This article introduces an essay by Yoshihisa Komori published in the Sankei Shimbun on May 19, 2020. It discusses the bias of major U.S. media outlets such as The Washington Post, The New York Times, and CNN in their anti-Trump reporting, President Trump’s rising approval ratings, the Gallup poll, and the danger of Japanese media depending on anti-Trump media in the United States.

2020-05-19
Ironically, on the day after this Washington Post report, Gallup, the oldest polling organization, announced that President Trump’s approval rating had recorded 49 percent, the highest ever in that company’s surveys.
The following is from an essay by Yoshihisa Komori, published in today’s Sankei Shimbun under the title “The Danger of Anti-Trump Reporting.”
The note after the final asterisk is mine.
I thought that a newspaper article this candidly subjective was rare.
It was an article in The Washington Post dated May 16.
Its headline was, “Trump Is Benefiting from a Coronavirus Grace Period. It Will Not Last Forever.”
The writer was David Byler, a reporter at the newspaper specializing in analysis of public opinion polls.
The content centered on reporting the latest poll results showing that President Trump’s approval rating had remained consistently high even during the virus crisis.
However, as its “analysis,” it contained an extremely subjective assertion that “President Trump has repeatedly failed in his virus countermeasures, so his approval rating should by rights fall,” and the candid wish that “it will surely fall soon.”
It appeared as an easy-to-understand display of the bias of The Washington Post as a whole, which consistently pursues Trump-bashing.
The objective part of the article reported that, as President Trump’s approval rating in the first half of May, RealClearPolitics, RCP, which aggregates various polls, showed 46 percent, Rasmussen, which produced the most accurate polling results in the previous presidential election, showed 48 percent, and CNN television, whose anti-Trump coloration is clear, showed 46 percent.
The article says that these approval ratings are all either the same as before the virus crisis began or have risen, and therefore are phenomena that should not be occurring.
The same article especially pointed out that the current approval rating among Americans for President Trump’s economic management is as high as 52 percent, and emphasized that this is even more surprising in an environment close to economic collapse caused by the virus crisis.
In the analysis section of this article, the writer’s feeling that he could not help being vexed by this high approval rating was plainly visible.
The reporting of that newspaper, as well as The New York Times and CNN, all of which are based on an anti-Trump tone, hardly takes up the substantive content or successes of the president’s policies, and instead narrows its focus to slips of the tongue, reckless remarks, and discrepancies with the words of his aides.
Therefore, if one reads them, one can only come to think that President Trump’s governance is a failure.
Ironically, on the day after this Washington Post report, Gallup, the oldest polling organization, announced that President Trump’s approval rating had recorded 49 percent, the highest ever in that company’s surveys.
It is said to be a higher approval rating than those of Presidents Obama and George W. Bush at the same point in their presidencies.
John McLaughlin, director of the long-standing media research organization the McLaughlin Institute, commented on this phenomenon.
“Major liberal Democratic media have been dragged along by political claims, have diminished their respect for facts, and have lost the trust of the general public. In a recent survey by our institute, to the question ‘Do you think the media are fair in their reporting on President Trump?’ 48 percent of all respondents answered no, steadily exceeding the 42 percent who answered yes.”
Certainly, The Washington Post, The New York Times, and CNN have, from the beginning of President Trump’s term, continued reporting that first branded him guilty regarding the “Russia suspicion.”
After that, through impeachment over the “Ukraine suspicion,” they further emphasized the president’s “evil.”
But in neither case did the administration collapse or even suffer a wound.
If that is so, it begins to seem that the defect lies on the side of the media that judge President Trump to be “evil.”
Japanese media and “experts” would also do well to be conscious of the danger of relying on these anti-Trump media on the American side.
＊The people who control NHK’s news division must read this article with their eyes wide open＊
Guest correspondent stationed in Washington.