President Trump attended the men’s final of the U.S. Open Tennis Championships last week, and his appearance — and the crowd’s reaction to it — received much scrutiny from media across the political spectrum. Our analysts looked at four articles and two videos about it for our Topic of the Week.

Reporting on a public appearance by the president seems like it would be pretty straightforward. The event was televised, and there were thousands of people in attendance, so it seems logical that it would be easy to determine the facts of what took place.

But just like reporting on more complex issues, it’s all in the way you tell the story. We immediately noticed different descriptions about how Trump was received by fans who were there. Was he cheered? Was he booed? The general public may have different answers to this question because of what they read or heard in the news.

The answer is that Trump was both booed and cheered at various points during his U.S. Open appearance. But some of the media accounts rated by our team didn’t tell the whole story, even though they each shared video clips that backed their version of events. Let’s take a closer look:

The Associated Press headline and lead focuses on Trump being booed, although the video clip included with the article contains both positive and negative crowd reactions. The article does go on to say that he was both cheered and booed at various points, as it describes Trump’s movements during and before the men’s final and the long security lines caused by his attendance. Our analysts rated the article as a “mix of fact reporting and analysis” with a “middle/balanced” bias.

TMZ initially reported on Trump’s appearance this way: “President Donald Trump turned the US Open into his own rally … walking into the stadium to a wave of cheers …” The article leads with a Fox News video clip of Trump being cheered. However, the story was updated a few hours later, adding a new video link from X with audio of people booing.

The update notes that “… not everyone was stoked about President Donald Trump’s appearance … ’cause a number of people also booed him before the National Anthem began,” calling Trump “a pretty divisive president.” Likewise, the headline states that he received a “mixed reaction.” Our analysts placed the article in the “analysis or other issues” category of reliability, with a “middle/balanced” bias.

An article from Outkick includes a portion of the same Fox News clip used by TMZ, but it does acknowledge that Trump received both cheers and boos. The article focuses on the long security lines that ultimately delayed the start of the men’s final match, reacting to fan complaints with this: “Given that President Trump takes criticism on social media for simply breathing, it should come as no surprise that he’s being ridiculed by some for attending the U.S. Open final and delaying the match.” The article was rated as “analysis” with a “skews right” bias.

An article from The Independent was written by someone who was actually there. In the video included with the article, both cheers and boos can be heard. However, analysts noted several instances of the author being critical of Trump, stating that he has “spent much of the summer cooking up various distractions“ and concluding that his visit to the U.S. Open “… was a fairly tame excursion for a president known for his ability to hog the spotlight.” The article also criticizes many of Trump’s policies, leading our analysts to give the reporting a reliability rating of “analysis” with a “skews left” bias.

Now, let’s examine the two videos that were rated by our team. The bias is evident from the titles:

“ROARS for President Trump in Deep Blue NYC TERRIFIES Dems at US Open!!!” says the Dr. Steve Turley YouTube channel.

“Trump gets LOUDLY BOOED at US OPEN as he TRIED TO HIDE IT” says a video from the MeidasTouch YouTube channel.

Turley describes the fan reaction to Trump as “the moment Democrats realize that they’ve lost more than they could have ever imagined in their worst nightmares.” He calls the positive response a “political miracle” because Trump was attending a tennis match, which is a leftist sport, in liberal New York City. Turley shows video clips that he said shows fans’ “overwhelmingly favorable” reaction to Trump (although other media played the same clip and described the reaction as boos, not cheers). 

Turley mocks protesters who were outside the stadium, calling them “moral zombies” and “freaks of nature,” and describes Trump’s financial policies as resulting in “America’s golden age.” Analysts noted several instances of insults about Democrats and the mainstream media, and rated the video as “selective or incomplete/unfair persuasion” with a “hyper-partisan right” bias.

Similarly, the MeidasTouch video was also found to be “selective or incomplete/unfair persuasion,” but with a “hyper-partisan left” bias. Host Ben Meiselas says Trump was “detested” by the crowd and “mercilessly booed,” showing videos taken by U.S. Open crowd members as evidence. (It’s important to note that if the person shooting the video is booing and is near people who are booing, then the boos are going to sound louder than the cheers, and vice versa). 

Meiselas also criticizes other Trump actions, such as sending the National Guard to D.C., renovating the White House rose garden, deflecting on the Epstein scandal, and more. He calls the government the “fascist authoritarian vile Trump regime in Washington, D.C.” and says “maybe (Trump) should stay the hell out of the United States of America because he seems to loathe the people of America so damn much. Perhaps he would feel more comfortable in Russia with his buddy, Vladimir Putin.”

What scores would you have given these articles and videos? New Topic of the Week content is posted on the website each Monday. Analyst scores are published on Wednesday. Rate them yourself and then compare your ratings with those of our analysts! Learn more here.

We revised our Topic of the Week chart to make the source logos larger and more readable. What do you think? We’d love your feedback! Email us at info@adfontesmedia.com.