BRIAN STELTER (HOST): Norm, your argument over the years is that there's been asymmetrical polarization. That the Republican Party has moved further to the right than the Democratic Party has moved to the left. You say the press has not fairly covered this. And I wanted to ask Dana about that. Dana, do you agree with Norm's critique that the media has not fully explained to the audience, to the readers, to the viewers this idea of asymmetric polarization and as a result we pretend there is balance when there's not?

DANA MILBANK: I think that's exactly right and I think we in the media generally are guilty of this sort of false equivalency and saying there are equal and opposite things occurring here. You know, the fact is they have not been equal and opposite things. And I think there is a real problem now in the coverage of Trump and that the instinct in the media to say, well, he's going to be the Republican nominee, let's cover him the way we've covered Mitt Romney and George W. Bush and John McCain. My argument is no, this is something fundamentally different. This is a character acting essentially outside of our democratic system and he needs to be covered differently, but that's a real challenge and I can't tell you exactly how to do it. Certainly, the huge volume of free advertising the media are giving Donald Trump, who hardly had to spend a thing to do the nomination, really needs to be looked at.

STELTER: This is what I'm wrestling with, as well. And again, I don't have the answers either. But should Trump be covered like any other GOP candidate in history or should he be covered as someone who's outside the norms, outside the mainstream, partly because he's never held elected office, and so we don't have a list of votes that we can compare or a list of actions he has taken. What we have instead is a businessman track record and a reality TV show to compare with. It's a very different situation. And Norm, I wonder if you have any thoughts on howTrump should be covered? Should he be covered fundamentally differently than Mitt Romney or John McCain or others?

NORM ORNSTEIN: Sure, and Brian, let me go back to your question to Dana. When Tom Mann and I did our book in 2012, It's Even Worse Than It Looks, and we heralded it with the Washington Post outlook column that said let's just say it, this time the Republicans are the problem. There was almost a willful decision, especially by television networks, cable and broadcast to ignore that argument completely. They didn't want to even touch the idea that this was anything but both parties are the same. And now I think there's a dilemma that Trump is a different kind of candidate. You're discussing some of it, your first segment. The divisions among Republicans and on the conservative side, but the degree to which Trump is being treated in a fashion different from other candidates is one in which he can sit there in his pajamas and call-in in a fashion that nobody's ever been able to do before, doesn't get challenged with the second or third follow-up question. I think this is a real gut check time for American media.

Previously:

Trump Kicks Off General Campaign With Phone Interviews

Trump's Unprecedented Phone Privileges Are Helping Him Smear Michelle Fields

AP Highlights The Growing Backlash To Trump's Reliance On Phone Interviews

To sign Media Matters’ petition calling on media outlets to take away Trump’s special phone privilege, click here.