The media vs. Donald Trump: why the press feels so free to criticize the Republican nominee

[Commentary] There is a case to be made that the media created Donald Trump. It was, reportedly, his anger at being dismissed by political pundits that led him to run for president in the first place. And it was, arguably, the media’s wall-to-wall coverage of his every utterance that powered his victory in the Republican primary. But slowly, surely, the media has turned on Trump. He still gets wall-to-wall coverage, but that coverage is overwhelmingly negative. Increasingly, the press doesn’t even pretend to treat Trump like a normal candidate. It’s a common criticism of political reporting that it’s hampered by a faux-evenhandedness — if one side says the sky is blue and the other side says it’s orange, then the headline will be "Opinions on Color of Sky Differ." But that hasn’t happened this year. The media has felt increasingly free to cover Trump as an alien, dangerous, and dishonest phenomenon. Trump, for one, has noticed the negativity of his coverage. It’s become a favored explanation for his sagging poll numbers.