{"id":2428614,"date":"2025-04-29T07:05:11","date_gmt":"2025-04-29T11:05:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/to-many-in-media-biden-age-stories-sounded-too-conservative-to-be-true\/"},"modified":"2025-04-29T07:07:55","modified_gmt":"2025-04-29T11:07:55","slug":"to-many-in-media-biden-age-stories-sounded-too-conservative-to-be-true","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/to-many-in-media-biden-age-stories-sounded-too-conservative-to-be-true\/","title":{"rendered":"To many in media, Biden age stories sounded too conservative to be true"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">26<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fto-many-in-media-biden-age-stories-sounded-too-conservative-to-be-true%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2428614&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>The article discusses the media&#8217;s coverage of President joe Biden&#8217;s age and cognitive decline, particularly in the context of the recent White House Correspondents&#8217; Association dinner. Political reporter Alex Thompson, who received an award for his reporting on Biden, highlighted the media&#8217;s failure to adequately cover the president&#8217;s age-related issues, which many deemed too conservative to be true. Thompson acknowledged that this oversight contributed to declining public trust in media, emphasizing the importance of owning up to mistakes. <\/p>\n<p>Criticism also came from former Trump governance press secretary Karoline Leavitt,who accused the media of neglecting the public&#8217;s perception of Biden as mentally unfit,despite widespread acknowledgment of his age-related struggles among voters. Surveys indicated that a significant portion of Americans, including many Democrats, believed Biden was too old for another term.<\/p>\n<p>The article examines how media coverage may have been influenced by previous experiences with Trump and a desire to avoid appearing biased. Many journalists were slower to recognize Biden\u2019s age as a critical issue, often treating concerns as partisan rhetoric rather than legitimate public sentiment. while there was awareness of the need for responsible coverage, media outlets were caught between a desire for access and the need to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/ketanji-brown-jackson-pushes-us-to-address-uncomfortable-lessons-about-race\/\" title=\"Ketanji Brown Jackson urges US to confront &#039;uncomfortable truths&#039; on race.\">confront uncomfortable truths<\/a> about the president\u2019s fitness for office.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"readmore\">\n    <button onclick=\"showReadMore()\" id=\"readmorebtn\">Read more&#8230;<\/button>\n<\/p>\n<hr id=\"line\">\n<span id=\"more\"><\/p>\n<p><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><\/p>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><span class=\"tdb-mobile-menu-button\"><i class=\"tdb-mobile-menu-icon td-icon-mobile\"><\/i><\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><span class=\"tdb-header-search-button-mob dropdown-toggle\" data-toggle=\"dropdown\"><i class=\"tdb-mobile-search-icon td-icon-search\"><\/i><\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><span class=\"tdb-mobile-menu-button\"><i class=\"tdb-mobile-menu-icon td-icon-mobile\"><\/i><\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\">\n<div class=\"tdb-drop-down-search\" aria-labelledby=\"td-header-search-button\">\n<div class=\"tdb-drop-down-search-inner\">\n<form method=\"get\" class=\"tdb-search-form\" action=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/\"><\/form>\n<div class=\"tdb-aj-search\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/#\" role=\"button\" aria-label=\"Search\" class=\"tdb-head-search-btn dropdown-toggle\" data-toggle=\"dropdown\"><i class=\"tdb-search-icon td-icon-search\"><\/i><\/a><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\">\n<h1 class=\"tdb-title-text\">To many in media, Biden age stories sounded too conservative to be true<\/h1>\n<div><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-title-line\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\">\n<div id=\"Brid_2106579\" class=\"tpd-featured-video bridtv\"><\/div>\n<p>The weekend of the White House Correspondents&rsquo; Association dinner <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/opinion\/columnists\/3393201\/white-house-correspondents-dinner-learned-nothing-biden\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"\">reopened the debate<\/a> over how the press corps covered former President <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/joe-biden\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"\">Joe Biden<\/a>&rsquo;s age-related decline while in office, a story that for many sounded too conservative to be true.<\/p>\n<p>Alex Thompson, a political reporter for <em>Axios<\/em> who had written extensively about Biden&rsquo;s 2024 meltdown, received an award from the WHCA for his coverage. He used his acceptance speech to discuss how the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/media\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"\">media <\/a>largely failed the public on that particular story.<\/p>\n<div class=\"recommended-stories\">\n<h2>Recommended Stories<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/white-house\/3393529\/marco-rubio-chli-recognition-contributions-top-ranking-latino-official\/\">Rubio to be recognized for contributions as country&#8217;s highest-ranking Latino government official<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/policy\/immigration\/3390393\/100-days-trump-border-setbacks-deporting-immigrants\/\">100-day report card: Trump tackles border but hits setbacks on deporting immigrants<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/white-house\/3393649\/trump-administration-fact-checking-social-media\/\">Senior Trump officials adopt their boss&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/trump-administration-officials-deploy-social-media-fact-check-strategy\/\" title=\"... administration officials deploy ... fact...check strategy\">combative fact-checking tactics<\/a> on social media<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"article-paywall\">\n<p>&ldquo;President Biden&rsquo;s decline and its cover-up by the people around him is a reminder that every White House, regardless of party, is capable of deception,&rdquo; Thompson said. &ldquo;We, myself included, missed a lot of this story, and some people trust us less because of it.&rdquo;&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>He added, &ldquo;We bear some responsibility for faith in the media being at such lows. I say this because acknowledging errors builds trust, and being defensive about them further erodes it. We should have done better.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>At this point, only a minority of political journalists would dissent from these points. Yet they don&rsquo;t satisfy all the critics of how Biden was covered. This includes the current <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/white-house\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"\">White House<\/a> press secretary under President <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/donald-trump\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"\">Donald Trump<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/karoline-leavitt\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"\">Karoline Leavitt<\/a>.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Leavitt said she did &ldquo;agree with that assessment from Alex Thompson,&rdquo; whom she went on to characterize as having &ldquo;won an award for writing a story months and perhaps years after the American people already knew that story to be true.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;Millions of Americans watched our mentally incompetent president struggle with his day-to-day duties of this office,&rdquo; she continued. &ldquo;We watched our country be run into the ground as a result, and nobody in the media wanted to write about that or talk about it.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>Whatever your views of this White House&rsquo;s framing of the Biden age issue, this much is true: most voters, including partisan Democrats, thought the octogenarian president was too old before the June 27, 2024, debate with Trump. An ABC News-Ipsos poll <a href=\"https:\/\/abcnews.go.com\/Politics\/poll-americans-on-biden-age\/story?id=107126589\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"\">released<\/a> that February showed an overwhelming majority thought Biden too old to serve another term, including most Democrats.<\/p>\n<p>In March 2024, a <em>New York Times<\/em>-Siena College poll <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/03\/03\/us\/politics\/biden-age-trump-poll.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"\">found<\/a> that a majority of Biden 2020 voters thought he was too old to be effective. As far back as 2022, before the midterm elections, that pollster concluded 94% of Democrats under 30 wanted their party to nominate someone else for president in the next election.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;When we look at the polls, though, the debate didn&rsquo;t suddenly thrust Biden&rsquo;s age into the spotlight for most Americans the way it seemingly did for Democratic Party elites,&rdquo; <a href=\"https:\/\/abcnews.go.com\/538\/americans-worried-bidens-age-long-debate\/story?id=111858302\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"\">wrote<\/a> <em>FiveThirtyEight&rsquo;s<\/em> Kaleigh Rogers&nbsp;in a story published nine days before Biden dropped out. &ldquo;Though polls of the presidential election have moved toward former President Donald Trump, answers to specific questions about Biden&rsquo;s age haven&rsquo;t changed much.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>Many, though not all, reporters who covered Biden daily and saw him regularly were slower to grasp the significance of his aging than <a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/3YuVZYV\">voters catching occasional glimpses<\/a> of him on television or social media. A <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/politics\/2024-election\/misleading-gop-videos-biden-viral-fact-checks-rcna133316\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"\">significant number<\/a> of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/politics\/2024\/06\/14\/cheapfake-biden-videos-enrapture-right-wing-media-deeply-mislead\/\">stories<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/politics\/2024\/06\/11\/biden-videos-republicans-cheap-fake-d-day\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"\">treated<\/a> Biden age concerns as <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/DrewHolden360\/status\/1916526357976166848\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"\">right-wing mis- or disinformation<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/thehill.com\/policy\/technology\/4728510-white-house-push-back-cheap-fake-videos\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"\">amplifying<\/a> his team&rsquo;s talking points on the issue, in <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/biden-trump-videos-age-cheap-fakes-misinformation-a4f2fb5215e9d46520fbaf1cbd79b0b9\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"\">some cases just days before<\/a> the fateful Biden-Trump debate.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Like the COVID-19 lab leak theory, the complaints about Biden&rsquo;s age and acuity sounded like Republican talking points. And they frequently were so used. Some political reporters felt Republicans <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/daveweigel\/status\/1916832932708180215\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"\">overplayed concerns<\/a> about Biden&rsquo;s health in 2020 and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/hillary-clinton\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"\">Hillary Clinton<\/a>&rsquo;s in 2016.<\/p>\n<p>But Biden came into the presidency as someone who had been on television for half a century. It was much easier to independently assess how he looked and sounded than it was to the bottom of COVID origins, and it did not require taking selectively edited videos or Alzheimer&rsquo;s diagnoses by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/democrats-turn-on-white-house-chief-of-staff-ron-klain-should-be-fired\/\" title=\"... Turn On ... Chief Of Staff: \u2018Ron Klain Should Be Fired\u2019\">cable news pundits<\/a> at face value.<\/p>\n<p>Coverage of the 2020 and 2024 campaigns involving Biden was also colored by <a href=\"https:\/\/slate.com\/news-and-politics\/2016\/11\/how-journalists-failed-in-2016-and-what-we-must-do-to-cover-president-trump.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"\">media regrets<\/a> over <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/lifestyle\/media\/media-coverage-of-the-2016-campaign-was-disastrous-nows-the-last-chance-to-get-2020-right\/2020\/07\/24\/f215f068-cd17-11ea-b0e3-d55bda07d66a_story.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"\">how the 2016 election<\/a>, which Trump won in an upset, was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.brookings.edu\/articles\/two-views-on-media-coverage-of-2016\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"\">covered<\/a>. Some reporters thought Trump <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/news\/no-the-media-isnt-biased-against-hillary-clinton\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"\">benefited<\/a> from how their industry had handled his first campaign and did not want to repeat those alleged mistakes or make Biden&rsquo;s age the equivalent of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cjr.org\/the_media_today\/biden_trump_media_but_her_emails.php\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"\">Hillary Clinton&rsquo;s emails<\/a>, which liberals thought got <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vanityfair.com\/news\/2022\/10\/but-her-emails-behind-the-new-york-times-maddening-hillary-clinton-coverage?srsltid=AfmBOoqyceH_nV0LtwTslJi76IQ2xxnyKAqycC4JY7DZf87DeDehxYJk\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"\">excessive attention<\/a> even outside the conservative press.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The need for access to the Biden White House also surely throttled stories about his age and Hunter Biden&rsquo;s laptop. Some sources would not cooperate as long as the elder Biden remained politically viable, which is one of the reasons the <a href=\"https:\/\/nymag.com\/intelligencer\/article\/conspiracy-of-silence-to-protect-joe-biden.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"\">dam burst so soon<\/a> after the debate. Finally, there was credulity about assurances that Biden was consistently better in private than he appeared to be in public.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/white-house\/3391188\/pressure-builds-trump-the-deal-maker\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"\"><strong>PRESSURE BUILDS ON TRUMP THE DEAL-MAKER TO DELIVER&nbsp;<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Sometimes, more than one factor was in play at once. When the <em>Wall Street Journal <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/podcasts\/the-journal\/behind-closed-doors-bidens-age-is-showing\/ac31b8a6-9bb7-4e00-a258-646927503f52\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"\">cast doubt on<\/a> Biden&rsquo;s energy behind closed doors, the on-the-record sourcing tilted Republican, and Democrats,&nbsp;including some who would call on Biden to at least consider withdrawing after the debate,&nbsp;publicly pushed back.<\/p>\n<p>Yet it is difficult to escape the conclusion that a desire to avoid playing into Trump&rsquo;s hands with coverage that sounded too much like Republican messaging made it difficult for some in the media to believe their own eyes and ears.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p> <script data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/cdn-cgi\/scripts\/5c5dd728\/cloudflare-static\/email-decode.min.js\"><\/script><script>!function(){var g=window;g.googletag=g.googletag||{},g.googletag.cmd=g.googletag.cmd||[],g.googletag.cmd.push(function(){g.googletag.pubads().setTargeting(\"has-featured-video\",\"true\")})}();<\/script><script>var _bp=_bp||[];_bp.push({\"div\":\"Brid_2106579\",\"obj\":{\"id\":\"27789\",\"width\":\"1280\",\"height\":\"720\",\"stickyDirection\":\"below\",\"video\":\"2106579\"}});<\/script><script defer src=\"https:\/\/services.brid.tv\/player\/build\/brid.min.js\"><\/script><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Many in the media found Biden&#8217;s age stories too conservative to believe<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2659,"featured_media":2428615,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/biden-pardons.webp","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[33651],"tags":[8808,3620,4188],"class_list":["post-2428614","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-western-journal","tag-age","tag-biden","tag-media"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/biden-pardons.webp","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2428614","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2659"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2428614"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2428614\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2428618,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2428614\/revisions\/2428618"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2428615"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2428614"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2428614"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2428614"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}