“I think what you’re reacting to is that, at the moment, Biden is an unpopular president seeking a second term while Trump is a popular figure inside his party who is winning primary races. I wouldn’t necessarily compare the two.”
Credit to @JoshuaHolland
I mean, if they were reporting on Biden’s progress in governing through that lens, and Trump’s progress in the election, then I could see validity to what you’re saying as the reason why. But that’s not the case – they’re reporting the election in those unequal terms.
One great example is the little nugget contained in his answer, where Trump is “winning primary races” and that’s a notable point about his popularity. Biden’s won 86% of the primary popular vote. Trump’s won 72% of the primary popular vote. Every single person who follows political news knows that there’s a little revolt of uncommitted voters because of Biden’s support for Israel. How many people know about 30+% of voters in Republican primaries saying that they won’t necessarily support the eventual nominee in November? That’s very unusual, and clearly a bigger story on exactly the same subject, and it’d be worth diving into the reasons behind it because they would uncover some objective things underlying their decisions that would be great to report on. Yet somehow it gets less press than the uncommitted voters making problems for Biden (which, obviously, are also an important story to report on.)
I mean, every president in modern history has whined about how the press is being mean to them (usually with some validity). It’s part of the job. But it doesn’t mean that careful analysis of “is the press coverage actually slanted” suddenly turns into an automatically wrong thing.
A lot of media coverage, especially in elections has to do with expectations. Biden is an incumbent facing no real opposition in the primary. Trump had real opposition, and there was a chance he would lose. You could argue he’s a semi-incumbent but I don’t think the media views him that way. Reporting on his overcoming this obstacle is naturally going to look a little more positive. In contrast, Biden has little to no chance of losing but has somehow managed to create major opposition to his candidacy anyway. This is noteworthy.
The non-committed vote is an unusual event and it ties into an important issue: the US government’s ongoing material support for ethnic cleansing in Gaza. I think it would be quite bizarre if this did not get coverage.
I am not saying that arguments of bias are automatically wrong, but as you say they have been (falsely, I think) repeated by every president. It’s going to take some compelling evidence and argumentation to overcome my natural skepticism of this idea. So far, I haven’t seen any real case be made. Not to mention that I think there is generally a greater danger in coverage of the powerful that is too positive as compared to too negative. See right-wing media’s fawning Trump coverage for an example.