The first criminal trial of former President Donald Trump is underway in New York, and he has expressed frustration about the requirement that he attend each day. CBS reported: “Trump posted to his nearly 7 million followers on Truth Social that Judge Juan Merchan, who is overseeing the trial, likely will not allow him to go to his 18-year-old son Barron’s graduation in May… [in fact] Merchan has not yet made any decision about whether Trump can attend his son’s graduation. But on Monday, he signaled that he’s open to it, although it is also possible that if the trial is behind schedule, he will not allow it.” 

Even though the judge has not ruled on the request, Trump’s claim was repeated by his supporters online and throughout the media. This added fuel to Trump’s repeated assertions that this trial is a “witch hunt.” Our analysts examined coverage of the resulting media reactions in this week’s Topic of the Week.

Each week, Ad Fontes Media chooses a widely covered trending news topic to share insight into how our analysts rank news coverage for the Media Bias Chart®. To do this, we select six articles reporting on the same story from different outlets to show how each treated the subject.

Once we choose a set of articles, pods of analysts with diverse political perspectives (one right leaning, one center, and one left leaning) read each article and use Ad Fontes Media’s content analysis methodology to determine its bias and reliability. These ratings inform the articles’ placement on that week’s special Media Bias Chart®.

Our analyst team took a closer look at several articles about Trump’s complaint from various media outlets last week: “Jordan Sekulow to Newsmax: Trump Treated Like ‘Murderer’” from Newsmax, “NY judge says Trump can’t attend Supreme Court arguments on presidential immunity” from WHNT News 19, “CNN’s Abby Phillip Fact-Checks Several Fox Hosts for Repeating a ‘Trump Lie’” from MEDIAite, “Viral claims about Donald Trump’s hush money trial, fact checked” from Sandhills Express, “Isn’t it odd that Melania and none of his kids are at his criminal trial?” from Daily Kos, and “‘Scam Trial’: Trump Slams Judge, Says He May Not Let Him Go to Son’s Graduation, Campaign” from Wisconsin Right Now. While the bias and reliability scores for each of these articles can be found on our Topic of the Week page, we are going to take a closer look at the latter two articles. 

Wisconsin Right Now was founded in 2020 by a Wisconsin real estate investor and describes itself as a “Wisconsin-focused news platform that offers breaking news and some opinion, with an emphasis on Wisconsin.” It does not yet have enough articles rated to appear on the Media Bias Chart, but our analysts gave this article a bias rating of 19.67 (hyper-partisan right) and a reliability rating of 21 (selective or incomplete story/unfair persuasion/propaganda). 

With several spelling errors, this article follows the Republican party line: “… the judge has threatened to have Trump arrested if he doesn’t show up for court every day, while his opponent, President Joe Biden – to whom the judge donated a small amount – is free to campaign all he wants.” 

The article is short and consists largely of quotes from Trump: “‘It looks like the judge isn’t going to allow me to escape this scam,’ Trump said after the hearing concluded for the day. ‘It’s a scam trial. If you read all of the legal pundits, all of the legal scholars today, there’s not one that I see that said this is a case that should be brought or tried. It’s a scam. It’s a political witchhunt, it continues and it continues forever. And we’re not going to be given a fair trial. It’s a very very sad thing.’” With no mention of the facts of the case, this article’s bias is firmly to the right.

Daily Kos is a blog and internet forum for Democrats founded in 2002 by consultant and entrepreneur Markos Moulitsas. It publishes articles and opinions from a variety of bloggers and its registered users. Our analysts have given it an aggregate bias score of -18.26 (hyper-partisan left) and an aggregate reliability score of 27.61 (opinion or wide variation in reliability). This week’s article was rated at -21.67 for bias (hyper-partisan left) and 19 for reliability (selective or incomplete story/unfair persuasion/propaganda). 

This article comes in hot and doesn’t let up. “I find it odd that his own family that we know of is not at his trial. Not one sibling, not any family or if he has friends…where are they?… When he is outside the courthouse, why doesn’t someone ask him where is his support for innocence other than his lawyers?” 

It goes on: “Seriously, we know our Dem presidents and their wives and kids would be there front and center or campaigning. if this sort of thing was happening. Can you imagine Michelle sitting at home or Jill? I can’t.” This article is clearly an attack on Trump’s character, giving it a clear bias to the left, and it also leaves out the facts of the case.

These are just two examples of the tens of thousands of articles our analysts have rated for reliability and bias. If you want a look at the larger media landscape or are curious to see how our analysts have rated your favorite sources, head on over to our website and check out the resources we have available. And don’t forget to come back for another examination of our Topic of the Week.

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Sara Webb is a cybersecurity consultant and former high school librarian from Philadelphia, PA. She holds an M.S. in Informatics and an M. Ed in School Library and Information Technology, and has been a media literacy educator for over a decade. Sara started with Ad Fontes Media in July 2020 as a Media Analyst, and she currently continues in that role and as in-house Media Literacy Specialist. When not engrossed in media literacy projects, Sara can be found at the barn with her ex-racehorse Homer, or training her corgis for dog agility competitions.