Crowded news cycles are business as usual in the era of Donald Trump, but this past week has been one of the most jam-packed in a while. Even Sean Hannity is newsworthy now.
Since it was revealed Monday afternoon that Hannity was a client of Michael Cohen, the president’s longtime lawyer, many in the media were gripped. It’s a big story because Hannity has a large audience, and while covering the Cohen story, he never disclosed his own ties to Cohen. (My colleague, Becket Adams, tackled the problems with that here.)
But the media is obsessed, and the coverage (and Twitter pile-on) is out of proportion with the story’s importance, especially when there are so many other serious developments in the news. As of Tuesday afternoon, there were six headlines about it at the top of CNN’s home page.
The major national relevance of the Hannity story is that a popular pro-Trump commentator consults with the president’s lawyer (apparently about real estate, per Hannity’s account) and did not disclose that to his millions of viewers before covering Cohen. It’s bad, but it has comparatively little effect on the public or the larger story about Trump’s legal problems.
The hardest bias for journalists to overcome is the bias that comes with working in journalism. Whether it’s Kevin Williamson or Sean Hannity or Rachel Maddow, the media over-cover themselves. It probably contributes to the public’s distrust of the press. And they especially go overboard when there’s an opportunity for Acela corridor journalists to mock conservatives in the press.
