Press Watch mission statement: Political journalism needs a reset

No one can possibly argue that modern political journalism has fulfilled its essential mission of creating an informed electorate.

So it’s long past time for a reset.

Let’s start with the overarching problem: Misinformation, disinformation and gaslighting have become rampant in our political discourse, turning citizens against each other, choking the legislative process, eroding confidence in elections, and, in the age of Covid, literally getting people killed. A striking number of voters are laboring under a series of delusions that make them incapable of rational decision-making. The country is still reeling from a violent attempted coup in the name of a Big Lie – a lie that has essentially become doctrine for one of our two major political parties.

Despite all this, our elite political media recognizes no need for a course change.

Indeed, even after four years of Trump — and his continued domination of the party — there has been essentially no self-reflection from the reporters and editors who set the tone for national news coverage. They just keep doing what they’ve done for decades: remain aloof and detached from the urgent and crucial political issues that underly the partisan divide, so intent on covering the play-by-play and “not taking sides” that they have refused to scream out the truth. As a result, they’re being drowned out by the lies.

My goal here is to challenge business as usual and spur some self-reflection – ideally from the elite political reporters and editors themselves, but if not, then from the people who employ them and the people who keep them in business.

It’s also to call attention to excellent political journalism that can define best practices going forward.

And, I admit, it’s also to put into words the often inchoate fury that readers of the New York Times, the Washington Post, and other elite, influential news organizations so often feel after reading or watching a work of political journalism that does not acknowledge the urgency of the moment, lacks historical context, offers a megaphone to liars and provocateurs, normalizes radical extremist white Christian nativism, and projects a white male right-of-center gaze under the guise of objectivity.

Job One

The uncontrolled spread of lies is anathema to everything American journalism stands for. Fighting it is the calling of our time.

But so far, all we’ve seen is baby steps. Yes, toward the end of the Trump presidency, political reporters finally started being a bit more assertive about describing some of what Trump and his enablers were saying as “lacking evidence,” as false, or even as lies. But as we have seen, for instance during the George W. Bush presidency, when a lie is repeated over and over again, calling it out once or twice doesn’t prevent it from gaining currency.

Editors and reporters should respond much more energetically when a public figure lies, or someone on Fox News introduces a new conspiracy theory, or a new strain of disinformation or misinformation enters the public discourse.

The thing to keep in mind is that the lying is the news, not the lie.

An initial story should rapidly confront and dispel the lie with facts, ideally without spreading the lie further (see, for instance, the “truth sandwich.”) Journalists should treat a lie like a virus, for which they are the vaccine, not the spreader. The goal is to quickly fill the news space with the truth so that conspiracy theories have less place to grow.

Reporters should do this enthusiastically and repeatedly, as long as the lie remains part of the discourse. This should not be relegated to a lone subsequent “fact check”. Fact checks are arguably worse than useless.

But that’s just the first step. The next step is to probe more deeply, to explore motive. The proper response to a lie about voter fraud, for instance, is not simply to say that there is no evidence of widespread voter fraud. It’s to explain why these people are lying about it. What purpose does it serve? Whose purpose does it serve? Who is funding it? Those are fertile areas for reporting — and for informed conjecture.

The most persuasive lies often have a narrative element; debunking and subverting the lie should include a truthful narrative explaining the why behind the lie.

Then there’s the matter of consequences. There should be some, or else what’s the point of fact-based journalism? That means denying serial liars the opportunity to use the media – particularly live media — to spread their lies. That means whenever it’s crucial to quote a liar, warning readers and viewers of their track record. That means interrupting liars when they are repeating a lie. That means demanding retractions, publicly, prominently, and repeatedly. That means openly distinguishing between people who — totally independent of their political views — can be counted on to be acting in good faith and those who can be counted on to be acting in bad faith. Established liars should not be quoted as credible sources. (And they should certainly never be granted anonymity.)

Another productive area for reporting relates to whether and why the lie is effective: Who is susceptible to it and how come? This most certainly does not mean simply quoting people who believe the lie. It means empathetically but vigorously interrogating them about their backgrounds, presuppositions, and news sources. It means talking to sociologists and psychologists. It means openly addressing the endemic racism and misogyny that reporters are normally too terrified to even bring up — because that ends up explaining a lot.

Another key step toward fighting disinformation is for everyone, and especially journalists, to publicly and emphatically distinguish between media outlets that don’t lie and the ones that do; between news outlets that observe normal standards of evidence, are devoted to accuracy, and correct their mistakes, on the one hand — and entertainment channels that use nativism, lies and conspiracy theories to build and captivate their audiences, on the other.

That starts with explicitly condemning Fox News as a disinformation operation, regularly exposing its lies, and urging people to stop watching them. Luring viewers away from Fox News – and back to reality — should be a goal of serious journalists everywhere. Fox News isn’t news, it’s a news story. 

Academia and civil society also need to make that distinction clearer, both in their research and their conclusions. One of my pet peeves is polls and white papers that lump Fox and its ilk together with reality-based news outlets, and then try to reach conclusions about why people don’t trust the media. There are obviously a lot of good reasons why reality-based people don’t trust Fox News. Why and how much people don’t trust the New York Times or ABC is a different issue entirely.

And finally, newsroom leaders need to make a serious commitment to pulling back on the kind of reporting that the liars have effectively gamed. People who will say anything thrive in a “scoop” culture. Trump was constantly flooding the news zone with one crazy tweet or comment after another – often distracting reporters from the actually important stories. Reporters also need to stop focusing so much on optics and strategy. Judging something to be good or bad optics is a lazy way to avoid weighing in on whether it’s fact or fiction, a good idea or a bad idea, in good faith or in bad faith. And serious journalists should never applaud lying as a winning political strategy.

None of this will be easy. There are old habits involved. There’s a lot of defensiveness from people invested in the old ways. And the pressure to get clicks makes it that much harder. The liars in our political discourse are great at getting attention and inciting powerful emotions – a perfect fit for a world in which the business model of the dominant platforms rewards “engagement” and clickbait.

But there’s no question in my mind that this is in the long-term interests of our industry. This is, at heart, what the public expects from us.

The journalism industry and its philanthropic community spend a lot of time and money trying to figure out how to increase the media’s credibility. A disturbing emerging school of thought is that reporters should tone down their writing so it doesn’t turn off the people who believe lies.

I believe the exact opposite. I believe mainstream journalism loses credibility by not fighting more passionately for the truth.

Issue One

If political journalists are in a war against disinformation, then the primary battlefield is the Republican Party’s increasingly authoritarian attacks on voting and election integrity.

Anyone who thought we were past the worst of it after Trump’s departure from office now knows better. His party denies that he lost, continues to make it harder for Black and brown people to vote, and is overtly laying the stage for invalidating election results they don’t like.

Our very democracy is in danger. You can’t really cover politics and ignore that. It underlies everything.

And on such a basic issue, political reporters shouldn’t avoid taking sides. The right of people to pick their government shouldn’t be controversial. Reporters and editors shouldn’t be bashful about being  pro-democracy — which means supporting maximum access to voting and making sure every vote is properly counted.

Because the two parties have such diametrically opposed views on this issue, some political reporters see it as inevitably partisan to take sides, so they refuse. Indeed, although false GOP accusations of voter fraud are nothing new, reporters who know better have historically been absurdly skittish about calling them out as intentionally deceptive. Many reporters still duck the moral implications today. But the truth is that, in this case, one party is playing them for fools.

Furthermore, the issue of democracy is so central to all of politics that officials who are effectively fighting against it need to be held to account in every political context. That means eviscerating them, ignoring them, or at the very least warning that they hold anti-democratic views.

Finally, beyond rebutting the liars, news organizations should seriously consider being proactive champions of democracy — actually crusading on behalf of members of their community for the right to vote and have their votes count. That means aggressively reporting on obstacles to voting, and overtly working to overcome them. What a great pitch to readers: “We’re going to make sure you get to vote and that it’s counted properly.

Adjusting to Asymmetry

It’s been nine years since political observers Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein justifiably scolded the press for whiffing on the biggest story of the 2012 election: the radical right-wing, off-the-rails lurch of the Republican Party in terms of its agenda and its relationship to the truth.

And that was nothing compared to today.

Post-Trump, any hint of a coherent governing philosophy has vanished. There is no Republican agenda, just culture warfare and obstruction. The party’s most defining principle right now is the Big Lie. Practically speaking, it reliably serves only the ultra-rich. It is inflamed with racism and nativism.

And yet the incremental, day-in-day-out political coverage still casts the GOP as a reasonable and viable alternative to Democrats. It goes beyond both-sides coverage: Political reporters consistently predict Republicans will retake at least one chamber in 2022, and quite possibly the White House in 2024.

What that does, however, is normalize the decision to vote for an extremist, nativist, anti-governance party. It presumes that there will be zero accountability for lying and extremism. When mainstream-media reporters say the next elections are going to be squeakers, it reassures non-delusional people that voting Republican would not be such a crazy and dangerous thing, which it would be.

And to the extent that it’s true — and that Republicans could in fact win again — it’s incumbent on reporters to further explore the tribalism that attaches people to the party apparently regardless of what it does.

Any political journalist who is not addled knows full well that this GOP winning a chamber of Congress would effectively shut down any attempts at governance, and that a second Trump term would cause profound, potentially irrecoverable damage to the country and its institutions.

For that reason, every news story about the two parties, especially about elections, should openly address the imbalance between the two parties when it comes to speaking the truth and wanting every vote to be counted.

Yet political reporters are more comfortable speculating about who’s winning.

I should be clear that I am in no way suggesting that political journalists endorse the Democratic Party. Political reporters shouldn’t be partisans. Partisanship distorts reality. Partisans are willing to twist facts to suit their goals, which is profoundly anti-journalistic. The Democratic Party is terribly flawed in its own way. And political news reporters should, in fact, not take sides on issues where there are reasonable, fact-based, but contradictory solutions.

What I am calling for is an endorsement of reality. A hearty one.

The Future

There are a lot of other ways in which I’d like to see political journalism change.

I’ve written about how political reporters should be rebranded as government reporters, charged with covering problems and who’s trying to solve them, rather than which party is winning today’s messaging wars. Maybe we could leave a skeleton crew to keep writing the game coverage.

I’ve written about how our top newsrooms need to learn from their mistakes – particularly when it comes to credulous, cheerleading war coverage. (They never do.)

Almost nothing is more important than adding diversity to the reporting and editing ranks. The industry needs to rethink political labels that are anachronistic and sometimes downright deceptive.

I also believe that political journalists at both the national and local level can reconnect with their audiences – and their souls – by taking on crusades on behalf of the public, starting with crusading for the truth, and fair elections.

Journalists at all levels, for instance, could advocate for transparency and against secrecy by calling attention to what people aren’t allowed to know. National political reporters could aggressively report on the need to limit executive power after years of unfettered expansion. They could expose the obstacles to universal, affordable access to broadband. Local news organizations could encourage their readers and viewers to buy local.

What all of this would require is newsroom leaders who aren’t afraid to stand up for core democratic (and journalistic) values. I’m waiting. And while I’m waiting, I’m writing.

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10 COMMENTS

  1. Great piece but it requires a companion piece explaining why the mainstream makes the choices they do. Certainly, most of them know the truth yet they willingly, deliberately misinform and worse. Those choices have done the nation real harm. Such good Covid coverage they did was undercut by their giving Trump a pass for his literally deadly deliberate mishandling of Covid and now by grossly underreporting the GOP efforts to make the right to vote something of a nullify.
    There is no good reason for the mainstream press to be a part of the problem but they are. And by choice. Why?

    • Agree except that it’s not just *why* but also *who*.

      And we need to hold the *who* accountable. It’s easy to bash Maggie/NYT re Trump. But there’s a host of enablers at NYT that allow her to do what she does. Who are they? What’s the pattern of their decisions? etc etc.

    • Excellent question…I mean, they can’t NOT know how they’re F-ing up, and certainly because of folks like Dan and any number of other frustrated journalists they HAVE to be aware of the criticisms…Yet I NEVER EVER see them even acknowledge that the criticism exists…I have never once heard a rebuttal or defense of the criticism which tells me ALL I need to know…If it was ME taking over a news organization as senior editor I’d just scrap the lot of them and start from scratch…Truly ‘truthtellers’ are a thorn in the side of modern journalism…Or we’d have MORE of them in high profile positions…

  2. Dan, the continued rewriting of history while dredging up the Monica Lewinsky story simply isn’t stopping, as this Rolling Stone Q&A with the ACS season’s showrunner proves: https://www.rollingstone.com/tv/tv-features/fx-acs-impeachment-monica-lewinsky-fact-check-1226894/

    I’ll just give you some basic lowlights and my responses.

    “The Kathleen Willey story is a really sad one. Kathleen Willey did do some media around the impeachment of Bill Clinton, but her story just never seemed to get a ton of traction. It seems like it was a story that a lot of people did not want to hear. And I think Kathleen Willey’s story becomes quite sad as a result…I feel for Kathleen Willey.”

    Oh, you feel for an absolute paranoid lunatic who was caught lying so blatantly that even Ken Starr wouldn’t use her? Who completely derailed into saying “the Clintons killed my cat?” Who is buddy buddy with Joe DiGenova and Victoria Toensing? You feel for this absolute basket case whose story has no legs to stand on?

    “Paula’s story is a morally complicated one. I believe something happened. She did feel aggrieved about it. She told multiple people that week. By today’s standards, that should have been covered in the mainstream press, and taken very seriously, but it wasn’t. I believe perhaps it would be today.”

    Not taken seriously? What universe do you live on? The press repeated Jones’ accusations as ABSOLUTE TRUTH. The media had determined, before there was even the boneheaded Clinton v. Jones decision, that Bill Clinton had assaulted Paula Jones. The press was eager for him to fall, and were certain this was going to be it.

    “I believe if this happened again, it would happen in much the same way. The way some of the mainstream publications handled it — there were op-eds in The New York Times that referred to Monica in completely inappropriate ways, for instance — I don’t think that would happen again.”

    What was “inappropriate?” The “stalker” claims? Claims which came from Michael Isikoff interviewing Lewinsky’s former boyfriends, who said she was needy and possessive? Blame Isikoff for that. All of that started with him. (I also am not ready for forgive Isikoff for what he did. His work with David Corn on Trump’s Russia connections is a start, but it doesn’t make up for how he built the story into the manufactroversy it became.

    “But I don’t think political tribalism has gotten better in the United States. And that motivated a lot of the reaction to Monica Lewinsky. She was blamed for the actions of the president. She was blamed for this impeachment, for making him a vulnerable politician. And that, unfortunately, has not gone away.”

    Who really blames Lewinsky as the sole reason for the actions of Clinton? Absolutely NO ONE. Clinton did what he did, and it was wrong and inexcusable. Everyone who talks about Lewinsky’s role is merely pointing out that it takes two to tango, no more and no less. Pretending that Clinton’s actions occurred in a vacuum or that he “violated an innocent, naive youngster” is simply wrong and is a bigger lie than the one Clinton told.

    • Way easier and cheaper than talking about Clinton’s policies (see Geismer “Left Behind”). ‘Triangulation’ wasn’t the story; the destruction of the New Deal, and the possible consequences of that was. We are currently right back in the 1920’s. Every major problem we have, was a problem the New Deal was created to solve and did solve.

      I would have liked to know about that at the time. I guess we have to consider Reagan the first big test of ‘The Boys on the Bus’; the new, credentialed PMC, white-collar journalism. The main thing that sticks out about Reagan is that I never saw the video of him saying Medicare is the short rope to Stalinism, until 20 years after he left office. Oh, and the zero discussion of a gazillion-dollar defense build-up, to counter an adversary that was collapsing. And no, there were people predicting the collapse of the USSR, just no one in the Defense/Intelligence community.

      But I thought professional managerial class-dominated journalism would be too sophisticated to be fooled by a “Slick Willie”? They gave Clinton hell, for trivia.
      This is what they use to avoid reporting news; it is damn hard to avoid talking about economics 24/7.

  3. And while you’re trying to reform serious journalism, the news industry is getting whittled down as Sinclair and the internet wipe out non partisan local news, networks are quietly being bought up by Wall Street and turned to political organs of their owners’ opinions, and Fox Wannabe propaganda networks spring up like weeds. Soon it’s going to be WaPo and NYT alone, which will be small enough to actually drown in a bathtub.

  4. I certainly don’t think it’s wrong for any institution to take a stand against the Rs. What I find troubling in arguments such as presented here that journalists have some special, even predominant, responsibility to protect core democratic values. That’s the Ds’ job. The Ds have to be the voice of advocacy for sane public policy in all areas, including the preservation of the principles and practice of choosing office holders in fair elections.

    If the Ds were doing their job there would be no need for reporters to cover public policy, because each party’s spokespeople would perform that function. The parties don’t, of course, actually debate each other. Instead they message. Sure, it is completely reasonable to wish that journalists covered public policy differences and disputes, but the parties don’t conduct such disputes, because they are busy papering over public policy differences to avoid alienating any voters at all. If the parties were not systematically and almost categorically avoiding their responsibility to argue with each other over public policy, it would be impossible for journalists to cover politics purely as a horse race, because the competition between public policy platforms would determine who persuades the voters and thus wins elections. If the system were not rotten at its core, in the behavior of parties who avoid debate as if it were more deadly than COVID, journalists would not be able to cover the horse race without covering the public policy debate.

    • “What I find troubling in arguments such as presented here that journalists have some special, even predominant, responsibility to protect core democratic values. That’s the Ds’ job.”

      I find it troubling that anyone could write something so stupid and wrongheaded. And as usual it is just assumed the Republicans have no responsibilities at all; in fact this reads like they are obligated to destroy democracy … that’s apparently their assigned role in this insane framing.

  5. I wonder how many Democratic voters are going to read your article. CNN and MSNBC are now the bastions of truth? Russian collusion was a lie and swayed votes in 2020. Hunter Biden’s laptop was a non-issue but it should have been. Zuckerberg’s $400 million in key states harvested votes. Now, we have Joe Biden. What a shame!

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