Double Standards: America's Media is Guilty

When I was at school, I was taught about fair play, the value of a level playing field, respect for rules and even-handed treatment for all concerned. Mind you, there were double standards. No mention was made in those days of glass ceilings and sticky floors and their application to women; nor was my school’s quota thought to be wrong. At the Church of England school I attended, a 10% quota for Jewish boys was imposed.

While it is a challenge to follow the Presidential campaign from a distance of over 3,500 miles, the media coverage does not seem to equate with fair play and even-handedness.  There are only so many newspapers and television reports I can read and watch. As a result, it is arguably improper for me to castigate America’s media for bias but Mrs Clinton seems to have been set benchmarks by the communications industry far higher than those of her opponent.

Let’s begin with finances. Hillary Clinton has published her tax returns going back 40 years. Trump has not published his return for even one year. His son, Donald Junior, was quoted as saying that would be unfair to Trump senior as everyone would then know his business dealings. Duh! Presidential contenders for fifty years or more have made tax disclosures. Mitt Romney, a very wealthy man, had no problem disclosing his tax affairs in 2012. Surely, it is important for Americans to know what and how Mr. Trump has acquired his alleged huge wealth, how he might have avoided taxes and with whom he has had business dealings.

Mrs Clinton continues to be castigated in the press for her use of a private e-mail server. “How do we know the people she has dealt with and what business deals she has made?” the Republicans yell. The voters actually do know because of all the disclosures, financial and political, that the Democratic nominee has made over many years. What of Trump? How does any American voter, except Trump insiders, know details of Trump’s business relations with foreigners? In short, they do not. But where is the media demand for disclosure? It is left to the Democratic Party to make the point but does the media listen?

The hue and cry over Mrs. Clinton’s recent illness was alarming. Contrast the medical reports disclosed on her physical condition, compared with Trump’s one paragraph letter hastily written by a physician, followed up this week with a little more detail and the fact that the 70-year old has high cholesterol and is overweight. Where is the media enquiry into Trump’s cardio-vascular health? The press has hardly touched or questioned Trump’s fitness, yet he is two years older than his opponent. Trump admits to a fast food diet that is unhealthy. Bill Clinton’s fast food addiction may have contributed to his coronary disease. Is the media only interested in digging down to the details of Hillary’s fitness?

Mrs Clinton has been diagnosed with pneumonia, a lung inflammation caused by bacterial or viral infection. It is easily treated these days with antibiotics. I am a little surprised that Hillary is already back on the campaign trail. If she has returned too soon, there will be further media frenzy on whether she is physically fit for the Presidency. “It’s all part of the narrative,” a BBC reporter said, but what of Trump’s health narrative?

Let’s explore the health issue of Presidents and contenders. Here are just a few. George W choked on a prezel. He was made fun of by the media, as was Gerald Ford when he slipped down a set of stairs alighting from an aeroplane, not to mention George Bush Senior when he threw up at a banquet hosted by the Japanese Prime Minister. At no stage was it suggested that these men were “not physically fit for the Presidency.”

More seriously, in the 1960 Presidential campaign, Richard Nixon suffered from a badly infected knee after hitting it on a car door. His campaign was suspended for two weeks. The media did not suggest Nixon withdraw from the campaign. When Franklin Roosevelt was elected President in 1932, the country as a whole may not have known he suffered from polio but the media knew it full well, as did many voters. After all, FDR regularly attended fund raisers for Polio charities. The point was neither the Republicans nor the press thought it appropriate to concentrate on FDR’s infirmity because it did not interfere with him doing his job.

The Huffinton Post, hardly a left-leaning newspaper, prints an editor’s note attached to every article about Donald Trump: “Donald Trump regularly incites political violence and is a serial liar, rampant xenophobe, racist, misogynist and birther who has repeatedly pledged to ban all Muslims — 1.6 billion members of an entire religion — from entering the U.S.” Why does not every other mainstream newspaper print something similar? Why does the media seem to treat Trump with kid gloves while for Mrs. Clinton it is open season? And why does the Democratic Party communications machine not point this out time and again to all media outlets?

Hillary Clinton is not the first woman on a Presidential ticket. In 1984, the late Geraldine Ferraro was on the bottom of the Democratic ticket. Her campaign stalled amid accusations about her personal finances, which were never proved. The storm reached its height in a two-hour press conference, after Ms. Ferraro had released the tax returns of her husband, Mr. Zaccaro, a private citizen. She responded well to question after question. New York Governor Mario Cuomo called it “one of the best performances I’ve ever seen by a politician under pressure.” The point was that Ms. Ferraro was attacked for the actions of her husband. Was Mrs. Reagan submitted to the same onslaught because her husband was running for re-election?

It has to be said that Vice-Presidential contender Sarah Palin did little to encourage the belief that women had as much right as men to entry into the top level of the executive. It strikes me that Trump may have learned from the Palin school of politics. Is his claim about President Obama’s birth any less fatuous than Palin’s claim that she “knew Russia” because she could see it from her house?

I have no proof but it seems that the media could be challenged for misogyny. If not, why is Mrs. Clinton under so much attack in the media when her opponent is given a much easier ride? He has said so many things which would disqualify him from the Presidency, yet most of the media laughs it off. Shooting people on 5^th Avenue, barring Muslims and building that wall, is this truly the leadership America wants? Why has the media not slammed this ghastly man into the ground?

Next month, the contenders will face each other in three debates. I hope the moderators deal with both Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Trump fairly and equally and that they will stop Trump from his overbearing, interrupting ways. If not, these double standards will just continue.