'The US media didn't do their job scrutinising Donald Trump as a candidate in 2016'

11 March 2021, 12:48

James Fletcher speaks to LBC about Donald Trump being elected in 2016

The US media didn't scrutinise Donald Trump effectively in the lead-up to 2016 presidential election, film director James Fletcher has told LBC.

Mr Fletcher spoke to LBC's Iain Dale after the release of his feature length film about the 2016 election, entitled 'The Accidental President'.

Writing about the film on his website, Iain has said: ‘The Accidental President’ doesn’t just explain why Trump lost, but also why Hillary Clinton lost.

"At the end of the film you’re left thinking to yourself, well, that was bleeding obvious now I come to think about it, but it is the film that puts the jigsaw pieces together."

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Speaking about the film, Mr Fletcher told LBC: "We basically had chapter headings of things we wanted to talk about, [such as] the state of America, the media, the candidates, social media, and on and on."

Speaking of US media coverage of the 2016 election, Mr Fletcher also told LBC that after Trump became the Republican nominee the election "was still called for Hillary Clinton".

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Mr Fletcher explained: "In my opinion, it meant that the media was very lazy in its analysis because they didn't spend much time analysing Trump and really seeing what he was about.

"They saw him as good ratings, good television, and therefore good income. But did they really do their job in terms of scrutinising him as a candidate? I don't believe they did."