President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign is reportedly communicating with corporate media reporters and editors in off-the-record meetings to criticize news coverage of the presidential race, Semafor reported Monday.
The campaign has created a spreadsheet laying out where corporate outlets have “fallen short” on their reporting about the campaign trail, according to Semafor. Campaign officials have reportedly been particularly exasperated by corporate media’s extensive coverage of former President Donald Trump, reportedly arguing the outlets are too focused on his criminal indictments rather than his alleged flammable statements.
.@maxwelltani reports that the Biden team has a spreadsheet for meetings with reporters detailing where they think their reporting has fallen short.
The meeting with the NYT didn’t seem to go well. https://t.co/jlg5ECp4gF pic.twitter.com/qCI7ozL9WH
— Alex Thompson (@AlexThomp) January 8, 2024
The campaign’s meeting with The New York Times (NYT) reportedly did not go over well for unmentioned reasons, according to Semafor. Other than the Times, the meetings with outlets like The Washington Post were reportedly “substantive” and “productive.” (RELATED: Corporate Media’s Latest Town Hall Could Be A Ploy To Boost Biden In The General Election)
Campaign officials are scheduled to meet with political reporters and editors from ABC News, NPR, Fox News, The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg and Reuters at its campaign headquarters in Wilmington, Delaware, Semafor reported. Reporting teams have reportedly spoken to the campaign manager, deputies and other high-ranking officials in the president’s re-election campaign.
The re-election campaign has hoped to rely on the media’s coverage of Trump to bolster Biden in the polls. Some voters who leaned toward Trump but voted for Biden in 2020 said they have not paid much attention to the former president, leading campaign officials to believe more coverage of Trump can lead to more support for the 2024 presidential election.
“The more the American people are confronted with who Donald Trump is — a dangerous, extreme and erratic man who only cares about using the power of the government to help himself and his friends — the more they reject him,” Ammar Moussa, a Biden campaign spokesman, told the NYT in November. “We will continue to highlight for voters what’s at stake if Trump and his cronies are allowed anywhere near the Oval Office.”
The Biden campaign has pushed media outlets to mirror the NYT’s coverage of Trump, particularly on his immigration stance, according to the Times.
The campaign has also called on the media to negatively cover Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.