Nearly four in ten voters believe that the U. S. media is biased for Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton in the 2016 U.S. election, said a new poll.
According to the Morning Consult poll released on Friday, 38 percent U.S. voters say that news coverage favors the former U.S. secretary of state, while only 12 percent believe that same is true for Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.
As to the amount of coverage each nominee is getting, the majority of voters approve of the amount of coverage of either nominee, said the poll.
However, voters voiced dissatisfaction with the fairness of the media, with 33 percent saying that the media’s fairness to each candidate is “poor”.
Another 22 percent voters believe the media coverage of each candidate is “only fair”, and those who describe the media coverage as either “excellent” or “good” account for 35 percent in total, according to the poll.
The poll came as Trump doubled down on his accusation against “the crooked media.”
“I’m not running against Crooked Hillary. I’m running against the crooked media,” said the New Yorker during a rally on Aug. 13.
Though benefitting heavily from the media’s wall-to-wall coverage of his campaign during the nomination contests, relations between Trump and the media deteriorated in the past weeks as the bellicose billionaire developer got embroiled in one political firestorm after another.
The media bombardment began late July after Trump derisively answered criticism from Khizr Khan, the father of a Muslim American solider killed by a suicide bomber in Iraq.
On the final day of the Democratic National Convention, Khan blasted Trump for his divisive remarks and proposal to temporary ban Muslims entering the country.
The Republican standard-bearer responded by implying that Ms. Khan, who accompanied his husband on stage on the final day of the Democratic National Convention, was forbidden to speak.
Then on Aug. 9, Trump caused another round of media frenzy after suggesting that supporters of gun rights could take action against his Democratic counterpart Clinton if Clinton wins the election.
“Hillary wants to abolish, essentially abolish the Second Amendment,” said Trump during a campaign rally in Wilmington, North Carolina. “By the way, if she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do folks.”
“Though the Second Amendment people, maybe there is,” he added.
As he was still scrambling to tackle the backlash after his gun rights comments, Trump on Aug. 10 handed the U.S. media new prime fodder after declaring that U.S. President Barack Obama “is the founder of ISIS,” referring to the extremist group Islamic State.
Despite a conservative radio show host’s apparent move to help him clarify his position, Trump on Aug.11 stepped up his accusation of Obama, saying that he “meant he (Obama) is the founder of ISIS.”
Trump eventually backtracked on his accusation, blaming the media for missing his sarcasm.
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