Good News, Bad News: June 11, 2024
With 146 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
Colorado Broadcaster Kyle Clark is the Debate Moderator America Needs
We at the Media and Democracy Project have been championing the journalism of Kyle Clark for a while now. In 2016 he took over the 6pm newscast for KUSA, an NBC affiliate in Denver, with a goal to turn the broadcast’s focus away from sensational reporting on the latest fires and shootings, and towards civic-minded journalism centered on issues and events that more greatly impact the daily lives of the people of Denver. He has hosted “Next with Kyle Clark” ever since.
Clark has earned national attention for his performance as one of two moderators of a recent Colorado GOP primary debate. Clark and his moderating partner were thoroughly prepared to handle all of the tricks candidates typically employ at a debate, like when they try to answer a different question than the one posed or exaggerate their records of achievement.
What I found particularly compelling about Clark’s performance is the way he brought a sense of morality to the proceedings. Our election coverage guideline “Don’t set aside moral judgment when covering obvious lies and bigotry” is straightforward enough, but I’m regularly floored by the near total absence of any sense of moral integrity from our national newsrooms. Reporters quote liars without bothering to mention that person has a history of lying. They’ll quote Congress members who tried to overthrow our government in the wake of the last presidential election and, rather than call them out for their anti-democratic behavior, reporters will move on to speculate at the coup attempter’s election chances and evaluate their campaign strategies with cool detachment. Our major reporters seemingly operate without concern for the moral integrity, or lack thereof, of those we elect to represent us.
Watch how refreshing it is to see a journalist care whether or not the people asking us to give them power are good:
“Why do you talk to people like that?” I have to admit, it was jarring to watch Kyle Clark ask that question of a politician. Can you imagine how Trump would answer it? Or Jim Jordan? You might ask why does it matter? Politicians like Trump, Jordan, or Marjorie Taylor Greene aren’t going to change if they are held to account for the awful things they say. But it’s not all about how they respond to criticism. More consequential to our nation is how the voting public might react to seeing morally reprehensible behavior called out. Humans take cues from one another. Culture and norms form when we observe the way each other behave. And journalists are the only people we see interacting with our politicians. We take our cues from them. And if they let politicians off the hook for immoral behavior, we are more inclined to let them off the hook as well.
What if our journalists spent more time holding those in positions of power to account for their morally depraved actions and rhetoric? What if journalists stopped letting them off the hook?
More of Clark’s masterful work can be seen here. Can we get him on the presidential debates?
Honorable Mentions (other pro-democracy coverage of note this week):
Capital B announces Black Political Power Tour: Capital B wrote on its website that Black voters have “so often been undervalued, mistreated, and/or miscast in our political process and in mainstream political media. Capital B wants to work to change that with the Black Political Power Tour.” Follow the link above for dates.
Applicable MAD Guideline: Celebrate and uplift election workers, voters, and the election process.
THE BAD NEWS
Trump’s Total Lack of Fitness Doesn’t Stop the Washington Post From Pumping His Fascist Muscles
This is Donald Trump rambling like a madman on June 9th in Las Vegas:
And this is a headline the Washington Post ran on its front page, above the fold, on June 9th:
American voters suffer every day from the disconnect between the reality of Trump—his incoherence, his racism, his rape, his fraud, his lies, his deadly coup attempt, his plans for a fascist dictatorship—and the sanitized, near reverent image of him presented by the executives, editors, and reporters within our mainstream media.
Russ Vought, the Christian Nationalist ex-budget director who is the subject of the above article, seeks the end of American democracy with his ‘post-Constitutional’ plans, and rather than choose an appropriately alarmist frame, the executives at the Washington Post chose a headline that completely whitewashes the dystopian, dictatorial plans of Project 2025.
As we described in our@FixMediaNow Twitter account, “Today WaPo normalizes dictatorship & makes destruction of American democracy sound sexy with: ‘muscular Oval Office.’”
It’s truly unconscionable that our most trusted, most widely read legacy journalism institutions would fail to meet the moment when Christo-fascism is knocking at our door. It is not, sadly, a surprise.
Billionaires own our mainstream media. They hire executives who are willing to carry out their agendas and feed the public narratives that serve their interests. As Sam Sutton reported in Politico about Wall Street sentiment this week, America’s one percent cares less about democracy than it cares about profits:
“Kathy Wylde, president and CEO of the Partnership for New York City, a nonprofit organization that represents the city’s top business leaders, said Republicans have told her that ‘the threat to capitalism from the Democrats is more concerning than the threat to democracy from Trump.’”
It is up to all of us to apply pressure on our newsrooms, to push against the amorality that has captured our for-profit information ecosystem. The journalism executives doing the bidding of owners must be made to realize that they work in service to the public, otherwise they are nothing more than PR shops for the wealthy.
Dishonorable Mentions (other election coverage failures this week):
CBS News report on miscarriage nightmare fails to assign blame to GOP: One of our favorite Twitter follows, @airbagmoments, brought this story to our attention while pointing out that a reader would have no idea who was responsible for the life and death struggle the couple at the center of the story found themselves in:
A recent poll showed that 17% of Americans wrongly believe that Biden is responsible for ending Roe, when in reality it is Donald Trump’s appointees to SCOTUS who are responsible. In a separate Twitter thread, Airbag Moments chronicles “articles about the tragic results of Republican policies [that] treat those policies as spontaneously generated, without authors.” When citizens in a democracy don’t know who to blame, they’re rendered incapable of participating meaningfully in democracy.
Applicable MAD Guideline: Hold politicians to account for their positions, statements, and behavior, as well as those of their party’s leader.
Public Notice: Sinclair injects deceptive attacks on Biden's age into dozens of local broadcasts - Liberal media is a myth. Sinclair Broadcast Group and its right-wing owners have 193 stations across the country that reach 40% of American households. They literally force all of their hosts to read pro-Trump election propaganda on air. Is this the type of information ecosystem we need?
Applicable MAD Guideline: Don’t platform liars or act as stenographers for strategic MAGA lies.
Extra Credit: ‘Signals Are Flashing Red’ Quote Of The Week
“But the reality is that Republicans are openly campaigning against judges, juries, and prosecutors. Overt declarations of blowing up our checks and balances and following the blueprints to autocracy set by Vladimir Putin and Viktor Orbán, meanwhile, are treated with shrugs by mainstream journalists and commentators. What’s more, Republicans in Congress have shown a willingness to kowtow to every Trump demand. The signals are flashing red that our fundamental system is in danger.”
- Dahlia Lithwick and Norman Ornstein for Slate
Double Extra Credit: Rediscovering Old Music
A friend recently reminded me of Beverly Glenn-Copeland’s music. It’s achingly beautiful stuff. Check it out:
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.
I tried to find the WA PO Election article that you mentioned, so that I could comment on the page. I was unable to find. Would you send a link? I listen to the WA PO a lot because it's one of the few media sources that offers a listening option (via excellent AI voices) on almost ALL of their articles, unlike the NYT. I have a visual impairment that makes listening a critical option. It drives me nuts when they publish that sort of thing and I'm happy to let them know.