Fox journalist warns: Don’t trust the media

It’s a new world for politicians and the media alike, several journalists covering the New Hampshire Primary said Sunday.

Carl Cameron of Fox News Channel said the media’s influence have changed over time, noting that in the 1980s, the  Union Leader newspaper was an influential publication recognized as one of the most conservative in the nation. In addition, Cameron said, WMUR TV was the only New Hampshire television station that broadcast statewide, so candidates would have to beg for airtime.

Now, there are myriad ways for people to get information.

“Now there is too big of an emphasis on the ‘horse-race,’ but that’s what people care about most,” Cameron said in an interview while at a Marco Rubio event.

And, perhaps surprisingly coming from a journalist, Cameron warned: “You shouldn’t trust the media, talk to your friends, family, listen, read as much as you can … and then make the judgment on your own … don’t trust the media to do it for you”.

David Lightman, a national political correspondent for McClatchy, pointed to how social media is affecting the campaign, citing Sen. Marco Rubio’s poor performance in Saturday night’s GOP debate as an example.

“Twitter blew up and it will be interesting to watch how it reverberates today,” Lightman said. “In Iowa, social media had a huge influence on picking the Bernie Sanders campaign.”

Ron Brownstein, a Senior Political Analyst at CNN, said the presidential race itself is fundamentally changing. He noted that Democrat Gary Hart surprisingly won the 1984 New Hampshire primary while having only a 3 percent ranking in the national Gallup Poll. Now, however, media saturate every aspect of the campaign which is, in effect, creating a national primary.

“A tree falls in the forest and it affects every state,” Brownstein said.

He said media focus on the candidates who are doing well and have overemphasized Donald Trump because of that.