It's impossible for me to comment on media coverage because I dropped the Times and WaPo some months ago and get my news now from The Guardian,the Philadelphia Inquirer, and various Substack writers, all of whom figured it out from the beginning. Your column today is a great way to go into the official Election Day along with Heather Richardson's elegant reminder of the Stakes.
My question: When did news organizations decide it was their duty to conduct incessant polls telling us what *might* happen on Election Day? Why can’t they wait until Election Day? I fail to see how polls, which have proven extremely fallible, contribute in any meaningful way to the sum total of knowledge voters need to make up their minds.
The immediacy of the internet changed all reporting. Since the early 00’s it seems “first” has mattered more than “right”. As a populace we have been conditioned by technology to expect immediate info.
(I am 65, so I remember the world of news in the before times. Grew up outside Buffalo, we got a morning paper AND an afternoon paper!! That was grand.)
These days it seems accuracy takes a backseat to whatever gets “clicks”
I cancelled WaPo when they hired Will Lewis. Nothing good will come from a Murdoch acolyte. I cancelled the NYT months ago. I subscribe to Philly Inquirer (live in the area) and various substacks, but I desperately want the national newspapers to be held to account for the chaos they have allowed, hell, have sheperded into the public sphere. Neil Poston (think that is correct) had it right all those years ago when he wrote, “Amusing Ourselves to Death”
I do think something got through in the last few weeks. Here are three things I’ve observed that may also be why: 1) Jay Rosen and you are no longer alone. Media criticism has gone mainstream. 2) Shoutout to the brave WaPo reporter who described Trumps strange dance speech and cracked the wall. 3) Another thing I think that made a huge difference was the coining of the word “Sane washing” and the fast pick up and use of it by journalists. We need more catchy and easily understandable terms like this to combat the ongoing misuse of “objectivity”.
Thank you, Margaret, for your steadfast commitment to advocacy for the proper focus on informing the citizenry. I would add to your list of worthy media critics NYT's Jamelle Bouie, along with bloggers Dan Froomkin, Mark Jakob, and of course the estimable James Fallows. Fallows' last post says he's promised to back off the topic a bit but included a single Times headline that said identity politics is dead in 2024 (paraphrasing). Fallows then listed the myriad, disgusting, blatant examples of Trump's fundamental focus on race, gender, and even religion to eviscerate the smug, view-from-nowhere assumptions of the hed.
I strongly recommend reading former WaPo opinion columnist Paul Waldman’s Substack. His take on the freak out over Biden’s “garbage” remark was the one best I have seen:
“ The News Media Have Learned Nothing
The election is just days away, and reporters are making the worst possible choices.”
Waldman posted screenshots of the NINE articles the WaPo ran on this idiotic nothing burger. He hit the nail on the head when he wrote that “The least important story gets the most coverage”. It still shocks me that non-stories like this get far more attention than things that really impact our lives — like Trump saying he will consider RFK’s proposal to ban vaccines. The story that the World Bank named the US economy the best in the world and is driving global growth was buried in a back section of the WaPo and downplayed or ignored by most major media. That story could help correct the wrong impression so many Americans have about the success of Bidenomics, an issue that is a top concern of so many voters. Here is one of the very few in-depth articles about the effectiveness Biden’s economic policies that I have seen:
“ Is Starting to Transform America. Why Has No One Noticed?
The full effects of the President’s economic policies won’t be felt for years. That might be too late for Kamala Harris and other Democrats.”
The question “Why has no one noticed?” should have been “Why is the media ignoring this?”
Another ex-WaPo columnist I highly recommend is Greg Sargent. He now writes for the Daily Beast and does a daily podcast for David Rothkopf's sarcastically named “Deep State Radio”.
I am glad you will continue this conversation because it's needed. However, the state of legacy media is not improving. It failed miserably in this campaign and no last-minute "deathbed conversion" changes that. It learned nothing from 2016 or Iraq. The WaPo and Jeff Bezos putting their thumb on the scale for Trump and then lying about how the decision was made is the best example of this collapse. Previously objective and respected voices are compromised by ownership or lack of courage and competence. The last week of the Trump campaign wasn't "dark," as these platforms wrote, it was unhinged, lewd, and dangerous. The overriding determination to achieve "balance" allows Trump's surrogates to "downplay" and lie about his poisonous statements (see coverage of yesterday's Trump shock statement that he's okay with someone shooting at the press at his rallies...his spokesperson's ridiculous claim was that Trump actually said the media needs more protection....and major news outlets ran this lie). The future of the news media is not the Times or Post or NBC; it is independent voices who are not tethered to billionaires or who don't place access above objectivity. That's why 10% of subscribers felt they could walk away from the Post over the past few weeks; there are more credible sources of news (many on Substack). Having said this, I hope your more optimistic assessment of the state of journalism is correct because democracy does not work without a free and competent press.
When I sent an email to Peter Baker regard his continued coverage of Biden's comment,
"Biden’s Gaffes Complicate Harris’s Final Stretch, Worrying Democratic Insiders," his weak justification was indeed based on the horse race, escalating an unimportant story to something of prominence:
"It's our job to cover people in power, most especially the president, fully and without fear or favor, as the saying goes. That certainly means we point out the obvious, which is how much Democrats were upset with him for stumbling over his statement in a way that gave ammunition to the Trump camp -- and for the second time in a matter of days. That's not something we invented and it's certainly newsworthy."
Peter Baker is a sad joke. He sold his soul a long time ago. Who were these Democrats who were upset with Biden? (Are they in the room with us now?).
I watched the replay of Biden's "gaffe" before all of the drama, and I did not think he meant all MAGA supporters or Republicans, only the "garbage" supporters who agreed with the comedian's awful joke.
Biden's "garbage" comment, like Hilary's "deplorables" was completly appropriate. An accurate description of some of Trumps supporters. The fact that they cry "foul":over these descriptors is utterly disingenuous. Trump loves to play the "bully" who has the exclusive right to abusive comments. Among thousands of others, a good reason he should never be president.
Your views are always a breath of fresh air…Nate Silver confessed yesterday that the polls are extremely subject to subjective bias, something Dave Wasserman inadvertently copped to earlier. This has resulted in the so called statistical samplings by political scientists having no bias and reflecting pure data actually being another activity where, at best, you get both siderism, or at worst, you get Silver, a heavily compensated by Peter Thiel guru. The NY Times and others, which thrust themselves into the spotlight with their alleged standalone polls, perhaps should be subject to investigation as it seems its Iraq War antics have lingered now for over twenty years.
So right, Margaret. As evidence see WP’s lead story on the day before the election. All about couples breaking up being divided. Will send you Substack I wrote on Bezos if you haven’t seen it. Thank you.
I would add ensuring invitations to exclusive, closed to the public events in order to maintain their coveted "access" to Jay Rosen's list of what political journalists' want to accomplish.
I also wonder if media in general, and corporate owners in particular, have a limited understanding of its/their obligations within the freedom granted it/them under the First Amendment.
Whilst it's averred that "the role of the press in a democracy is to fairly and accurately give citizens the information they need to vote and hold their public officials accountable" too many organizations are currently screwing the pooch. Will they be afforded an opportunity to learn from the error of their mistake? Film at 11:00.
Some journalists are shining brightly in this dark time. But as someone on Twitter correctly pointed out -- by featuring the opponent of a wannabe dictator in its opening segment this weekend, Saturday Night Live showed more courage than the majority of news orgs, the GOP, and the Supreme Court combined. It's up to We the People now. Hold the light, and hold the line.
Jay Rosen was my best teacher at NYU's Grad School of Journalism, where I was on a "mid-career" fellowship for an M.S. in 1997-1998 in Cultural Reporting and Criticism. I was older than many of the teachers, including Jay, who being familiar with my NY Newsday rock music writing, introduced me around as a "recovering anti-intellectual." Though he never worked at a newspaper, he understood the blueprint and frequent pomposity of news presentation better than anyone. He would do a routine in class, using his fist as a mic, and pose as "Wolf Blitzer...here at the White House," with the White House the obvious backdrop, mocking the "breaking news," which wasn't very newsworthy. Sound familiar? Jay is always ahead of the curve.
Why is Biden's comment headline news? He isn't running for anything and isn't a spokesman for Harris. The media, once again, blows up anything they can to do false equivalency.
Here's another example. They are letting trump lead them around by the nose on the issue of election fraud. From their coverage, you'd think there's only one side that might do fraud. Just about all the fraud I've seen has been on the republican side. Here's some of the real fraud happening and getting almost no coverage except from Greg Palast:
Trump has been promoting, and raising millions for, True the Vote, which announced its aim of challenging 2 MILLION through Election Day. What’s particularly dangerous is that True the Vote’s 40,000 vigilante volunteers will be blocking the count of ballots on Election Day itself and the days after. Hundreds of thousands of voters who mail in their ballots have no idea their votes are about to be thrown into the electoral dumpster.
I expect Georgia’s MAGA-controlled county elections boards to remove one in five of those challenged. In 2020, Trump asked Georgia officials to “find” 11,780 votes. Now they will “find” 60,000 voters to remove—enough for Trump to “win” the State of Georgia.
We can easily imagine that the chaos and flames of insurrection could prevent Nevada’s and Pennsylvania’s newly elected members of the Electoral College from meeting to officially cast their ballots by the December 17 deadline.
Trump would be thrilled. With no candidate receiving 270 Electoral votes, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson will declare that the race will now be decided by the rules of the 12th Amendment. The 12th Amendment dictates that the House of Representatives will choose our President—and dig this—each state gets one single vote. California and New York will each get a vote. South and North Dakota each get a vote chosen by their Congressional delegations.
With 26 Congressional delegations controlled by Republicans, though a tiny minority of the US population, Trump would be voted back in as President.
Here's the true fraud that's happening and it's happening in more states than just Georgia.
It's impossible for me to comment on media coverage because I dropped the Times and WaPo some months ago and get my news now from The Guardian,the Philadelphia Inquirer, and various Substack writers, all of whom figured it out from the beginning. Your column today is a great way to go into the official Election Day along with Heather Richardson's elegant reminder of the Stakes.
Thanks very much. That’s good company!
My question: When did news organizations decide it was their duty to conduct incessant polls telling us what *might* happen on Election Day? Why can’t they wait until Election Day? I fail to see how polls, which have proven extremely fallible, contribute in any meaningful way to the sum total of knowledge voters need to make up their minds.
The immediacy of the internet changed all reporting. Since the early 00’s it seems “first” has mattered more than “right”. As a populace we have been conditioned by technology to expect immediate info.
(I am 65, so I remember the world of news in the before times. Grew up outside Buffalo, we got a morning paper AND an afternoon paper!! That was grand.)
These days it seems accuracy takes a backseat to whatever gets “clicks”
I cancelled WaPo when they hired Will Lewis. Nothing good will come from a Murdoch acolyte. I cancelled the NYT months ago. I subscribe to Philly Inquirer (live in the area) and various substacks, but I desperately want the national newspapers to be held to account for the chaos they have allowed, hell, have sheperded into the public sphere. Neil Poston (think that is correct) had it right all those years ago when he wrote, “Amusing Ourselves to Death”
I do think something got through in the last few weeks. Here are three things I’ve observed that may also be why: 1) Jay Rosen and you are no longer alone. Media criticism has gone mainstream. 2) Shoutout to the brave WaPo reporter who described Trumps strange dance speech and cracked the wall. 3) Another thing I think that made a huge difference was the coining of the word “Sane washing” and the fast pick up and use of it by journalists. We need more catchy and easily understandable terms like this to combat the ongoing misuse of “objectivity”.
Thanks for the good examples.
Thank you, Margaret, for your steadfast commitment to advocacy for the proper focus on informing the citizenry. I would add to your list of worthy media critics NYT's Jamelle Bouie, along with bloggers Dan Froomkin, Mark Jakob, and of course the estimable James Fallows. Fallows' last post says he's promised to back off the topic a bit but included a single Times headline that said identity politics is dead in 2024 (paraphrasing). Fallows then listed the myriad, disgusting, blatant examples of Trump's fundamental focus on race, gender, and even religion to eviscerate the smug, view-from-nowhere assumptions of the hed.
I strongly recommend reading former WaPo opinion columnist Paul Waldman’s Substack. His take on the freak out over Biden’s “garbage” remark was the one best I have seen:
“ The News Media Have Learned Nothing
The election is just days away, and reporters are making the worst possible choices.”
https://paulwaldman.substack.com/p/the-news-media-have-learned-nothing
Waldman posted screenshots of the NINE articles the WaPo ran on this idiotic nothing burger. He hit the nail on the head when he wrote that “The least important story gets the most coverage”. It still shocks me that non-stories like this get far more attention than things that really impact our lives — like Trump saying he will consider RFK’s proposal to ban vaccines. The story that the World Bank named the US economy the best in the world and is driving global growth was buried in a back section of the WaPo and downplayed or ignored by most major media. That story could help correct the wrong impression so many Americans have about the success of Bidenomics, an issue that is a top concern of so many voters. Here is one of the very few in-depth articles about the effectiveness Biden’s economic policies that I have seen:
“ Is Starting to Transform America. Why Has No One Noticed?
The full effects of the President’s economic policies won’t be felt for years. That might be too late for Kamala Harris and other Democrats.”
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/11/04/bidenomics-is-starting-to-transform-america-why-has-no-one-noticed
The question “Why has no one noticed?” should have been “Why is the media ignoring this?”
Another ex-WaPo columnist I highly recommend is Greg Sargent. He now writes for the Daily Beast and does a daily podcast for David Rothkopf's sarcastically named “Deep State Radio”.
I am glad you will continue this conversation because it's needed. However, the state of legacy media is not improving. It failed miserably in this campaign and no last-minute "deathbed conversion" changes that. It learned nothing from 2016 or Iraq. The WaPo and Jeff Bezos putting their thumb on the scale for Trump and then lying about how the decision was made is the best example of this collapse. Previously objective and respected voices are compromised by ownership or lack of courage and competence. The last week of the Trump campaign wasn't "dark," as these platforms wrote, it was unhinged, lewd, and dangerous. The overriding determination to achieve "balance" allows Trump's surrogates to "downplay" and lie about his poisonous statements (see coverage of yesterday's Trump shock statement that he's okay with someone shooting at the press at his rallies...his spokesperson's ridiculous claim was that Trump actually said the media needs more protection....and major news outlets ran this lie). The future of the news media is not the Times or Post or NBC; it is independent voices who are not tethered to billionaires or who don't place access above objectivity. That's why 10% of subscribers felt they could walk away from the Post over the past few weeks; there are more credible sources of news (many on Substack). Having said this, I hope your more optimistic assessment of the state of journalism is correct because democracy does not work without a free and competent press.
When I sent an email to Peter Baker regard his continued coverage of Biden's comment,
"Biden’s Gaffes Complicate Harris’s Final Stretch, Worrying Democratic Insiders," his weak justification was indeed based on the horse race, escalating an unimportant story to something of prominence:
"It's our job to cover people in power, most especially the president, fully and without fear or favor, as the saying goes. That certainly means we point out the obvious, which is how much Democrats were upset with him for stumbling over his statement in a way that gave ammunition to the Trump camp -- and for the second time in a matter of days. That's not something we invented and it's certainly newsworthy."
Peter Baker is a sad joke. He sold his soul a long time ago. Who were these Democrats who were upset with Biden? (Are they in the room with us now?).
I watched the replay of Biden's "gaffe" before all of the drama, and I did not think he meant all MAGA supporters or Republicans, only the "garbage" supporters who agreed with the comedian's awful joke.
Biden's "garbage" comment, like Hilary's "deplorables" was completly appropriate. An accurate description of some of Trumps supporters. The fact that they cry "foul":over these descriptors is utterly disingenuous. Trump loves to play the "bully" who has the exclusive right to abusive comments. Among thousands of others, a good reason he should never be president.
Thank for continuing to practice being a “public editor at large.”
Tough job but somebody … etc
Your views are always a breath of fresh air…Nate Silver confessed yesterday that the polls are extremely subject to subjective bias, something Dave Wasserman inadvertently copped to earlier. This has resulted in the so called statistical samplings by political scientists having no bias and reflecting pure data actually being another activity where, at best, you get both siderism, or at worst, you get Silver, a heavily compensated by Peter Thiel guru. The NY Times and others, which thrust themselves into the spotlight with their alleged standalone polls, perhaps should be subject to investigation as it seems its Iraq War antics have lingered now for over twenty years.
So right, Margaret. As evidence see WP’s lead story on the day before the election. All about couples breaking up being divided. Will send you Substack I wrote on Bezos if you haven’t seen it. Thank you.
I would add ensuring invitations to exclusive, closed to the public events in order to maintain their coveted "access" to Jay Rosen's list of what political journalists' want to accomplish.
I also wonder if media in general, and corporate owners in particular, have a limited understanding of its/their obligations within the freedom granted it/them under the First Amendment.
Whilst it's averred that "the role of the press in a democracy is to fairly and accurately give citizens the information they need to vote and hold their public officials accountable" too many organizations are currently screwing the pooch. Will they be afforded an opportunity to learn from the error of their mistake? Film at 11:00.
Some journalists are shining brightly in this dark time. But as someone on Twitter correctly pointed out -- by featuring the opponent of a wannabe dictator in its opening segment this weekend, Saturday Night Live showed more courage than the majority of news orgs, the GOP, and the Supreme Court combined. It's up to We the People now. Hold the light, and hold the line.
Jay Rosen was my best teacher at NYU's Grad School of Journalism, where I was on a "mid-career" fellowship for an M.S. in 1997-1998 in Cultural Reporting and Criticism. I was older than many of the teachers, including Jay, who being familiar with my NY Newsday rock music writing, introduced me around as a "recovering anti-intellectual." Though he never worked at a newspaper, he understood the blueprint and frequent pomposity of news presentation better than anyone. He would do a routine in class, using his fist as a mic, and pose as "Wolf Blitzer...here at the White House," with the White House the obvious backdrop, mocking the "breaking news," which wasn't very newsworthy. Sound familiar? Jay is always ahead of the curve.
Why is Biden's comment headline news? He isn't running for anything and isn't a spokesman for Harris. The media, once again, blows up anything they can to do false equivalency.
Here's another example. They are letting trump lead them around by the nose on the issue of election fraud. From their coverage, you'd think there's only one side that might do fraud. Just about all the fraud I've seen has been on the republican side. Here's some of the real fraud happening and getting almost no coverage except from Greg Palast:
Trump has been promoting, and raising millions for, True the Vote, which announced its aim of challenging 2 MILLION through Election Day. What’s particularly dangerous is that True the Vote’s 40,000 vigilante volunteers will be blocking the count of ballots on Election Day itself and the days after. Hundreds of thousands of voters who mail in their ballots have no idea their votes are about to be thrown into the electoral dumpster.
I expect Georgia’s MAGA-controlled county elections boards to remove one in five of those challenged. In 2020, Trump asked Georgia officials to “find” 11,780 votes. Now they will “find” 60,000 voters to remove—enough for Trump to “win” the State of Georgia.
We can easily imagine that the chaos and flames of insurrection could prevent Nevada’s and Pennsylvania’s newly elected members of the Electoral College from meeting to officially cast their ballots by the December 17 deadline.
Trump would be thrilled. With no candidate receiving 270 Electoral votes, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson will declare that the race will now be decided by the rules of the 12th Amendment. The 12th Amendment dictates that the House of Representatives will choose our President—and dig this—each state gets one single vote. California and New York will each get a vote. South and North Dakota each get a vote chosen by their Congressional delegations.
With 26 Congressional delegations controlled by Republicans, though a tiny minority of the US population, Trump would be voted back in as President.
Here's the true fraud that's happening and it's happening in more states than just Georgia.