After Ohio State and the rest of the Big Ten Conference announced it was postponing the 2020 college football season, the New York Times immediately began framing the issue as hurting Trump’s reelection chances in November.

In its August 12 piece entitled, “Ohio State Football Is Canceled. Will Trump Take the Hit?,” the paper’s opening salvo went right for Trump’s throat.

“The Big Ten Conference’s decision to cancel its football season reverberated across Ohio, where the Buckeyes’ football program looms large. Some voters blamed President Trump’s handling of the virus,” the paper wrote for its teaser paragraph.

After introducing the dismay some in Ohio had over the cancellation, the paper added:

‘Trump just blew it,’ Mr. Kuchta said, alluding to President Trump’s mismanagement of the coronavirus pandemic. ‘He just didn’t handle it. He could have shut things down for five or six weeks and figured out what he was doing, but he never had a plan.’

Of course, there is a mental disconnect for anyone trying to pin college closures and sports cancellations on Trump. After all, Trump has been the loudest voice not to shut things down, not one advising to go ahead with shutdowns.

This kind of misconstruction is a perfect example of how the media has misled America throughout the COVID-19 hysteria. In another example, the Washington Examiner recently noted that because of what they see in the media, most Americans believe that 20% of the country has had it and that nine percent of the country has died from it. In reality, 168,289 have died according to the official numbers. Though the saturation of negative media coverage has led Americans to think it has been far worse than it is.

In any case, the Times continued to frame the Big Ten’s shutdown as a strike against Trump with the apparent hope that the end of college football will hurt the president in key battleground states including Ohio, Michigan, and Pennsylvania.

The paper happily quoted ESPN radio host Paul Finebaum, who said he hoped the situation would redound badly on Trump.

“As great as politics is — it’s a sport that so many people enjoy watching — it’s not as important as college football in Ohio, in Georgia, in Alabama,” Finebaum said on the air according to the Times. “And without it, people will be lost, and people will be angry. There are layers of blame to go around, and in the end, this transcends sports.

“We don’t have a day that doesn’t pass where someone doesn’t call up and blame the president. Even from the South, I’ve heard more anger directed at the president than I thought,” Finebaum added.

The Times went on to report that Trump and other key Republicans went on a short campaign to try and convince college sports — especially football — to resume their games. But, how can it be Trump’s fault that the left-leaning universities that do not support Trump or Republicans ignored these entreaties? Of course, they are doing the opposite of what Trump suggests. How could anyone blame Trump for this?

But, as the piece begins wrapping up — and after the Times literally spent more than 1,000 words assigning the blame firmly on Trump, the paper adds, “It’s far from clear how much support, if any, Mr. Trump might lose because of the absence of college football.”

So, after spending 1,000 words saying everyone is blaming Trump, the paper concludes saying they don’t really know how many might be blaming Trump? That’s journalism?

Finally, after reading this 2,000-word screed, one cannot escape the realization that the word “science” doesn’t appear a single time in the article.

Follow Warner Todd Huston on Facebook at: facebook.com/Warner.Todd.Huston.