Liberal New York Times columnist Paul Krugman says Donald Trump needs to be covered even more by the media, and that the press should take all the time it needs to expose his “lies” in the upcoming debate.
In an op-ed published Friday, Krugman said reports and analysis on Monday’s first presidential debate should be overwhelmingly devoted to any “lies” the Republican nominee tells, which he predicts will be five times that of his opponent, Hillary Clinton.
“If your reaction is, ‘Oh, they can’t do that — it would look like partisan bias,’ you have just demonstrated the huge problem with news coverage during this election,” Krugman wrote. “For I am not calling on the news media to take a side; I’m just calling on it to report what is actually happening, without regard for party. In fact, any reporting that doesn’t accurately reflect the huge honesty gap between the candidates amounts to misleading readers, giving them a distorted picture that favors the biggest liar.”
Krugman has previously accused the media of covering Trump and Clinton too evenhanded, even though he says Trump is more prone to falsehood and misstatements. He said that even if Clinton lies about her email controversy, it should receive proportional, not equal, scrutiny to Trump.
There is a push within the national media to adapt their reporting on Trump, as many media critics and reporters have called for more aggressive coverage. At the same time, however, multiple studies show he receives by far more negative attention than Clinton.
