Journalists have done their jobs
But they can’t force people to read
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With a little more than a week to go until election day, it’s fair to say that journalists have done their jobs at the national level this year. The rest is up to American voters, who already have been voting early by the millions.
Journalism is a messy, imperfect process. Coverage of the presidential race this year has not been perfect by any means. But for serious news consumers, what more could you possibly need to know about Kamala Harris, Donald Trump and their running mates? If you’ve done your homework, you have a good sense of the candidates’ character, their track records, and their plans for the future.
Let’s focus first on the problems
· The media largely failed to detect the extent of President Biden’s diminished abilities until the June debate exposed the problem for all Americans to see. There is no rational explanation for how the White House press corps missed this huge story.
· There have been well-reasoned objections to the way the media were, for a while, “sane-washing” Trump’s speeches, at least over the summer. Critics felt the media were taking nonsense statements from Trump and cleaning them up for mass consumption. Those days are over, and now the media have been quoting Trump word-for-word so Americans can see for themselves the word salads that Trump produces ad nauseum.
· There has been way too much focus on polling. With the exception of the trustworthy Iowa Poll conducted by Ann Selzer for the Des Moines Register, I’ve been avoiding all polling stories. The national race is way too close, well within the margin of error, for the polls to have any meaning.
Some success stories
· The media have learned from their mistakes of 2016 by NOT carrying every Trump appearance live. Trump earned huge amounts of free media in 2016 because the cable networks saw the Trump freak show as good for ratings. That may be the case, but it was bad for democracy. This time, the media have been careful to cut away from Trump when he goes into one of his diatribes filled with lies, exaggerations and impossible promises.
· The networks took a step in the right direction by conducting debates without a live audience and with the ability to cut off the candidates’ microphones. The debates are still largely unsatisfying but they at least didn’t turn into slugfests with the candidates rudely shouting over each other or delivering canned applause lines to a live audience. And both the Biden/Trump debate and the Harris/Trump debates had consequential impact on the race. Biden dropped out. Harris proved she could not only stand up to Trump but prosecute a solid case against him.
· The New York Times has been criticized this year for being too hard on Harris and too soft on Trump, but those days are over. In recent weeks, the Times has done an outstanding job. If you have a Times subscription, be sure not to miss the story that just dropped where former White House chief of staff John Kelly finally goes on the record to confirm that Trump praised Hitler, expressed contempt for wounded soldiers, and wanted to use the military against American citizens. It is a must-read, as is this week’s story For Trump, a Lifetime of Scandals Heads Toward a Moment of Judgment.
It’s in voters’ hands now
The larger problem, of course, is what journalism is reaching which voters? I imagine most MAGA voters would not spend any time reading the two articles above in the New York Times just as I would not trust or pay any attention to anything produced by Fox News. (Not that there’s any comparison between the two. The Times reports facts and a variety of opinions. Fox is little more than a propaganda arm of the Republican Party.)
There will be plenty of navel-gazing after the election about journalism’s home runs and errors, but at this stage, voters should have all the information they need to make an informed choice. If they don’t, then they haven’t been paying attention and haven’t been doing their homework. A lot can happen in the next ten days but after several years of coverage, journalists have done their job well.