#political coverage

[contemplatingoutlander]

This is an excellent summary of research that was done on two major mainstream news publications--The Washington Post and The New York Times--regarding whether the content of their front pages (from Sept. 1 to Nov. 8, 2022) provided readers with information that would help them to better understand policy differences between Democrats and Republicans in the leadup to the 2022 election. Unfortunately, the study discovered that these "liberal" newspapers of record both tended to post entertaining "horse race and campaign palace intrigue" articles rather than articles discussing political party policy differences.

When these two newspapers did report on policy issues, surprisingly (especially given its liberal reputation) the Times covered more topics related to Republican interests (i.e., "China, immigration, and crime"); whereas, the Post covered more topics of greater interest to Democrats (i.e., "affirmative action, police reform, LGBTQ rights")

Below are the opening and closing paragraphs from the article, which sum up the importance of how the mainstream media shapes public perceptions of election issues--often in ways that could wittingly or unwittingly help dangerous politicians like Trump win powerful positions in our government.

Seven years ago, in the wake of the 2016 presidential election, media analysts rushed to explain Donald Trump’s victory. Misinformation was to blame, the theory went, fueled by Russian agents and carried on social networks. But as researchers, we wondered if fascination and fear over “fake news” had led people to underestimate the influence of traditional journalism outlets. After all, mainstream news organizations remain an important part of the media ecosystem—they’re widely read and watched; they help set the agenda, including on social networks. We decided to look at what had been featured on the printed front page of the New York Times in the three months leading up to Election Day. Of a hundred and fifty articles that discussed the campaign, only a handful mentioned policy; the vast majority covered horse race politics or personal scandals. Most strikingly, the Times ran ten front-page stories about Hillary Clinton’s email server. “If voters had wanted to educate themselves on issues,” we concluded, “they would not have learned much from reading the Times.” [...] The choices made by major publishers are not wrong, per se, for the same reason that one newsroom cannot objectively know how to cover an issue, or how much to cover it: no one can. Still, editorial choices are undeniably choices—and they will weigh heavily on the upcoming presidential race. Outlets can and should maintain a commitment to truth and accuracy. But absent an earnest and transparent assessment of what they choose to emphasize—and what they choose to ignore—their readers will be left misinformed. [color emphasis added]

[edited]

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Mike Luckovich, Atlanta Journal Constitution

* * * *

Why Ronna McDaniel’s hiring and “firing” by NBC matters.

March 25, 2024

ROBERT B. HUBBELL

Opening thoughts

In the span of 72 hours, NBC announced the hiring and partial “firing” of former Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel. McDaniel’s hiring sparked a firestorm of protest within NBC internally and by viewers of MSNBC and NBC that caused the network’s executive to announce that she would not appear “on air” on the MSNBC cable network. (As of Sunday evening, it appears she will continue to appear on NBC as a political contributor.)

NBC’s decision to hire McDaniel was deeply troubling on many levels. The backlash by viewers and journalists at MSNBC and NBC was instructive and encouraging. But this story also serves as a morality tale for the challenges we will face in the next seven months as the media and pundits normalize and dismiss the attempted coup and insurrection.

Indeed, the hiring and partial retraction of McDaniel’s employment occurred amidst a renewed round of handwringing by pundits and consultants who are freaking out about the possibility of Biden losing in November. That fear is rooted in a stubborn refusal to acknowledge the stakes of the 2024 election and an obsessive compulsion with “favorability ratings.”

It’s a good thing none of those pundits or consultants were in charge of the Continental Army during the American Revolution when George Washington’s battlefield record was six victories, seven losses, and four draws. The modern-day pundits would have surrendered after the first loss, and America would be a colony of the United Kingdom today.

We will be forced to endure a constant barrage of defeatism from the political class in the months to come. Why? They are reserving their pre-emptive “I told you so” rights so that if things turn out badly, they can claim to be geniuses. If Biden wins, no one will remember or hold them accountable for their defeatism.  For the pundits, it’s a “Heads I win, tails you lose” proposition.

So, let’s burst the “I am a genius” balloons of the pundits now. The 2024 presidential election will be a close race. It takes no great skill or insight to wring your hands and say you have a bad feeling about the election. At this point, pundits and prognosticators are dead weight, holding back those of us who refuse to retreat at the first hint of trouble.

Most of the analysis by the self-proclaimed experts is incredibly superficial—about a quarter inch deep. For example, a reader sent me an “economic outlook” from the large Wall Street bank managing her retirement account. The Wall Street bank said that the markets are beginning to anticipate a Trump victory because Biden’s unfavorability ratings remain high.

The reader’s retirement advisers apparently do not understand that Americans actually vote for president and that elections are not determined by “favorability ratings.” Voters are not securities traded in an efficient market. They are people motivated by a multitude of factors.

The investment advisers do not appear to believe that women (or men) care about having their reproductive liberty controlled by religious zealots, allowing weapons of war to be carried in public without a permit, rolling back climate protections after the hottest year on record, disenfranchising Black voters, denying equal dignity to LGBTQ people, or allowing Americans to choose their leaders.

Nor do the investment advisers appear to be concerned that one of the candidates for president has 91 felony indictments, will sit through one criminal trial before the election, has promised to be a dictator, is threatening to blow up the strongest military alliance in the world, and appears (again) to be supported by Russia in his bid for the presidency.

We are in uncharted waters. Old maps do not apply. But pundits, pollsters, and Wall Street gurus insist on looking back to templates and spreadsheets that applied in “normal” times.

We are living through an exceptional moment in which we can make our own rules. Recognizing that fact and having the audacity to break “the old rules” to create a new template for success is critical to controlling the outcome of the 2024 election. Don’t allow yourself to be weighed down by consultants re-litigating the 1992, 2000, 2008, or 2016 elections.

I could go on, but you get the point. We control our destiny—but only if we ignore people who tell us we are sheep, shares of stock, or widgets. We are not. We are Americans wielding the awesome power granted us by the Constitution.

But how is Ronna McDaniel’s hiring and firing related to the shortsighted defeatism of the consulting class? Read on!

Rona McDaniel’s hiring illustrates the normalization of the insurrection and coup among the media and political class.

There is a direct line between normalizing the coup and panicking about Biden’s prospects in 2024. Hear me out.

Ronna McDaniel was aware of the fake elector's plot in real-time and did nothing to stop the attempted coup. Worse, she participated in a call to pressure local elections officials in Michigan to refuse to certify election results based on non-existent fraud. When the media reported on her participation in the election interference plot, she accused MSNBC of ‘spreading lies’ and employing ‘prime time propagandists.’” She repeatedly claimed that the 2020 election was “rigged.”

Regardless of whether Ronna McDaniel has criminal liability for the attempted coup, she cheered loudly for its success and smeared journalists who spoke the truth about the first-ever effort to prevent the peaceful transfer of power. That alone should ban her for life from any role at a legitimate news platform.

It is reprehensible that Comcast / NBC would hire Ronna McDaniel as a political consultant after her election denialism and active involvement in at least one overt act to overturn the Constitution. And yet, dozens of executives at NBC apparently view the attempted coup as part of the game of hardball election politics. They are ready to forgive and forget despite the lack of accountability for Trump and his advisers—including members of the RNC.

By reducing the attempted coup and insurrection to mere “partisan politics,” NBC is misleading the American people about the stakes in 2024 by denying the reality of what happened in 2020. And if you ignore the stakes, if you ignore the unprecedented nature of the 2024 election, then perhaps it isn’t unreasonable to say, “Well, in 1992, George H.W. Bush’s favorability ratings were X and he lost.” But Bill Clinton in 1992 isn’t Donald Trump in 2024. The world has forever changed because of the insurrection and the incipient fascism that is roiling beneath the surface.

We cannot allow NBC to continue in its misguided view of what is at stake in 2024. Read on!

The backlash against NBC was partially successful.

Hundreds of readers of this newsletter—and tens of thousands of Americans (an estimate) let NBC know that they strenuously objected to the presence of Ronna McDaniel on the network. Journalists at NBC and MSNBC also spoke out. The combined pressure worked—at least at MSNBC. See WaPo, Former RNC chair Ronna McDaniel faces sharp criticism after NBC hiring. (This article is accessible to all.)

According to WaPo, the president of MSNBC, Rashida Jones, sent an internal memo assuring MSNBC staff that Ronna McDaniel would not be forced on the hosts at MSNBC as an on-air contributor or commentator. Good! The pressure campaign worked.

But it is not enough.

McDaniel appeared on NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday and attempted to dismiss her previous election denialism by saying that as chair of the RNC she “had to take one for the team.” One reasonable interpretation of that statement could be, “I lied because I was paid to lie.”

Chuck Todd was part of an NBC panel that dissected McDaniel’s interview on Meet the Press by Kristen Welker. Chuck Todd said,

Our bosses owe you [Welker] an apology for putting you in this situation because I don’t know what to believe. . . . I have no idea whether any answer she gave to you was because she didn’t want to mess up her contract. There’s a reason why there’s a lot of journalists at NBC News uncomfortable with this, because many of our professional dealings with the RNC over the last six years have been met with gaslighting, have been met with character assassination.

Good for Chuck Todd! (Not usually on my list of “go to” sources.) Let’s hope he speaks for a substantial portion of the NBC News staff—and that NBC management is listening.

The deluge of comments from listeners had an immediate effect on the editorial and staffing decisions at MSNBC! There is a lesson in that for all of us! We can fight the normalization of the coup and insurrection. Indeed, we must! Otherwise, voters will be misinformed about the stakes of the 2024 election.

There is more to be done.

As of Sunday evening, Ronna McDaniel appears to remain at NBC as a “contributor.” Thanks to a reader (Susan O. S.) for identifying the executives at NBC who oversee the news function at the NBC network (not to be confused with the cable-based MSNBC). The email addresses are:

President, NBC: Rebecca.Blumenstein@nbcuni.com

SVP of Politics: carrie.budoff@nbcuni.com

Keeping Ronna McDaniel “off the air” at a legitimate media outlet is imperative. She lied before she joined NBC and smeared NBC’s journalists for telling the truth. She participated in at least one act designed to overturn the election. She should not be trusted with any news platform that reaches persuadable voters—because we have no reason to believe that she will tell the truth going forward.

The stakes are simply too high, and the time is too short for NBC to “see what happens” if NBC “gives her chance.” McDaniel has proven who she is; we should believe her.

Let NBC know how you feel about its cynical willingness to play politics with our democracy.

[Robert B. Hubbell Newsletter]

[lacewise-psas]

The New Yorker just published an op-ed that seemingly argues it isn’t journalism’s job to tell the truth, inform or educate the public, investigate leads, fact check, or protect democracy.

You may think I’m overreacting or exaggerating.

Here’s a screenshot.

Let me pretend this is true and a serious argument from serious people for a second. If none of those things are a journalist’s job or responsibility, what is? Attention? Becoming a vector for disinformation campaigns? What makes journalism different from influencing then? Or any other marketing strategy? I have this exact same problem with online activists.

I am alarmed by what I perceive as increasing number of self-appointed ‘experts’ in many fields who insist that reliability, facts, evidence, or truth isn’t their job. It’s someone else’s. I have not gotten any answers on who that person should be, other than a vague impression they’re talking about people being solely responsible for their own education.

If you think that, you’re not just a Conservative, you’re an authoritarian. I don’t care how “progressive” you claim to be. You cannot bootstrap literacy in any subject. Nor should anyone. Foundational books, journal criticisms, etc do not just exist for decor. We did not just spring out of a coconut tree in 2004 and everyone acting like we did and we can ignore everything before the ipod came out is very strange and deeply untrustworthy.

If you think criticism is a barrier to literacy instead of a key tool to obtaining it, I am genuinely going to assume you’re a fascist. No actual experts in criticism, journalism, sociology, or psychology agree. Pick up some of their books sometimes!!! They’re out there!!!

You are entitled to your own opinions. You’re not entitled to your own reality. If your justifications are objectively wrong, take the L and accept you’re wrong. It’s possible and realistically much more likely.

Sometimes the evidence disagrees with me, I don’t start arguing that any and all evidence is worthless. This is such a blatant propaganda tactic, I’d be surprised it worked if I hadn’t seen how Maria Butina went down.

I have no idea if this is supposed to be a justification for incompetence or malice. Frankly, I don’t care.

If I see you saying anything like this, I’m not going to back down or be polite about it anymore. You should be branded as a liar and your audience deserves to know how high your opinion of liars is.

This is unhinged.

What context could possibly make this acceptable? Wasn’t everyone’s problem with politicians their perceived dishonesty?

This isn’t just a thought-terminating cliche. I am having trouble reading this as anything but an assertion that Dunning-Kruger sufferers have more qualifications for a PhD than actual subject matter experts.

The only other people publicly arguing that are corporate executives who run companies who have billions of dollars for ad campaigns and constantly interfere with media so much there are court testimonies on the subject. This is not organic. This is a zombified hot dog jello take from the 1980s. I would like to start asking why this wasn’t called out the moment it started reappearing but the answers are either people didn’t care about the similarities or their research skills (remember, this is what real experts get accolades for) is so poor they didn’t know.

[deadpresidents]

The media keeps saying things like "this is unheard of". NO, IT'S NOT.

JFK. RFK. George Wallace. Gerald Ford (twice). Ronald Reagan. Steve Scalise. Gabby Giffords. Not to mention Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, and MLK. And that's all since 1960. This happens pretty often in the United States.

And is anyone surprised that there's been an act of political violence in 2024? Every conversation I hear is dancing on the edge of "political violence."

[heritageposts]

if you're subscribed to the washington post, it's time to cancel your subscription

as if their coverage of the genocide in gaza wasn't bad enough, this is now the kind of vile racist shit they're apparently okay with publishing in their editorial cartoons

and if you're unfamiliar with the artist, michael ramirez, here are some of the cartoons he's made for other publications:

(putting them under a read more because there are so many of them and they're all disgustingly racist and/or islamophobic)

[kaurwreck]

I typically keep work/Tumblr separate nowadays, but the Senate passed the TikTok bill, and the President is aching to sign it.

It's wildly unlikely TikTok will manage to divest within 270 days, and the potential three month extension won't do much either, so this amounts to a ban. But more than just TikTok, the language of the bill-soon-to-be-law grants the President incredibly broad authority to ban or force the sale of other foreign-owned apps, too, especially given its very expansive definition of "foreign-owned apps."

I don't have a particular call to action that I care to offer here. But, it's something people (not only US citizens) should be aware of, as this is a pretty big fucking deal.

[alwaysbewoke]

the fix is in!!

[doomdoomofdoom]

When I said "Vote Blue now so you can vote Third Party in the Future. Because if you don't vote Blue now, you may not be able to vote in the future at all", I wasn't exaggerating.

[elumish]

(Posted 7/13, 7:34 PM ET)

If anyone is wondering what is going on with the Trump rally situation, the two best places for live coverage so far seem to be:

New York Times

Washington Post

Both are gift links, so you should be able to access them even without an account.

[whatbigotspost]

CAUSE IM PROUD TO BE AN AMERICAN

WHERE AT LEAST I KNOW IM FREE

[christinaroseandrews]

Keeping an eye on the UK election results as an American is wild.

Labour is the red party? Tories are blue? Who are all these other people? I heard there would be darth vader. I was promised darth vader.

Are the liberal democrats actually liberal or democratic? The reform party are apparently Nazis. Is the UK Green party like the US green party?

The BBC reporters all seem really confused.

What is this slider thing?

I mean, I'm glad that it looks like the Tories are on their way out... but Now I know how the rest of the world feels about U.S. elections.

[allthecanadianpolitics]

The federal government unveiled its new dental-care plan on Monday — a $13-billion insurance program that will start covering routine dentistry costs next year for people who meet a certain income threshold.

Ottawa will cover kids under 18 and some seniors first before expanding the program to all eligible low- and middle-income Canadians in 2025.

Applications for seniors aged 87 and over will open later this month. Other age groups will be able to apply in the new year.

The staggered application process is designed to make the rollout as smooth as possible. The government says it expects millions of people to avail themselves of this new component of Canada's social safety net.

Full article

Tagging: @politicsofcanada

[jangillman]

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by David Harris Jr (@davidjharrisjr)

[deadpresidents]

"If one morning I walked on top of the water across the Potomac River, the headline that afternoon would read: 'President Can't Swim.'"

-- President Lyndon B. Johnson, on the cynical media coverage that he believed he and his Administration often received, particularly when compared to the coverage of his predecessor, John F. Kennedy.

[marvelsmostwanted]

I know we are barreling toward potential economic and political collapse but I don’t think Democrats in the House have had this much fun in ages. It’s nice to see. They’re all hanging out, eating popcorn, supporting Hakeem Jeffries, making fun of Kevin McCarthy who can’t get out of his own way, being raucous because there’s no rules,,

…Also I just never tire of watching Republicans lose

[save-the-villainous-cat]

wow isn't it cool that All Quiet on the Western Front won some Academy Awards in 2023, the same year in which Germany started to ban pro-Palestine protests :) isn't that amazing how we have learnt absolutely nothing?