You've heard of a self-fulfilling prophecy. It's when your present belief about a future event becomes an indirect cause of the future event.
In this presidential campaign the media has been engaging in something called “self-deleting criticism.” The Republican candidate does or says something that for previous candidates would be disqualifying. The journalist goes on at length about how awful it is. On the televised segment, they laugh in disbelief and nudge each other in the ribs. And then they say, “but for some reason the normal rules don't apply to Trump.”
And then, they utter the classic line, “Well, we'll have to leave it there.”
Whatever criticism they've leveled is deleted. It's as though they've said nothing.
Unfortunately at some point self-deleting criticism becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.