Yearly Archives: 2020

Mitch McConnell is no more credible or empathetic than Trump, but still gets indulgent press coverage

What political reporters need to do is shift some of their toxicity from Trump to McConnell, whose lies and machinations are much more consequential right now.

Political reporters want a fight with Biden? Fight for transparency!

If, after four years of completely failing to hold Trump accountable, the political press suddenly wants to prove how tough it is, there is a constructive way.

Red alert for reporters as Trump loyalists destroy the evidence on their way out the door

The news that CDC director Robert Redfield forced career staff to delete an incriminating email from a Trump political appointee is a red alert moment for Washington-based reporters, who should fan out to everywhere Trump loyalists could by trying to destroy evidence.

As Biden prepares, political reporters consider extreme GOP obstruction a given, rather than an outrage

The media is already circumscribing Joe Biden’s presidency by insistently positing extreme Republican intransigence and treating it as normal and inevitable.

AP, NPR and others suddenly sounding all tough on Trump, but it’s too little and too late

A few weeks of somewhat less mincing coverage of Trump means nothing. It does not mean lessons have been learned. It is no cause for optimism.

Biden’s press secretary needs to throw open the windows of the White House

After four years of con games, cover-ups, conspiracy theories and contradictions, the next president of the United States needs to restore the nation’s trust in his office – and the only way to do that is with radical transparency.

Namby-pamby political journalism isn’t going to reach the truth-deniers

More than 73 million people voted for Trump in the presidential election, suggesting that the strain of overt fact-rejection nurtured by the right wing is still very much with us -- and unlikely to succumb any time soon to more journalistic business-as-usual.

Hey political reporters – get lost!

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.

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.

Sometimes the stonewall is an answer

At this point it couldn't be more clear: Donald Trump recklessly and corruptly violated debate commission rules by not getting tested for COVID-19 shortly before the Sept. 29 debate in Cleveland.