Political reporters are the worst people in the world to be setting the tone for a new presidency at a time of unparalleled challenges because they love writing about gamesmanship and hate writing about policy.
RECENTLY
The biggest story of our time requires an army of journalists to tell
It’s no longer enough for journalists to simply do a better job. We’ve got to take on some new jobs.
Journalists need to be ready with prebuttals to Trump’s election-stealing mayhem
Get Republican and Democratic election officials – particularly in swing states -- on the record that there is nothing risky or dangerous about counting every legally submitted ballot, even if it takes a few days.
How the New York Times suckers itself into publishing Republican propaganda
The Times has been caught, once again, passing off Republican operatives as “regular” Republican voters in an article intended to show how effectively Trump is maintaining his support.
If Biden wins, political journalists have a lot of catching up to do
In a post-Trump world, the press needs to immediately start holding the president to the highest possible standards of transparency, logic, and clarity.
Dueling town halls finally lead some reporters to address the extreme disequilibrium between Trump and Biden
Just as I was despairing over how campaign coverage suppresses the cataclysmic consequences of a Trump presidency, a small step forward: Our top political reporters were faced on deadline with the obvious, extreme contrast between the two choices.
In the final stretch, political journalists should flood the zone with the truth
Every report that even vaguely relates to the campaign should be firmly set in the context that this is not just a normal election between two people with opposing views; it’s a referendum on competence and democracy and unity and sanity.
TRUMP AND THE CORONAVIRUS
OBJECTIVITY
No, Americans are not hankering for more “objectivity” in journalism
A major new survey of public opinion about the news media is being misinterpreted by its sponsors to suggest that Americans don’t think there’s enough objectivity in journalism anymore. I think it shows the opposite.
The failed promise of “objective” political reporting
Our leading journalistic institutions engage in “objectivity” to achieve two major goals: An informed electorate, and immunity from accusations of bias. So, here’s my question to New York Times executive editor Dean Baquet, Washington Post executive editor Marty Baron, Associated Press executive editor Sally Buzbee, and the other proclaimed and self-proclaimed guardians of our biggest, finest news organizations: How’s that working out for you?
EXPLAINERS
Seven calls to arms for political journalists
The press – and the truth – are under siege like never before. But political journalists don’t have to take it sitting down. They can actively defend their core values, which include honest governance and an informed electorate. Here’s a look at some of the ways they could do that.
That thing that just happened didn’t just happen in a vacuum
The ultimate antidote to what ails political journalism today is context. And that doesn't necessarily mean doing a lot of extra reporting. It may mean just remembering.
TIMIDITY
Trump threatens Social Security and Medicare and the press yawns
Maybe in a few weeks, it will become conventional wisdom that Trump’s vow to cut the payroll tax was an outrage, an act of impetuousness and malice and lunacy, a gift for his grifter friends. But for now, the news reports won’t tell you what you need to know.
The critical subtext for Trump’s rage against mail-in ballots is that he wants the minority to rule
Political reporters from our top news organizations aren’t falling for Donald Trump’s transparently deceitful campaign to demonize mail-in voting. But they're not putting this latest attempt at voter suppression in its essential context: as part of a massive Republican program to create the possibility of minority rule.
When Trump takes a step toward autocracy, journalists need to call it out
Even as Donald Trump and members of his administration have asserted greater and more unilateral executive power, our top news organizations have tended to interpret those moves narrowly and naively – giving too much credit to cover stories, marginalizing criticism as just so much partisan squabbling, and leaving the accurate, alarming description of what’s really going on to opinion writers.
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