I am horrified and I am terrified and I am angry.
And I blame the media.
Yes, I am aware that some large number of people who voted for Trump did so fully aware that he will rule as a racist, a chaos agent, and a strongman. That’s what they want. Noted.
But a decisive subset apparently voted for him out of frustration with the economy, specifically inflation.
That they were insufficiently alarmed about the damage Trump will do – and that they actually thought he has some way to make the economy better and bring inflation down – was the result of a massive information system failure, the likes of which we’ve never seen before.
Although there is much talk about the brosphere and TikTok and podcasts and Fox News and all the other vectors for misinformation and disinformation in this current media environment, the traditional media is not off the hook, quite the contrary.
For one, elite media has tremendous influence on the national discourse, all the way down to TikTok and social media.
But more directly, the vast majority of voters still have some contact with the major traditional media outlets, including the broadcast networks, CNN, MSNBC, NPR, the New York Times and the Washington Post.
So what they hear and read there still matters.
By the Numbers
According to the Pew Research Center:
- More than two-thirds of Americans – 68 percent – say that broadcast network news (ABC, NBC or CBS) is either a major or minor source of their political news.
- That includes 54 percent of Republicans and those who lean Republican.
- Just over half – 53 percent – of Americans get some or much of their news from CNN. And that includes 35 percent of Republicans.
- Almost one in four Republicans – 24 percent – say they get some or much of their news from the New York Times.
And according to the exit polls:
- Three in four voters – 73 percent – said they were either angry or dissatisfied with “the way things are going in the U.S.”
- Voters said the economy is in bad shape by a 67 to 32 margin.
- Two out of three voters who said inflation was the most important factor for their vote voted for Trump, according to AP VoteCast.
What They Didn’t Know
What voters heard and read in traditional news outlets didn’t dissuade them from swallowing the right-wing narrative that the country is in decline, with an economy in shambles, with crime up, and with undocumented immigrants terrorizing people everywhere – none of which are true.
As an Ipsos report just before the election put it, ever so delicately, “Americans who answer questions about inflation incorrectly are more likely to prefer Trump over Harris on the economy. The same pattern holds true on immigration and crime.”
Most notably, it’s a fact that Joe Biden managed to steer the American economy into an almost impossibly unlikely soft landing after the Covid crisis, making the U.S. economy the envy of the world.
I doubt any Trump voters believe that is true — in part because of how viscerally inflation affects every household, but also in part because all along the way, the traditional media didn’t explain it to them.
There was wall-to-wall coverage of inflation, especially as related to gas and eggs. But there was almost no mention of the fact that inflation was lower than in most other developed countries. And as prices began to stabilize, the coverage made it sound like their not going down was an economic failure. (Of course they didn’t go down, except of course gas prices, and how many stories have you seen about that? Not a whole lot.)
Sometimes it appeared that newsrooms were actively trying to make Biden look bad – even when the news was good. One of my favorite examples was a New York Times headline that made job growth and low unemployment look like a bad thing: “The U.S. added 199,000 jobs in December as employers struggled to find workers.” Like many stories of its kind, this one stated as fact that the economy would be a drag on Biden’s political ambitions.
Economics coverage in traditional outlets looked like it had come from the Fox News assignment desk. The stories were mostly doom-and-gloom — even when you could see the good Biden was doing if you only looked for it.
As economist Dean Baker recently explained:
We saw the longest stretch of low unemployment in 70 years. Unemployment rates for Blacks, Black teens, and Hispanics all hit or tied record lows. While taking a dip in 2021-2022, real wages have bounced back and are above their pre-pandemic peaks, especially for workers at the bottom end of the wage distribution.
There has been a record pace of new business formation. Workers report record high levels of workplace satisfaction. The number of workers who can work from home has increased by almost 20 million. And more than 14 million homeowners were able to refinance their mortgages, either getting cash out for other purposes or saving thousands of dollars a year on interest payments.
This was in spite of a worldwide pandemic that initially sent employment plummeting, and then inflation soaring, as supply chain bottlenecks created shortages of many goods. The US recovery has been by far the strongest of any wealthy country, and its inflation rate by many measures is now below the average for other rich countries.
I dare you to go back and find more than a tiny handful of stories from any of our major news organizations about the fruits of the massive investments made through the Inflation Reduction Act.
Some 16 million new jobs were created during the Biden presidency. I dare you to back and find me more than a tiny handful of interviews with people who got jobs in the Biden economy.
Inflation-adjusted wages are actually up during the Biden presidency, especially for low-income workers. Did you read about that anywhere?
Here, for instance, were some of the story ideas I suggested in May. Did you see any of those in the wild? I didn’t.
- President Biden has forgiven about $153 billion in debt for 4.3 million student borrowers, and is proposing rules that would provide relief for about 25 million more. (That would about 1 in 11 Americans in total.) Find some of them and ask them how they’re feeling compared to four years ago.
- A new rule that takes effect in July makes 4 million lower-paid salary workers newly eligible for overtime pay. Find some of them and ask them how they feel about it.
- Stock markets are at all-time highs. Find someone with a 401(K) and ask them how they feel about it.
Perhaps even more importantly, the media allowed the public to believe that Trump would actually somehow fight inflation.
The reality, as a few articles explained, is that Trump has no plan to bring down inflation and what economic plans he does have – tariffs — are in fact highly inflationary. (He also glibly predicted that energy prices would drop sharply.)
Overall, the mythology that a vote for Trump was a vote against inflation was never successfully exposed as a lie by the mainstream media, as it should have been. So it took root. It did incalculable damage.
And of course, as I’ve written about ad nauseum, the traditional media generally failed to sound the alarm about just how unstable, unhinged, racist and fascist Trump is. They made it sound like voting for Trump was not a radical, extremist choice – just a partisan one.
Most recently, I begged the network news anchors to engage in a Cronkite moment and speak the unvarnished truth about Trump’s mental incapacity. They didn’t.
Instead of reporting honestly about how Trump’s campaign was based on lies, the traditional media fudged.
They fundamentally failed to inoculate their readers and viewers against the tidal wave of disinformation from Trump and the right-wing media ecosystem.
I’ll be blunt. If major media organizations had taken my advice – or the similar advice from countless other progressive media critics — I think the message would have seeped into the news diets of enough people that I don’t think Trump would have won.
So yes, I blame the media.
And how can we believe this story
It’s be some a world of opinions and not facts
there was enough stuff in the major media to strongly demonstrate that unemployment was at half-century lows and that the economy in general was doing well. that recession we kept hearing was coming never did arrive. but if the public are idiots, that is not the media’s fault. it is the public’s fault. that’s where the fault lies. if the average man or woman insists on believing, in the face of considerable contrary evidence, that the economy is in lousy shape, that’s not the media’s fault. that means people can’t/don’t read/think. that’s the real america.
Another glaring omission: Interest rates went up because the Fed made them go up, to curb inflation. Legacy media let people think it was Biden’s fault that mortgage rates soared.
Did rents decline back down 20% and I missed it? Things are getting worse much more slowly is the traditional Democratic rallying cry, why oh why is no one impressed?
The voters may not be right, but they are never wrong. Trump talked about the economy, and Harris talked about how bad Trump is. The standard Dem strategy for 20 years. Every time they did that, they reminded people that they did virtually nothing to stop him.
If Trump is so bad, why is he loose? It couldn’t be because the Dems wanted to run against him?
Dan, I agree that there was nearly nothing but bad, lazy economic reporting leading up to this election. Waaaaay too much of the economy stories were written or assigned by political reporters and editors who don’t know shit about how economics actually works. (If you want to see my head explode make me listen to an White House reporter talk about new economic data.)
But I disagree with you on two points:
Any competent campaign person knows that reporters are lazy, especially political reporters. Dems and the Biden administration didn’t do square to publicize and promote any of the economic successes from Biden policies, and certainly didn’t ever talk about what damage they had to fix from Trump’s fiasco. Do you see road signs that say, “This site the future home of XYZ Corp, and 2,000 jobs thanks to Joe Biden’s IRA!” (No, you don’t.) If the rule is that as soon as you’re elected to your first time you’re running for re-election, then Biden’s team blew it. They just didn’t lay the groundwork to hand reporters those stories on a silver platter.
There are a lot of people for whom the rosy economic stats down’t work. As I’ve written, there is a huge, major disconnect between the stock market and economic indicators and the day-to-day reality for most consumers. According to the BLS, average earnings are up 27% since the start of the pandemic. But even after inflation cooling, prices for gas, eggs, milk and ground beef all up or up much more than the wage gains. (Interestingly, beer is not. Go figure.)
A big point that was lost is economic insecurity. After the pandemic, everyone with a job feels vulnerable. Layoffs are constant even at firms reporting record profits. If the definition of a depression is when you lose your job, the definition of a recession is when your neighbor loses hers. And that’s happening all over in nearly every industry.
A few more things about bad economic reporting: quoting average consumers who exaggerate price hikes. NPR ran a soundbite of a guy in my home state bitching about $7 eggs — but I bought them at the supermarket for $2.60 the day before. Also, do any of these reporters ever challenge these folks about what they want to see happen and what they think the president can do to bring that about? Because getting these people to talk through their vague unease pretty much shows that they know the White House can’t dictate prices for groceries.
When it comes to the economy, people vote their feelings and if no one lets them know what’s really behind those feelings they’re just gonna go with their gut.
Don’t blame the media, at least not for what you mentioned. The campaign strategists bear much more responsibility for the Democrats’ loss. Here’s why.
In the research reports you referenced, they asked people where they get their news. Just because someone gets information from a source doesn’t mean they trust that source!
Here are some data points showing how trust in traditional media has been declining:
Public trust in traditional media outlets has experienced notable fluctuations in recent years, with several studies highlighting varying levels of confidence across different countries.
• Edelman Trust Barometer 2024: This survey revealed that the United Kingdom experienced the most significant decline in media trust among 28 countries, dropping to 31%—the lowest in the survey. In contrast, China topped the ranking with 77% trust in media.
• Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2024: The report indicated that trust in news varies globally, with Finland leading at 69% and Greece at the bottom with 23%. The United States reported a 32% trust level, reflecting ongoing skepticism among its population.
Country-Specific Insights:
• United States: A Gallup poll from October 2022 found that only 34% of Americans trust the mass media to report “fully, accurately, and fairly,” marking one of the lowest points in the survey’s history.
• United Kingdom: The Edelman Trust Barometer 2023 noted a slight increase in media trust to 37%, up by two percentage points from the previous year. However, the UK remained among the countries with the lowest trust in media.
• New Zealand: The “Trust in News in Aotearoa New Zealand 2024” report highlighted a decline in general trust in news from 42% in 2023 to 33% in 2024. Additionally, 75% of respondents admitted to avoiding news, citing reasons such as negativity and anxiety-inducing content.
What is the reason why people lost their trust in the traditional media outlets?
• Perceived Bias: Many individuals believe that media outlets exhibit political or ideological biases, leading to skepticism about the impartiality of news coverage.
• Misinformation: The proliferation of false information and sensationalism has made audiences more cautious about the credibility of news sources.
• Digital Platforms: The rise of social media and alternative news platforms has diversified information sources, sometimes at the expense of traditional media’s authority.
The solution is to adapt the media to the new conditions. I would be happy to talk to you about this.