14 DAY TRIAL // Donald Trump is emerging as a surprisingly strong candidate in the 2016 US Presidential elections, according to the latest polls, but he’s not without adversaries. The latest is media outlet the Huffington Post, which has announced its decision to not treat his candidacy as a serious issue.
The Donald is amused. He has the polls to prove he should be taken seriously, he says in a statement to TMZ.
HuffPo declares war on Trump
In a note posted to HuffPo, Ryan Grim, Washington bureau chief for The Huffington Post, and Danny Shea, editorial director, The Huffington Post, announce the decision to no longer cover Trump’s candidacy seriously, by including it in the Politics section of the website.
They’re not calling a ban on all Trump stories, but what they’re doing is perhaps an even bigger diss to the Presidential hopeful: they’re putting him on equal footing with reality stars and their often-fake dramas.
“Trump’s campaign is a sideshow,” they write, explaining the decision to feature him in the Entertainment section. “We won’t take the bait. If you are interested in what The Donald has to say, you’ll find it next to our stories on the Kardashians and The Bachelorette.”
Burn!
The fact that this is a major media outlet must have felt like a slap in the face to Trump. However, he’s not that easily impressed: in a brief statement to TMZ, he says that HuffPo is the only “clown” here because it pretends “to be a legitimate news source.”
If they were that, they would know who’s making real progress in the polls and would treat the story accordingly. He’s talking about himself, obviously.
A controversial decision
The note on HuffPo’s coverage of Trump’s “campaign” (it originally includes the word in quotes) has kicked up quite a storm of comments on the site.
While many commenters applaud the publication for taking a stand and showing what a joke Trump and his campaign are, many more accuse it of bias in coverage of the elections and condemn such a “childish” and “unprofessional” gesture.
Even if Huffington Post doesn’t like Trump as a potential President of the United States, it has a right to keep its readers / the American public duly informed and not take sides or pass judgment.
For what it’s worth, though it must have hurt him to some extent, Trump seems determined to shake those haters off much like Taylor Swift urges on that recent hit song of hers.