Donald Trump has made "the media" into a scapegoat for what has been a brutal stretch of his campaign. As it turns out,????? ?????? ????? he might not be entirelycrazy.
To hear Trump tell it, the journalists behind a recent slew of stories in which women have come forward with allegations of Trump's sexual misconduct are all part of a widespread conspiracy. On Monday, however, Trump received a sliver of vindication: Journalists have almost entirely supported the Hillary Clinton campaign with their donations, according to a new study from the Center for Public Integrity.
"About 430 people who work in journalism have, through August, combined to give about $382,000 to the Democratic nominee," wrote Dave Levinthal and Michael Beckel in a blog post accompanying the study.
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For comparison, the study only found 50 journalists donated money to Trump, totaling $14,000. That gives Clinton 96% of donations from journalists in August.
Journalists donating to political figures -- with the majority of those donations skewing to the left -- is not a particularly new revelation. Reporters and editors who do not cover politics are generally considered in the clear to make such donations, while those that cover the issues at hand are encouraged to stay away due to conflicts of interest. Many outlets prevent their journalists from making any contributions regardless of their beats.
In this race, however, the study provides a convenient piece of data to highlight one of the Trump campaign's newest narratives.
It didn't take long to show up on Trump's Twitter feed.
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Trump spokesperson Jason Miller piled on.
“Considering that we’re witnessing the single biggest coordinated media attack in political history, it should come as no surprise,” Miller said in an interview with the Center for Public Integrity. “If the [Federal Election Commission] viewed their biased hit pieces against Mr. Trump as in-kind contributions, they would have exceeded their maximum allowable gift limits a long time ago."
Trump's media rhetoric has escalated recently. Following the emergence of a tape in which Trump could be heard bragging about sexual assaults, numerous women came forward with stories that closely mirrored how Trump said he approached women.
That led Trump to declare that the media had aligned against him. He now routinely says the media is "rigged" -- an insinuation that has also begun to lead to him implying that the election results will not be valid.