Speaking very generally for a couple of paragraphs blog post, I think the Obama administration had decent press coverage. Campaign 2008 was kind of shitshow - LEAVE JOHN MCCAIN ALLOOOOOOONE - but campaign 2012 was surprisingly "balanced." The rise of non-fake-"view from nowhere" media, which certainly isn't always liberal and definitely isn't advocacy journalism but in which reporters are a bit more free to inject a perspective that doesn't require shutting off their brains has been good. Obama's actually had his own "sycophants" in the press, which while not always good is a necessary balance to the weight of sycophancy that comes with any Republican administration. There was that Tea party nonsense early on, of course, which everyone should be ashamed about, but aren't (the coverage of it, I mean).
But, campaign 2016 was a shitshow and all signs point to the shitshow continuing. Of course there are good journalists doing good journalism - given the mountain of conflicts and corruption it isn't as if there's a shortage of work to be done here - but there's the news and there's the talking about the news, the way what's "important" gets distilled and inserted into the ears of people who just catch a few minutes on TV or the radio here and there. And that's probably going to be as bad as we have ever seen, despite Trump being the most unpopular incoming president we have polls for. Get ready for the new normal in which 37% approval is "popular."
