Misleading Headlines in Mainstream News Today


This is an example of the troubling pro-Trump spin now being seen across the mainstream media, as their owners rush to curry favor with the vindictive president.

This morning I decided to open the Apple News app and see what it would suggest I read. First it offered me an article following up on plane crash victims. And then: "Donald Trump Has Never Been This Popular: Polls."

That Trump headline was eye-popping to me, given that the favorability polling I saw last week indicated that under half of Americans approved of Trump's performance. I felt a drop in my stomach. Had there been a sudden swelling of approval in response to a week of chaos?

No, friends, there had not.

Trump's approval rating in the first weeks of his second presidency remains the lowest of any president since such polls began in 1953. It's still under 50% during these first weeks of his term--the "honeymoon period" when recently-elected presidents usually see the highest approval rates of their presidential careers.

What is this "historic high" being reported, then? It is that slightly more Americans say they approve of Trump than say they disapprove: Trump's favorability rating came out 1.2 points above his unfavorability ratings, with 48.9 percent of respondents viewing him favorably and 47.7 percent holding an unfavorable opinion. That's actually just under the margin by which Trump won the recent election. It's slid a bit since immediately after election day.

But lots of people don't actually read the news stories which are reporting these details. They just read the headlines as those scroll by. And the headlines present this news with a very positive spin, like cheerleaders. So thumbing through Apple News or social media, people glace at the headlines and get a warped sense of reality--one skewed in Trump's favor. That energizes the MAGA fans and sucks the energy out of the rest of us.

It's important to be aware of this disinformational trend!


 

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