn&#8217;t the fault of the media that he screws up so much.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/Pix\/Campaign-2016\/trump-tv.jpg\" alt=\"Donald Trump\" width=\"550\" height=\"317\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-32928\" \/><br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/NewsCorpse\/posts\/1895577067123746\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Share on Facebook\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/Pix\/Advs\/fb-share-tn.jpg\" width=\"274\" height=\"20\" class=\"aligncenter\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>This week the news about Trump included his troubles with White House staff, and particularly Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. NBC had <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/politics\/white-house\/tillerson-s-fury-trump-required-intervention-pence-n806451\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">multiple inside sources<\/a><\/strong> that heard Tillerson call Trump a <em>&#8220;moron.&#8221;<\/em> Trump further embarrassed himself by insulting victims of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico. And he recklessly implied hostile intentions to both North Korea and Iran. If there was positive news about him last week it would have been reported. Followed by inane suggestions that he was finally pivoting to become presidential. So absent any of the good news Trump craves, he tweeted this:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Late Night host are dealing with the Democrats for their very &quot;unfunny&quot; &amp; repetitive material, always anti-Trump! Should we get Equal Time?<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/realDonaldTrump\/status\/916634286811435008?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">October 7, 2017<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">More and more people are suggesting that Republicans (and me) should be given Equal Time on T.V. when you look at the one-sided coverage?<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/realDonaldTrump\/status\/916635236238274561?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">October 7, 2017<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Poor Donald. He simply cannot abide the sort of mockery that every president has endured since the founding of the nation. While he virulently insults his foes as <em>&#8220;crooked, crazy, sick,&#8221;<\/em> etc., he whines about being the butt of jokes.<\/p>\n<p>As for the substance of his tweets, is Trump asking for an equal amount of <em>&#8220;unfunny and repetitive&#8221;<\/em> material? Because that can certainly be arranged by his comedy surrogates, if not by himself. Secondly, are there really <em>&#8220;more and more people&#8221;<\/em> who want to see more of Trump on TV? And are they currently under a doctor&#8217;s supervision? Finally, did he end his second tweet with a question mark because even he isn&#8217;t sure WTF he means?<\/p>\n<p>More to the point, it&#8217;s his remedy for this perceived offense that is most worrisome. He actually believes that the media give him less time than his liberal and Democratic opponents. Hence his proposal to invoke the Equal Time rules to restore balance. However, the evidence shows that Trump has received far more airtime than any other public figure. This was true during the election when he received <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/politics\/archive\/2015\/08\/graphic-whos-the-most-popular-candidate-mentioned-on-television\/402451\/\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">nearly three times<\/a><\/strong> the coverage of any of his opponents. After his inauguration he <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/shorensteincenter.org\/news-coverage-donald-trumps-first-100-days\/\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">continued to dominate<\/a><\/strong> the press, as reported in a study by the Shorenstein Center of Harvard University:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>&#8220;President Trump dominated media coverage in the outlets and programs analyzed, with Trump being the topic of 41 percent of all news stories\u2014three times the amount of coverage received by previous presidents. He was also the featured speaker in nearly two-thirds of his coverage.&#8221;<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The real world data clearly contradicts Trump&#8217;s self-serving bitchfest. But it&#8217;s also notable that he is, once again, demonstrating that he doesn&#8217;t know what he&#8217;s talking about. The <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.law.cornell.edu\/uscode\/text\/47\/315\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Equal Time Rule<\/a><\/strong> was intended prevent television stations from influencing the outcome of elections by favoring one candidate over another. It has nothing to do with airtime distribution when an election is not in progress. He may be thinking of the Fairness Doctrine, but the sainted Republican Ronald Reagan did away with that thirty years ago.<\/p>\n<p>As is often the case, the motivation for these tweets by Trump was likely a <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/existentialfish\/status\/916640757737578496\/photo\/1\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">segment<\/a><\/strong> on Fox News shortly before he tweeted. And speaking of Fox News, they would have an interesting dilemma if Trump got his way with regard to Equal Time. Fox News has distinguished itself as the PR division of the Trump administration. They are the closest thing to state-run television that America has ever known. If they were required to provide Equal Time to Democrats it would mean that half of their schedule would be taken over by the party they are devoted to destroying.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align:center;\"><strong>How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/B00QSSMOES\/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&#038;camp=1789&#038;creative=9325&#038;creativeASIN=B00QSSMOES&#038;linkCode=as2&#038;tag=newscorpsecom-20&#038;linkId=TLI6JC2OYE22MUTS\" target=\"_blank\">Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.<\/a><br \/>\nAvailable now at Amazon.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>So let&#8217;s let Trump have his way. Let&#8217;s actually have an accounting of the network airtime distribution and require networks to balance their coverage. In all likelihood, that would result in Democrats getting significantly more coverage on Fox News, and even some marginally more coverage on every other network. It would be a welcome change in the broadcast environment that either favors Trump or the ratings-friendly melodrama he generates. So bring it on, Donnie.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It wouldn&#8217;t be Saturday morning without Donald Trump posting a flurry of frantic Tweets. True to form, his latest Twitter tantrum unleashed a stream of nonsense with more tedious swipes at the media. As usual he&#8217;s upset that there are reports that he considers negative. He&#8217;s right. But it isn&#8217;t the fault of the media [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":32928,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[14,1,684,1200,8],"tags":[554,1276,461,33,1255,1163],"class_list":["post-35840","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-free-press","category-general","category-media-bias","category-politics","category-propaganda","tag-donald-trump","tag-equal-time","tag-fairness-doctrine","tag-fox-news","tag-rex-tillerson","tag-twitter"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/trump-tv.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4Ijg-9k4","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":35792,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=35792","url_meta":{"origin":35840,"position":0},"title":"Donald Trump Kneecaps His Own Secretary of State While Hinting at War with North Korea","author":"Mark NC","date":"10\/1\/2017","format":false,"excerpt":"If you thought Donald Trump couldn't get worse, you don't know Trump. On Sunday morning he unleashed another flurry of insane and dangerous tweets. They included the obligatory and tedious attacks on the media. And he also fired off new insults aimed at the suffering people of Puerto Rico and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;General&quot;","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"Donald Trump Rex Tillerson","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/trump-tillerson.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/trump-tillerson.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/trump-tillerson.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":37294,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=37294","url_meta":{"origin":35840,"position":1},"title":"FAKE NEWS! That&#8217;s What Trump Called Media Reports that Tillerson Would Be Fired  &#8211; Um, OK","author":"Mark NC","date":"3\/13\/2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Another one bites the dust: On Tuesday morning it was announced that Donald Trump had fired his Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson. This move came after months of awkward conflicts between the President and his top diplomat. It was not an unexpected development, but most White House watchers probably thought\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;General&quot;","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"Donald Trump Vladimir Putin","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/trump-putin.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/trump-putin.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/trump-putin.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":35863,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=35863","url_meta":{"origin":35840,"position":2},"title":"Moron Trump Turns Out to Be a Chicken, Backs Out of IQ Challenge With Sec. Tillerson","author":"Mark NC","date":"10\/10\/2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Late last week NBC News revealed that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson had openly disparaged Donald Trump as a \"f*cking moron.\" The surprisingly accurate analysis came during a meeting at the Pentagon in July according to three sources. Tillerson later held an unprecedented press conference to refute the charge that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;General&quot;","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"Donald Trump Chicken","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/trump-chicken-don.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/trump-chicken-don.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/trump-chicken-don.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":35376,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=35376","url_meta":{"origin":35840,"position":3},"title":"Fox News Implies That Donald Trump is Just as Batty as Kim Jong-Un. Who Can Argue With That?","author":"Mark NC","date":"8\/10\/2017","format":false,"excerpt":"On Wednesday Donald Trump laid the foundation for a nuclear confrontation with North Korea. His brimstone laden \"fire and fury\" speech has brought new and unnecessary tensions to an already shaky relationship. It was an inevitable escalation of craziness from a narcissistic personality with a thirty-three percent approval rating. And\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;General&quot;","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"Donald Trump Kim Jong-Un","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/trump-kim.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/trump-kim.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/trump-kim.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":34972,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=34972","url_meta":{"origin":35840,"position":4},"title":"FFS: Trump Seeks Cyber Security Alliance with Russia, the Country That Hacked Our Election","author":"Mark NC","date":"6\/20\/2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Just when you thought Donald Trump couldn't dig himself further up Putin's anus, he pulls out an even bigger jackhammer. The President appears oblivious to the fact that he is under investigation for colluding with Russia during the 2016 election. Many of his close associates have been caught with Russian\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;General&quot;","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"Trump\/Putin","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/trump-putin2-e1501701494865.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/trump-putin2-e1501701494865.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/trump-putin2-e1501701494865.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":37301,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=37301","url_meta":{"origin":35840,"position":5},"title":"Fox News Excuses Tillerson Mess, White House Chaos By Saying that &#8216;Disarray is Trumpism&#8217;","author":"Mark NC","date":"3\/13\/2018","format":false,"excerpt":"The Tuesday Morning Massacre at Donald Trump's White House rocked the political media. In the matter of a few hours Trump had fired the Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Steve Goldstein, the State Dept spokesman whose announcement of Tillerson's firing contradicted the White House story, and Trump\u2019s personal assistant, John\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;General&quot;","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"trump-departures","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/sanders-wh-departures.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/sanders-wh-departures.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/sanders-wh-departures.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35840","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=35840"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35840\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35845,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35840\/revisions\/35845"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/32928"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=35840"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=35840"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=35840"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}