Here is the original study that that “bias” claim was taken from. A few additional takeaways that I found to be particularly interesting:
Trump’s coverage was largely negative. But 80% of quotes came from Republicans or directly from him, compared to 6% from Democrats.
Fox had the best balance of positive & negative Trump reporting. This is true. They also reported on Russia less than half as much as everybody else, and largely reported more positively about the Muslim ban and Hispanic immigration laws. From my perspective, this suggests that they only achieved this equilibrium by normalizing or turning a blind eye towards xenophobic rhetoric, which I find to be deeply concerning. Your mileage may vary.
European journalists didn’t care much for Russia either, but they all pretty much agree that Trump is batshit crazy:
Although journalists are accused of having a liberal bias, their real bias is a preference for the negative. … Journalists’ incentives, everything from getting their stories on the air to acquiring a reputation as a hard-hitting reporter, encourage journalists to focus on what’s wrong with politicians rather than what’s right. … Of the past four presidents, only Barack Obama received favorable coverage during his first 100 days, after which the press reverted to form.
I also find it deeply concerning that the only thing that all news outlets reported equally on was Trump’s MOAB attack.
Ironically, guess who still holds the record for worst presidential coverage, at least for now?
There was not a single quarter during any year of Clinton’s presidency where his positive coverage exceeded his negative coverage, a dubious record no president before or since has matched. Trump can’t top that string of bad news but he could take it to a new level.
This study also points out that Obama was really good at doing one-on-one interviews to control his own narrative. Trump has been…less good at that, despite the fact that the majority of his largely-negative news coverage is based on direct quotes.
What’s truly atypical about Trump’s coverage is that it’s sharply negative despite the fact that he’s the source of nearly two-thirds of the sound bites surrounding his coverage. Typically, newsmakers and groups complain that their media narrative is negative because they’re not given a chance to speak for themselves. Over the past decade, U.S. coverage of Muslims has been more than 75 percent negative. And Muslims have had little chance to tell their side of the story. Muslims account for less than 5 percent of the voices heard in news reports about Islam.
There’s a whole lot more to unpack there, but my point is that the truth is not nearly as binary winner-vs-loser as you seem to believe. And the fact that there are so few clear conclusions to draw down binary party lines proves that there’s a lot more work to do in society and in media and in politics, and that reducing it to “You lost, get over it” is in fact an incredibly damaging mentality for the sake of actual American social and economic progress.