When in doubt, roll out the adjectives.
After President Trump was acquitted Feb. 5 in the impeachment proceedings against him, his foes in the news media immediately searched for a new narrative. Portraying the president as some kind of swashbuckler appears to have fit the bill.
“Since the liberal attempt to remove the president ended in failure, the media talking heads are fretting about how Trump’s acquittal has created an ’emboldened’ chief executive who threatens the rule of law ’like never before,’” wrote Bill D’Agostino, an analyst for the Media Research Center.
During the month of February, the conservative press watchdog found 239 instances in which TV journalists alleged Mr. Trump was ’emboldened’ on MSNBC, CNN, NBC, CBS and ABC. Fox News played a minor role, using the E-word only five times.
“Many of these claims about an ’emboldened’ Trump featured the kind of overblown language one might expect from an action movie trailer,” Mr. D’Agostino said.
And while “emboldened” is the word of choice for the time being, the study also found that the following descriptors for Mr. Trump were also used in the coverage: Wild, unbound, dangerous, angry, unleashed, unrestrained, unchained and furious.
• Jennifer Harper can be reached at jharper@washingtontimes.com.
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