After giving the 2024 commencement address at West Point, the United States Military Academy, President Joe Biden remained on the New York campus for an hour to salute and shake hands with every graduating cadet — 1,036 of them.
The graduation event was covered by the mainstream media, which highlighted Biden’s 22-minute speech in which he praised the cadets and said “there’s never been a time in history when we’ve asked our military to do so many different things in so many different places around the world all at the same time.”
But the extra hour Biden spent personally congratulating each graduate largely flew under the media radar, getting a single paragraph at the end of an article on PBS, a meager amount of print elsewhere, and scant mention on TV news, whether right-leaning or left-leaning. Media critics saw the lack of coverage as an irresponsible imbalance, since any lack of endurance or hint of frailty in Biden is covered exhaustively.
It’s true. MSM is Trump Trump Trump.
Stock market breaking record highs, only @FoxNews reported on it. @POTUS stayed after commencements at West Point to shake the hand of every cadet. Did NOT hear that on ANY news outlet. @ABC @CBS @NBC @CNN @MSNBC
— Michael Brown (@262MEBrown) May 29, 2024
It’s this kind of desultory media coverage of the President that the Biden-Harris campaign is trying hard to combat. While his Republican rival Donald Trump is either in court, golfing, or holding a rally — each move breathlessly reported by every media outlet — President Biden’s activity and voter outreach are, the campaign complains, treated like the proverbial tree falling in the woods that nobody hears.
It’s Trump all day & night.
Biden/Harris big rally in Philly today?
Not covered. @MSNBC@Morning_Joe
— LindaMiki (@lindaSH77906251) May 29, 2024
That media disinterest is why the Biden campaign, frustrated with the dearth of coverage as Biden visits swing states to deliver his message for a new term, finally acknowledged that Trump is on trial in New York, holding a press conference outside the courthouse. The event featured an anti-MAGA speech by actor Robert De Niro, a devout Trump antagonist, who appeared with two police officers who defended the Capitol on January 6.
When some — including Morning Joe‘s Joe Scarborough — accused Biden’s campaign of pulling a “stunt” by staging its event with Trump’s trial as backdrop, the campaign’s reply was simple and curt: that is where the media are. The Biden campaign contends that the reality is if it wants the media’s attention, it has to cut in the Trump line. (Why go there? “Because all the media has been camped out there for weeks,” the campaign answers.)