That's my shortand for the organizing principle we most need from journalists covering the 2024 election. Not who has what chances of winning, but the consequences for our democracy. Not the odds, but the stakes.
Today the New York Times published an example of stakes reporting:
"Trump and his allies are planning a sweeping expansion of presidential power over the machinery of government...."
I wish the headline hadn't normalized, for want of a better word, Trump's plans as normal U.S. politics. Trump is planning to try to turn the presidency into a dictatorship. The "strategy" is authoritarianism. The headline soft-soaps it more than the story, but the story doesn't frankly and truthfully call it what it is.
I agree with this... "The headline soft-soaps it more than the story, but the story doesn't frankly and truthfully call it what it is."
One factor might be this: Charlie Savage has been covering the expansion of executive power for a long time. One of his themes is that this is a long term trend and presidents of both parties contribute to it. The act of allowing for this fact might have contributed to the underplaying you and others noticed.
@jayrosen_nyu "Stake" is originally a gambling term, as in the following passage from Thoreau's On the Duty of #civildisobedience
"All #voting is a sort of gaming, like chequers or backgammon, with a slight moral tinge to it, a playing with right and wrong, with moral questions; and betting naturally accompanies it. The character of the voters is not staked. I cast my vote, perchance, as I think right; but I am not vitally concerned that that right should prevail. I am willing to leave it to the majority. Its obligation, therefore, never exceeds that of expediency. Even voting for the right is doing nothing for it."
Politicians are not concerned about their constituents, but look to corporate "stakeholders" to fund their campaigns, as mass media cover elections as sports, reporting on the odds for those ready to stake the future of the planet on the outcome of elections.
@jayrosen_nyu please read article in NYT of Trump/GOP /Heritage F abt consolidating power in #President & hiring sycophants 2 listen 2 him & does what he wants: his generals, his Supreme Court, his Justice Department, his military only answering to him..THIS IS DANGEROUS. THIS IS A DICTATORSHIP. THIS CANNOT HAPPEN! Vote for Joe Biden . DO NOT SPLIT YOUR VOTE FOR THIRD PARTY. DONT GIVE FASCIST TRUMP OR GOP POWER. IF U R IN NH &BIDEN IS NOT ON BALLOT BECAUSE OF SC…WRITE HIM IN.
@jayrosen_nyu
I like what you've said here, "the organizing principle we most need from journalists covering the 2024 election. Not who has what chances of winning, but the consequences for our democracy. Not the odds, but the stakes."
But, I don't think that it is just up to professional journalists and pundits. I think social media posters need to stop trying to predict winners and losers too. The same goes for #GlobalWarming
We have to focus on what can be done to avoid the worst outcomes
@jayrosen_nyu But Jay I wonder what they are doing to split the Biden vote. Bannon getting RFK Jr. to run, NO Labels candidate(Manchin was here in NH with them yesterday), Biden won’t be on NH ballot because he chose SC to be his first primary, but NH will go first anyway without him( because it’s law here). There is lots of mayhem going on to take votes from Biden.
@jayrosen_nyu Stake journalism. That sounds extremely useful, not just for journalists but for us teachers as well. You don’t happen to have more examples of this, and probably examples of the worse odds-journalism?
I lurked followed you on Twitter for ages, but since I actually have an account here let me take a sec and say thank you for the important work you do.
Also yes, why do the News think we need to know who has the best odds, a la horse race versus who they are, what they policies actually are, etc.
Nit done yet, only in the savvy discussion -you are dead on with nothing standing for anything but winning, but I’ve already filed in tactics rhetoric section of my bookmarks.
You do good work, and I’m glad you are out there doing your thing.
Thank you for the gifted article. Always appreciate that.
The stakes are incredibly high. But like Biden said during his campaign, "nothing will fundamentally change." We need change. We need huge change. Starting with the wealth gap. The inequity. The inequality. Things continue to deteriorate. We need change before it's just too late
@jayrosen_nyu If (and that's a big if) he gets back in power, DT's going to gut so many of our federal agencies. Not that I have any sympathy for the military or intelligence agencies, but I do not want to see a return of the spoils system anywhere in our gov't. Horrific but not at all surprising.
Here is what I have said about that. Who's ahead has its place. But it should not be the organizing principle for covering the 2024 election. We need something much better.
This would have been a great way to describe the risk of dying of COVID in the early pandemic. The odds may or may not be high, but the stakes are death or lifelong disease.
@jayrosen_nyu If y’all recall American history, we had a “unitary executive” once. His name was George III. The American people didn’t take well to being under his “authority”.
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