TV 2 and VG portray Trump’s statements as a colossal blunder and claim that Biden deserves all the credit. The left-leaning Associated Press tells a very different story, while AllSides’ analysis tears TV 2’s angle apart.
Earlier this week, VG and TV 2 published articles about Donald Trump taking credit for the sharp fall in prescription drug prices in the United States, the largest decline in sixty years.
According to them, former President Joe Biden alone deserved the credit.
The headlines were large and mocking, and the articles themselves were short. The point was to ridicule Trump and put Biden on a pedestal.
Screenshot from Norwegian tabloid newspaper VG.
Donald Trump enthusiastically waved a printout of a Washington Post headline in front of the press on Friday, VG writes.
But what Trump did not mention was that the experts quoted in the article itself give the credit to Joe Biden – not to him, The Guardian writes.
TV 2 had a similar headline and introduction and wrote this about Biden:
The article reveals that the fall in prices is probably due to ‘The Inflation Reduction Act’, a law passed by former President Joe Biden.
The law is regarded as one of Biden’s most important achievements and was intended, among other things, to lower the prices of prescription drugs.
It is not difficult to see the point of the reports: not to give readers the full picture, but to ridicule Trump and continue the narrative of an America heading towards the abyss under his leadership.
Who should really be embarrassed?
A glance at VG’s Facebook page is enough to see that the message is working. The comments section is full of ridicule of Trump.
Many, however, also criticise the newspaper for the way the story has been presented, and are quickly met with comments such as ‘shut up, MAGA’.
Screenshot from TV 2.
Both articles are based on a story in The Guardian, a strongly left-wing British newspaper. VG and TV 2 wrote a shorter version and included only what presented Trump in the worst possible light, including the comment from Harvard professor Richard Frank:
– If I had to bet on what mattered most, it would probably have been things around the Inflation Reduction Act, Richard Frank, professor emeritus of health economics at Harvard, told The Washington Post.
That is the entirety of the ‘expert statement’ used by VG and TV 2. The only thing missing was a few Norwegian ‘US experts’. But perhaps Løkke, Mjelde, Seltzer, Restad, Høgestøl and the rest were busy talking Trump down in other media?
The media never use experts who contradict the narrative. That is why one can read comments on Facebook such as: – As usual, Trump is completely off the mark! The most unsuccessful president of all time!
And those who see through VG’s propaganda are told as much: – If only the MAGA people could read a little more than the headline before hammering away at the keyboard!
But who is really completely off the mark here, and who should be embarrassed?
Associated Press sets the record straight
VG and TV 2 certainly ought to be embarrassed, because their claims are erroneous and misleading. Yes, Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act had something to do with this, but it is only a small part of the story. A review by Associated Press shows this.
Yes, Associated Press. The same news agency that Norwegian media use extensively, often through NTB. Associated Press is hardly regarded as a Trump-friendly media outlet either.
According to AllSides, which assesses political bias in the media, AP has a left-leaning score of –2.93, The Guardian stands at –3.50, while CNN, by comparison, stands at –1.30.
The recognised media watchdog compares news stories from the left, centre and right, and assesses the political bias of more than 2,400 media outlets and journalists.
AllSides also has a bias checker that I have used in other articles here at Document. See how AllSides assessed TV 2’s news article below. They summarised it as follows:
Overall, the news article has a left-leaning slant. The author’s own language ridicules the subject [Trump] from the headline and throughout the article. The one-sided use of sources leaves his claim unchallenged.
AP does indeed mention in the headline that Trump is taking credit for the fall in drug prices. But then comes the important qualification: The cause of the price decline is complicated.
And complicated it is. But not too complicated for journalists with a functioning brain. Norwegian media are not interested in digging deeper – or, in this case, using AP as a source – because it is better to tell readers that Trump made a fool of himself than to tell the truth.
The real picture is more complicated
AP’s review presents a rather different picture from the one VG and TV 2 give their readers. Here are some of the most important points from their analysis. They spoke to three experts, who are clear that both market competition and policy changes have affected prescription drug prices in recent years.
Juliette Cubanski, vice-president and director of the Program on Medicare Policy at the health research organisation KFF, says it is difficult to know what actually lies behind the price decline on the basis of a single figure. She believes one cannot say that the price decline is due to one particular policy change or one particular measure.
New federal figures show that prescription drug prices in the United States fell by 0.8 per cent in July and by 3.1 per cent over the past year, the largest annual decline since 1963. Trump has taken credit, while the White House points to his agreements with drug manufacturers and TrumpRx.
The real picture is more complicated, the experts say. Several factors may have contributed to the price decline. Among other things, a law from Joe Biden’s time as president made it possible for Medicare to negotiate prices with pharmaceutical companies.
AP is even cautious when discussing Biden’s IRA and uses the word ‘likely’. This stands in stark contrast to the portrayal given by TV 2 and VG.
Federal policies from the Biden era probably also played a role, most notably the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, which for the first time allowed Medicare to negotiate with drug manufacturers over the price of the programme’s top-selling prescription drugs.
Biden-era federal policies also likely played a role, most notably the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, which for the first time allowed Medicare to haggle with drugmakers over the cost of the top-selling prescription drugs in the program.
The new prices for the first ten drugs took effect in January, a change that Cubanski, Rome and Dusetzina all believed was likely to have had an impact on overall prices.
The Trump administration has continued these negotiations, as prescribed by law, and expects further savings on prescription drugs in the years ahead, AP writes.
Expensive medicines face competition
Generic drugs and biosimilars have also been an important part of the price decline. When cheaper alternatives enter the market, competition increases and the prices of expensive branded medicines and biologic drugs are pushed down.
When an expensive, best-selling drug faces competition from cheaper generic alternatives, the price falls, says Benjamin Rome, a health policy researcher at Harvard Medical School.
Humira is a concrete example. Biosimilars have entered the market and offer comparable treatment at a lower price. The same has happened with Stelara, an expensive biologic drug for chronic inflammatory conditions. Competition has led to lower prices, according to Stacie Dusetzina, professor of health policy at Vanderbilt University.
It is also important to understand what the figures actually measure. The Department of Labor’s prescription drug price index does not directly show what consumers pay. It shows how much pharmacies are paid for the drugs, both by insurance companies and consumers.
Cheaper weight-loss drugs
A new scheme from the Trump administration may also have contributed to lower prices. It reduces the price of GLP-1 weight-loss drugs for some Medicare patients. The scheme did not, however, take effect until July, so only its first month is included in the figures.
Trump has linked the price decline to his ‘most favoured nation’ agreements, which are intended to bring US drug prices down to the level of other developed countries. The experts say, however, that the effect of the agreements remains unclear. The agreements with the pharmaceutical companies have not been made public, and the models intended to implement the scheme in federal health programmes have not yet taken effect.
TrumpRx praised by experts
Experts praised TrumpRx, the White House website that directs Americans to good deals on prescription drugs, because it provides a useful resource and greater price transparency. At the same time, it is unclear how many Americans actually use the service. Several of the branded drugs offered through TrumpRx are also cheaper with insurance or are available elsewhere as less expensive generic alternatives.
This, then, is AP’s picture: Several factors have contributed to the price decline. The Biden law is one of them. Competition from generic drugs and biosimilars is another. A new Trump scheme may already have begun to affect the figures. The effects of Trump’s MFN agreements and TrumpRx, on the other hand, remain difficult to measure.
Loaded language and bias by omission
VG and TV 2 have essentially the same angle, and I ran TV 2’s article through AllSides’ bias checker. AllSides does not assess whether an article is factually right or wrong, but examines political bias on the basis of 16 different forms of bias that media outlets can employ in language, framing, source selection and presentation.
AllSides identified the TV 2 article as a news story and concluded that it has a left-leaning slant. The analysis points in particular to the fact that Trump is ridiculed through the choice of words from the headline onwards, with ‘Trump blunder’, and that the article uses loaded formulations such as ‘boasted’ and ‘boasted unabashedly’.
At the same time, it gives considerable space to the explanation that the price decline is due to Biden’s policies, without giving Trump’s administration or others who support Trump’s explanation equivalent space. AllSides describes this as slanted framing and as ‘bias by omission’, meaning bias through the omission of conflicting perspectives.
Detailed analysis
Bias in the headline
Trump blunder: Proudly showed off article – there was just one problem
The headline characterises Trump’s action as a ‘blunder’ (blunder/gaffe) before the evidence is presented. This gives the story a negative slant from the outset, rather than reporting the event neutrally and allowing readers to draw their own conclusions.
Subjectively loaded language
boasted unabashedly
The adverb ‘unabashedly’ (unrestrained/shamelessly) is a subjective characterisation of Trump’s behaviour that expresses disapproval, rather than describing his statements neutrally.
Choice of words
boasted
The verb ‘boasted’ (bragged/boasted) is a loaded word that suggests vanity or exaggeration, rather than a neutral verb such as ‘said’ or ‘presented’.
Framing
For although prices have fallen, it is probably not thanks to Trump, as he himself claimed.
This formulation presents the author’s interpretation as fact. The word ‘probably’ (probably) does express uncertainty, but the sentence structure presents it as established that Trump’s claim is wrong, while the article presents only one professor’s assessment of the causal relationship.
Opinions presented as facts
The law is regarded as one of Biden’s most important achievements
This assessment, that the law is ‘one of Biden’s most important achievements’, is presented as an objective fact without reference to any sources, even though it is a political judgement that can be disputed.
Biased use of sources
The article highlights the Harvard professor’s view that Biden’s law probably caused the price decline, without providing any counterargument or the Trump administration’s perspective on which policy measures may have contributed.
The alternative viewpoint appears in the article through Trump’s claim that he deserves the credit, but this is structurally undermined by highlighting the conflicting expert statement without providing equivalent expert support for Trump’s position.
I have sent questions to both VG and TV 2 and attached AP’s analysis. Among other things, I have asked why they chose this angle when AP’s review presents a far more nuanced picture of the matter.
Copy of the AllSides analysis for documentation.
