The odds, the stakes and the scariest media news I saw all week
On the great divide in how Americans get their news and how it affects their political views
First off, thanks so much to quite a few new subscribers, who made it clear that they care — a lot — about how the news media is dealing with threats to democracy. I appreciate your interest and support for this work.
I also read your comments on my last post and paid particular attention to the ways you are protecting democracy in your own lives and communities. Thank you for that, as well; it’s inspiring.
Now, on to the scariest media news I saw all week.
It came in an NBC News poll that looked at how people get their news and how that corresponds with their political preferences.
The difference is stark: When people get their information in traditional ways — from newspapers and from the national news networks — they vastly prefer Joe Biden. When they get their news from "digital sources,” it’s a tossup. And when they don’t follow political news in any organized way, they vastly prefer Donald Trump. From NBC’s story:
“It’s almost comic. If you’re one of the remaining Americans who say you read a newspaper to get news, you are voting for Biden by 49 points,” said Republican pollster Bill McInturff, who conducted the poll alongside Democratic pollster Jeff Horwitt.
By contrast, among those who don’t follow political news, 53 percent back Trump, and 27 percent back Biden.
But of course, newspaper readership is fading fast. Local newspapers, particularly, are in deep trouble. As the former editor of a local paper myself (The Buffalo News), I clearly see the damage done to democracy when local journalism withers.
The effects are immense. Millions of Americans are badly under-informed, and some of them vote.
As columnist Will Bunch noted in his Philadelphia Inquirer newsletter: “Too many of us live in denial about the potency of the all-American low-information voter.” He observed that a 2018 study showed most Americans can’t name a single Supreme Court justice, which probably explains why a lot of people blame Biden (who is pro-choice) for restricting abortion rights when it was Trump who appointed the three conservative justices who made the difference in overturning Roe v. Wade.
One hopeful note: Maybe these low-information types are also low-interest types, and won’t bother to vote for either of the candidates they seem to know so little about.
I said in my last post that I’d be keeping track of the media that rightly emphasizes “not the odds, but the stakes” of the presidential election. And I’d point out the failures as well.
ABC News’s Rachel Scott, who covers Congress, did an excellent job of covering one of the outrages of the week: Trump’s social media account sharing a video that echoed Nazi propaganda. I admired the way Scott clearly stated how abnormal this was, how she included response from all sides, without falling prey to false equivalency, and how she gave plenty of helpful context. It’s a good example of how impartial reporting can avoid performative neutrality. Watch it here:
I wrote about Trump’s Nazi echoes in my most recent Guardian column.
On the negative side, here’s a misguided headline in the Washington Post that helps to explain why so many people think the American economy is bad when it’s actually very good. “Buying slows as gloom spreads,” it warned. And in a subhead, it went right to the odds: “U.S.’s souring mood may cast pall over fall election.” Talk about a self-fulfilling prophecy! The “gloom” story was in the lead position on the Post’s front page and was prominent on its web site.
No wonder that a majority of Americans wrongly believe that the U.S. is in recession — and blame Biden. They also think inflation is on the rise, when it has actually fallen sharply.
Here are two quotes of the week that speak to this troubled moment:
Former Republican Congressman Adam Kinsinger on CNN, talking about the flood of awful news that can cause people to tune out: “I’m worried that we’re going to become numb to it.” I also liked his reference to “the coalition of the sane.” Count me in.
Journalist David Roberts on Twitter/X: “Something future historians will struggle to explain is that, in the 21st century, all of human knowledge became instantly available to anyone in the world, and the primary effect was to make everyone dumber.”
I’m heading to New York State’s reddest Congressional district (outside Buffalo) for the long weekend, and am sure to see plenty of Trump signs and flags. Maybe I’ll ask people about their news sources…
… or maybe I’ll just go kayaking, play some tennis, and watch the sunset over Lake Erie.
Thank you again for your interest and support — and for the way you pay attention to the news. I wish that every American did the same.
Thank you as usual for your clear headed analysis of the media landscape here and at the Guardian.
I must confess that this latest episode with the overt nazi imagery really got to me. One would think that if one of the major American presidential candidates starts aping Hitler in public, the headlines and ledes would be easy to write and utterly dominate every single news outlet in the country—and instead, it feels like this was met with not much more than a shrug. What does Trump have to do for the media to wake up?
It's pretty scary to think that advances in technology allowing the knowledge of the world to be available to everyone instantly has indeed dumbed down a large part of the American, and probably world population. I've been thinking that myself, wondering it that is true. Well, I'm now convinced it's true. OK, now I'm really worried what AI will bring us. Clearly intelligent robots to do all the work, then what? I'm always just amazed by any interview with a MAGA supporter, their answers to questions. These truly uninformed people are a significant piece of our population! Please, lets have voters first pass a very basic intelligence test before going to the booth.