Donald Trump’s rise during the Republican presidential primaries was helped by billions of dollars worth of free media coverage. He was entertaining, outrageous, bombastic, funny — compelling TV. Viewers wanted to see what he’d say next.
Wall-to-wall coverage continues even now, with just 10 weeks to go before Election Day, and Mr. Trump trailing Hillary Clinton by double digits in polls. The Democrat is front-running to the White House almost under the radar, while everyone is still tracking the guy in her dust.
Walter Mondale must be green with envy, thinking back to 1984, and asking why the media didn’t just ignore Ronald Reagan and focus non-stop on the candidate who trailed far behind.
Mr. Trump has made the campaign about himself, but so has Mrs. Clinton. She knows that if it’s about him, she wins, but if it’s about them both, he has a chance of defeating her. That’s why she used her entire speech on Thursday to denounce Mr. Trump. She mostly sticks to speeches and selected interviews with friendly media. Her terrible recent interview with Fox News’ s Chris Wallace shows why. He skewered her on her dishonesty, and she spent the next several days having to repair the damage.
Just imagine her difficulties if she gave a real press conference and faced the whole press corps. She has not done so in 264 days. On Thursday, when asked whether she would take questions at a public event, she responded by ignoring the request and offering a chocolate to the impertinent reporter.
Why does she do this? Because she can. She is comfortably ahead, and so under no pressure to do anything other than let the days tick down to Nov. 8. And no one is badgering her or making her pay a price for it. If the race were close, or even narrowing, she might feel compelled to change course. But it’s Mr. Trump, being behind, who feels the need to do something new. So he changes his tune on immigration, which naturally draws attention to him and away from Mrs. Clinton. It’s a disastrous spiral, and time is running out.
In less than three months, one of the two main candidates will be the president-elect, and Mrs. Clinton seems by far the more likely winner. How long will the news media keep their eyes mainly on Mr. Trump rather than on the candidate who matters more? Journalists are the guardians of the republic and should not allow the next president to enter office with so many unanswered questions about her corruption.
If Mrs. Clinton is going to be president, it’s important to put the non-stop coverage of Mrs. Trump into perspective as mostly a waste of time and energy. He has to be covered, but stories about him have a short shelf-life. In terms of what voters actually need to know, they’d benefit much more from hearing straight answers from her.
Voters need to hear Mrs. Clinton’s account of exactly what she said when multi-million dollar Clinton Foundation donors sought approval to sell off American uranium mining rights to the Russian atomic agency. They still haven’t, more than a full year after that story broke.
This essay originated at www.washingtonexaminer.com
