WEDNESDAY: Wemple explores the coverage of Biden!

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 11, 2025

The coverage of Trump gets a pass: Did "the media" engage in a cover-up of President Biden's apparent cognitive decline?

You'll hear that claim around the clock on the Fox News Channel's programs. In a fascinating report, Eric Wemple has tried to assess the claim for the Washington Post.

We'll start by noting this:

All in all, it's very hard to make valid claims about the conduct of "the media." A wide array of news orgs fit within that fuzzy rubric. Those news orgs employ a large number of journalists—and no, they aren't all the same.

That said, Wemple makes a valiant effort to explore he facts of the case. Early in his lengthy report, he cites a significant number of analysis pieces exploring the (related) question of Biden's age, starting in 2019:

Did legacy media fail in its Biden coverage? Not if you ask them!

[...]

Since Biden had announced his candidacy earlier that year, his age hovered over his prospects. He would be 78 at the time of the 2021 inaugural, then the oldest person to take the presidential oath of office in U.S. history. “Is it also incumbent on the vice president to do his best, to do better at how he speaks?” CNN host Brianna Keilar asked a Biden campaign adviser in August 2019.

In interviews with more than 50 Democratic voters and party officials, the New York Times in July 2019 found “significant unease about Mr. Biden’s ability to be a reliably crisp and effective messenger against Mr. Trump.” And there was a great deal more, including a [Washington] Post article concluding that a war story that Biden had told in public “jumbled elements of at least three actual events into one story of bravery, compassion and regret that never happened”; a CNN story by then-analyst Chris Cillizza under the headline “Is Joe Biden too old to be president?”; an Atlantic story by Edward-Isaac Dovere under the headline “Is Joe Biden ‘Too Old’?”; a Politico story pointing to Democrats’ misgivings on Biden’s age; a New York Times piece on steps considered by Biden to address voters’ concerns about his age.

There was even a story in the New Yorker headlined “JOE BIDEN’S FALTERING DEBATE PERFORMANCE RAISES BIG DOUBTS ABOUT HIS CAMPAIGN.” That debate occurred in late June … 2019.

As the scrutiny mounted, Biden issued this imperative to his doubters: “All I can say is watch me. Just watch me.”

Media outlets complied, especially conservative ones. On Fox News, commentator Steve Hilton in December 2021 called Biden “obviously senile.” Newsmax’s James Rosen, citing polling data, asked Biden in January 2022, “Why do you suppose such large segments of the American electorate have come to harbor such profound concerns about your cognitive fitness?”

"Such was the grind of Biden age coverage." Wemple writes. "Contrary to what you may have heard on X, there was a great deal of it across legacy media outlets, including those mentioned above and many others."

So far, so not so bad on the part of "the media!" At this point, we skip ahead to what happened when Wemple asked an array of major news orgs to evaluate the way they had dealt with the topic of Biden's apparent decline:

In emails to the top news organizations covering the White House, I asked this question: “There has been a lot of criticism of mainstream outlets in this coverage area. Does [media outlet] believe that it failed in any respect in this area? If so, on what aspect(s) of the story?”

The recipients weren’t all jazzed about this inquiry, considering the spotty responses: the New York Times (above), Axios (below), CNN (below), Gannett/USA Today Network (below) and the New York Post (below) issued statements; MSNBC, NBC News, ABC News, CBS News, Fox News, Reuters, the Associated Press, the Wall Street Journal and Politico issued no statement; McClatchy and NPR didn’t respond.

Most news orgs didn't reply to Wemple's inquiry. In the course of his analysis, Wemple quotes parts of the responses from most of the news orgs which did: 

We skip now to Wemple's general assessment. It strikes us as basically valid, though we'll close with a major complaint:

Whatever the grounding for the [electorate's] consensus opinion on Biden’s fitness, it tormented his political operation. According to “Original Sin,” Biden’s pollsters had determined that many voters who’d broken for the president in 2020 weren’t committing for 2024, on account of his age and inflation. “The pollsters would read about or hear of voters regularly denigrating Biden—doddering, incoherent, unable to complete sentences—in ways that the pollsters felt … were unfair,” write Tapper and Thompson. Upshot: One way or another, Biden’s age was likely to cost him a second term.

So we’re all good then, right?

If only. White House coverage must involve more than observing the president in action and writing up analysis pieces about his comings and goings. It needs to include a muckraking component detailing behind-the-scenes strategies, conflicts and debates over all manner of issues, particularly those relating to the president’s mental acuity. An adjacent question relates to whether Biden himself was fully abreast of and in charge of day-to-day decisions.

And it’s on these fronts that major media organizations fell short: Though Biden’s declining faculties were clear to all, they never ignited one of those glorious mainstream-media investigative frenzies that colonizes television and radio broadcasts. 

That assessment doesn't strike us as nutty, crazy, overwrought, unfair or insane. At one time, that would have qualified as a left-handed compliment. In the current era, those are words of the highest praise.

Wemple's lengthy piece presents a lot of food for thought. Our (extremely large) complaint would be this:

Wemple says that these major news orgs failed to go the extra mile with a muckraker's zeal. They failed to bring the question of President Biden's mental acuity center stage until the June 2024 debate turned it into an unavoidable topic.

In Wemple's view, major orgs should have "ignited one of those glorious mainstream-media investigative frenzies that colonizes television and radio broadcasts." At some point, sufficient evidence was present to trigger such an undertaking. News orgs should have made this the kind of front-page topic which couldn't be ignored.

That strikes us as a sensible critique. The glaring omission is this:

That is precisely what those orgs are failing to do at the present time with respect to the peculiar behavior of the current sitting president! As perhaps with President Biden, so too now with President Trump:

Our news orgs have adopted the attitude that there's nothing to look at there. They're refusing to "ignite one of those investigative frenzies that colonizes television and radio broadcasts." They're refusing to make the current president's endlessly peculiar conduct a stand-alone topic which can no longer be ignored.

In the case of President Biden, the question was one of "mental acuity"—possible cognitive loss. That isn't the question with President Trump. If something is wrong with President Trump, it's something different from that.

(Biden "couldn't complete a sentence?" Trump can't seem to stop doing that.)

Whatever may be wrong with President Trump, it doesn't seem to be the same thing that was apparently wrong with President Biden. It seems to be an issue of "mental health," and everyone from Wemple on down is sworn to go nowhere near a forbidden topic like that.

Wemple says our news orgs took a dive with respect to President Biden. They're also taking a dive with respect to President Trump. 

For now, we're prepared to include Wemple himself when we make that assessment. Press critic, heal thyself!