Good News, Bad News: June 26, 2024
With 131 days left until Election Day we need political coverage that uplifts and defends democracy.
Every week until the election, we’ll compare our pro-democracy election coverage guidelines with ongoing election coverage to highlight which newsrooms are standing up for democracy and which are sleepwalking us towards a dictatorship. We hope this inspires you to make more informed choices about where you get your news and strengthens your resolve to join us in advocating for the pro-democracy media Americans need. And now…
THE GOOD NEWS
The Salt Lake Tribune Makes Essential Election Coverage Free in 2024
When clicking on articles at The Salt Lake Tribune website, you’ll quickly receive a pop-up informing you that you’re reaching the monthly limit of 3 free articles. If you want more Tribune content, the pop-up says, you’ll have to subscribe to the newspaper.
Paywalls are an increasingly common, and deeply regrettable, feature of America’s information landscape, as newspapers across the nation struggle to replace the ad revenue that disappeared with the rise of the Internet. Rather than pay up, most Americans move on to try and find the information they need elsewhere, or just give up entirely, at the expense of their understanding and sense of community. Indeed, democracy dies behind paywalls (this linked article is, ironically, behind a paywall).
However, when it comes to the political information that is essential to democratic functioning in an election year, some newsrooms are stepping up. The Tribune is offering lots of its political coverage for free. Along the menu bar on its homepage is a link to “2024 Election.” Clicking the link takes readers to a page featuring articles relevant to Utah’s races for Governor, state legislature, school boards, and the U.S. Congress. Here’s a sampling:
All of us at MAD encourage you to write letters to the editor of any papers in your state with an online presence and quality journalism and encourage them to make essential election coverage free to all. It’s the pro-democracy choice!
America’s Best Journalism is Made by Comedians
The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 is terrifying for many reasons, but what terrifies me the most is that, as of May, only 25% of Americans knew anything about it.
Americans’ lack of political knowledge results from a mixture of purposeful ignorance, the ubiquity of distracting entertainment, a lack of access and time, and a general failure by our mainstream newsrooms to prioritize substantive coverage of important issues. For important information to break through the noise and apathy, American voters require a frequency and prominence of coverage that for-profit news corporations simply won’t muster. After all, why would a corporate news organization devote valuable web page real estate to repetition of important stories when sensational clickbait that generates profit can go there instead? Important news, therefore, has its best chance at virality if it is also entertaining.
This is why, with apologies to the likes of ProPublica, I’ve long said the best journalism in America is being produced by The Daily Show and Last Week Tonight. Millions of Americans tune into these comedy shows ready to laugh and, like medicine slipped into a toddler’s apple sauce, learn about issues essential to democracy like corporate malfeasance and government corruption.
This is why it was so welcome to see John Oliver and his staff tackle Project 2025 in a meaty, 29-minute segment on this week’s episode of Last Week Tonight.
Take your medicine:
Honorable Mentions (other pro-democracy coverage of note this week):
The Financial Times gets real about the dangerous impacts of Trump’s economic proposals - When I first clicked on this link as shared to me by a friend in a Slack message, I was met with a paywall! I persevered by Googling the headline and received a link to a non-paywall version. Anyway, this article from the FT Editorial Board succinctly sums up Trump’s radical economic proposals and provides the context of what “major economic risks” are being taken by the business leaders who, though once denouncing him, now back Trump.
Applicable MAD Guideline: Prioritize substantive coverage of the issues that matter to voters’ lives.
THE BAD NEWS
CNN Vows to Air Lies, Damage Democracy in First Presidential Debate
On Tuesday, Dan Froomkin produced an appropriately scathing rebuke of CNN’s plan for handling lies during the June 27th debate in a piece entitled: “CNN’s facts-optional debate moderation is a gift to the liar.”
CNN’s political director, David Chalian, told The New York Times over the weekend that the debate "is not the ideal arena for live fact-checking,” and that fact-checks will be provided after the telecast. Froomkin points out in his piece that repudiating lies after the debate means most of the audience that turns off their TVs once the spectacle concludes will miss the fact-checks entirely.
Froomkin goes on to say:
By declaring ahead of time that there will be little or no live fact-checking, CNN is telling its world audience that…whether someone lies or not is irrelevant to whether they should be president.
It’s yet more normalization of the deeply abnormal. News organizations are supposed to help inform the public. But by letting Donald Trump know he can lie without the threat of consequences, CNN is enabling the spread of toxic disinformation, and doing so for profit.
It also puts an unfair burden on President Biden, who can either use up his time refuting Trump’s lies, or let them go unrebutted.
I’m fond of saying that cable news is the information diet equivalent of poison. CNN’s decision to feed disinformation directly to voters without moderator intervention is the equivalent of spraying rat poison through the screen and directly into the eyes and ears of every viewer.
Dishonorable Mentions (other election coverage failures this week):
CBS News: ChatGPT gave incorrect answers to questions about how to vote in battleground states - From the article:
“CBS News question: ‘What is the deadline to mail in my ballot in North Carolina?’
-Real answer: The ballot must be received by 7:30 p.m. on election day.
-Incorrect ChatGPT answer: The ballot must be postmarked by election day and can be received up to three days after.
Days later when asked the same question, ChatGPT gave different responses when asked on different devices. On one computer and one phone, its answer was accurate, on a separate phone, its answer was still incorrect.”Applicable MAD Guideline: This is honestly new territory for us. This demoralizing story represents the opposite of our guideline, Celebrate and uplift election workers, voters, and the election process, and reaffirms that, by scouring an internet rife with disinformation, AI platforms remain unreliable sources of important election information. As such, we advise newsrooms to Have a plan for managing deepfakes. As for CBS News, kudos to them for protecting Americans from disinformation.
Extra Credit: Pro-Democracy Quote Of The Week
“Journalism can never be silent: that is its greatest virtue and its greatest fault. It must speak, and speak immediately, while the echoes of wonder, the claims of triumph and the signs of horror are still in the air.”
-Henry Grunwald
Democracy’s Survival Requires That Newsrooms Reset to Focus on What’s at Stake
You can be part of the solution. We’re attaching our pro-democracy guidelines to an open letter for you to sign on to. This letter will be distributed to the leadership of all major news organizations. The guidelines serve as a model of what pro-democracy election coverage can—and should—look like. Signing our letter ensures that your frustrations with media’s failure to stand up for American democracy will be heard loud and clear.
Help others advocate for positive change. Share the letter and guidelines with friends, civic organizations, and everyone who cares about the future of America. Ask them to sign on. Demanding better media is an action we must all take.
Tired of paying for corporate media that doesn’t stand up for democracy? Redirect those funds to quality local journalism. Use our Local Journalism Directory to find an outlet and subscribe.
Good work as always! Maybe post this open letter to notes and social media? (side note, maybe its a glitch on my laptop, but the "submit" link to sign the pen letter didn't work)