Jonathan Bernstein, Columnist

Donald Trump, CNN and the Missing Airplane

How cable news made a story out of him, instead of the election.

May 5, 2016 at 8:55 PM UTC

Jonathan Bernstein is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering politics. A former professor of political science at the University of Texas at San Antonio, he wrote A Plain Blog About Politics.

He's the story, not the election.
Photographer: Joe Raedle/Getty Images

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Media norms have shifted, and that may affect how the general election plays out. It certainly affected Republican nomination politics.

Vox’s David Roberts has a terrific item arguing that the media will build Donald Trump up and tear Hillary Clinton down because: “No institution needs a competitive election more than the media, especially what remains of the ‘objective’ campaign media.” Nick Confessore of the New York Times disagreed: