"My single greatest desire – the raison d'être for the work I’ve done here on Press Watch for the last four and a half years – has been for the news industry to recognize that it desperately needs a reset. Specifically: that it has failed to properly adjust to radical and asymmetric polarization of our political and media environment."
Dan Froomkin says that the finding of polls that low-information voters who prefer Trump do not read or listen to news does not let the corporate media off the hook, as many media folks are now claiming.
He notes that "the elite media has a vast influence on the national discourse." The elite media frame stories as important or unimportant, with national influence. They don't merely report news: they make news.
"I believe that by sticking to the traditional both-sides format of political news coverage – rather than constantly sounding the alarm over Trump and MAGA --- the elite media has created a permission structure for those low-information voters to throw up their hands and say 'whatever.'"
"I’d strongly disagree that the right and left are in comparable positions. Moreover, the idea that they are roughly equivalent seems to be a deliberate smokescreen by partisans to hide the real story, which is one of the unprecedented radicalization of the right in service of a minoritarian political project.
I can’t think of any precedent to this moment, at least not in American history."
Margaret Sullivan on how New York Times, with Joe Kahn as editor, is asserting its "independence":
"Trump has been charged with dozens of crimes and is sitting in a courtroom defending himself in a hush money/campaign finance case involving a porn star? Well, let us restate that Joe Biden is old!"
Keith Edwards' quote (below) is featured in her essay.
"The lesson should be clear: Authoritarian leaders weaponize traditional journalistic ethics centered on newsworthiness, balance, and objectivity. In attempting to prove their innocence, journalists end up playing—and usually losing—their game. The proper response should not be to exclude politically dangerous figures from all coverage, but to avoid covering them in a framework of their own choosing."
Brian Klaas on why we need press objectivity, not "balance":
"When the news is 'balanced' in an unbalanced world, it becomes an instrument of deception. This has made producing the news extremely difficult in an era of mass delusions and hyper-polarization."
When one side is spewing toxic nonsense and the other is trying to carry on real conversation, false equivalency by media normalizes the toxic nonsense.
"We stand at a stark divide in the fight to protect the reproductive liberty of women. One candidate, Joe Biden, promises to restore the protections of Roe v. Wade if he is given a majority in both chambers of Congress. The other, Donald Trump, is okay with a total ban on abortion and jailing doctors as long as gerrymandered state legislators pass a law banning abortion."
"The positions of the candidates could not be more different.
So, imagine the surprise of receiving a newsletter from the NYTimes by Jess Bidgood with the headline, 'Two Imperfect Messengers Take On Abortion.' (This article is accessible to all.)
The headline—and the article—create a false equivalency between President Biden and Donald Trump that does not exist."
"Trump is the first president in American history to reject the peaceful transfer of power.
It never occurred to me that these facts could somehow be perverted by partisanship. But three years later, we are seeing just that, as Republicans cling to the lie that the 2020 election was 'stolen' by Joe Biden and are poised to make Trump their 2024 nominee."
"And perhaps even more dangerous than the GOP ditching reality is the news media’s inability to cover Trumpism as the threat to democracy that it very much is. …
[C]overage of January 6 that gives equal weight to both sides—one based in reality, one not—is helping pave the road for authoritarianism."
Why are mainstream media outlets — looking at you, New York Times — arrogantly insistent on continuing their both-sides framing of Trump's current behavior? Dan Froomkin has some thoughts about this:
"On one side, you’ll find the traditionalists: the older, whiter, and supremely comfortable elite national and political writers and editors who are deeply invested in the current order."
"'Not taking sides' defines them, to a fault. These are the kinds of people rallying around former New York Times editorial editor James Bennet‘s endless whiny screed accusing the Times of insufficient bothsidesism and, at the Times, actually forming a group I call the smug caucus.
On the other side, you’ll increasingly find everyone else:"
"not just the younger and more diverse journalists but the ones from other desks – like international, investigative, business, lifestyles, culture – whose sense of self is defined by more than just not taking sides. It’s defined by informing the public of the truth.
Call them the silent journalistic majority, if you will."
"Call them the silent journalistic majority, if you will. They are doing real journalism – sometimes great journalism — and they are growing increasingly frustrated by their political colleagues’ inability to reckon with the current threat environment. …
For now, however, the traditionalists are very much in charge. Literally."
"A former president, who incited an insurrection, attempted a coup, is facing multiple felony indictments, and has expressly stated that he would like to be a dictator is planning to use the government to exact retribution on his enemies.
"The Times has no idea how to handle this threat except to present two sides: One which warns about the danger and one which prevaricates and misdirects in an attempt to hide it."
Steven Beschloss and Mark Jacob don't say this, but the point I take from their good analysis of a cynical, shallow New York Times report last week is this: the Times says Democrats want Trump splashed all over the news, when he's being relatively quiet.
And the point I take from this is that the New York Times is not about to change its approach to Trump. The both-sidesism will continue to the bitter end.
"Trump seeks to destroy democracy while Biden is trying to save it. Until the Times can embed that fundamental truth into every story about Biden and Trump, no amount of politely worded replies will conceal its dereliction of duty."
"The mainstream media is helping Trump and his authoritarian allies in four ways. ...
First, it’s drawing a false equivalence between Trump and Biden. ...
Secondly, every time the mainstream media reports on another move by Trump and his Republican allies toward neofascism, it tries to balance its coverage by pointing out some fault in the Democratic Party…."