When Donald Trump announced his presidential campaign on June 16, 2015, the savants in the news media weren’t just skeptical — they were openly disdainful of the man who will be sworn in as America’s 45th President at noon tomorrow.
Reporters sniffed that Trump’s campaign was a “carnival show” which threatened to turn the GOP primary race into “a joke.” CNN’s Jeffrey Toobin called Trump a “fool,” NBC’s Chuck Todd blasted him as “a political streaker,” and pundit after pundit insisted the real estate mogul had no chance of winning.
“Can we stipulate for the purposes of this conversation that Donald Trump will never be President of the United States?” Mike Barnicle proclaimed on MSNBC’s Morning Joe less than 24 hours after Trump’s campaign kick-off.Trump’s candidacy was cast as more entertaining than important. NBC relegated it to the third slot on the June 16, 2015 Nightly News, after stories about a fatal balcony collapse and tropical storm. CBS pushed it down to the sixth slot, while ABC’s World News Tonight made it the ninth item of the night, 13 minutes into the 30-minute broadcast.
That night, Trump’s announcement merited less overall broadcast evening news airtime (4 minutes, 27 seconds) than an interview with Rachel Dolezal, a white Washington state NAACP official who sowed confusion by identifying herself as black (6 minutes, 29 seconds).
In contrast, when Barack Obama announced his presidential bid on February 10, 2007,…