Good News, Bad News: May 17, 2024
With 171 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
Nebraska Examiner Explains New Voter ID Requirement, Maryland Matters Provides Voting Information
Maryland and Nebraska conducted statewide elections on Tuesday. Nebraska held its first statewide election since its citizens passed a state constitutional amendment in 2022 requiring that voters verify their identities with a photo ID. Early that morning, the Nebraska Examiner published a piece entitled: “What to know before you vote in Nebraska’s first statewide election with Voter ID.”
Maryland Matters provided links to ballot drop-off locations and other election board information in its article: “A glance at what to do, where to go to vote in Tuesday’s primary election.” Say a Marylander had completely forgotten about the primary election, but was determined to vote once they saw the article. Maryland Matters had them covered, writing: “Voters who still haven’t registered to vote can do so on the same day at a polling place. To prove your residency and vote on the spot, bring an MVA-issued driver’s license, ID card, change of address card, paycheck, bank statement, utility bill or other government document with name and address.”
One of our election coverage guidelines asks newsrooms tocelebrate and uplift election workers, voters, and the election process. There’s no better way to uplift elections than by providing a guide for voters on what they can expect, especially after a consequential change to voting rules. Our guidelines suggest outlets make their newsrooms “a one-stop shop” for voters in their community. The Nebraska Examiner and Maryland Matters are answering the call.
Honorable Mentions (other pro-democracy coverage of note this week):
Stephanopoulos steps up, warns 2024 election is “far from normal” - I did not figure that George Stephanopoulos would emerge from the warm cocoon of politician PR hits that is the Sunday show circuit to become a vocal champion for democracy. He now seems determined to take his pro-democracy exhortations on tour. This week on The View he delivered the goods. Watch him succinctly make the case against the most anti-democracy president in history:
Applicable MAD Guideline: This clip applies to most of our guidelines under the heading Make Threats To Democracy Clear.
Philip Bump provides context of who’s to blame for election worker death threats - It’s appallingly rare that readers are provided with substantial context about which groups of politicians are to blame for negative outcomes. For instance, when only a single party is to blame for torpedoing widely supported legislation, too often mainstream media describes the culprit broadly as “Congress,” leaving voters under-informed when they head to the ballot box. That’s why it was refreshing to see the Washington Post’s Bump emphatically link MAGA election lies to election worker death threats.
Applicable MAD Guidelines: Call out lies and bad behavior in every piece of reporting AND Celebrate and uplift election workers.
THE BAD NEWS
Democracy’s Death By A Thousand Whitewashes: National News Outlets Downplay Threat of Coup-Attempting Candidate, Push False Equivalence
Three examples from this past week highlight the absurd, dangerous, and unnervingly routine manner with which our profit-seeking national newsrooms have for years normalized Donald Trump, the only president to have ever attempted a violent coup, and whitewashed MAGA election lies.
First up, Michael Gold in the New York Times:
Gold and his editor applied a narrow, trivial frame—the beach!—in order to avoid the most pertinent information for voters about Trump’s disqualifying rhetoric and behavior—his lies, coup attempt, fraud, infidelity, racism, and rape.
Journalists at the Times don’t believe that it’s important to chronicle Trump’s anti-democratic, sociopathic behavior. They don’t believe readers need to know about details from this rally like his unhinged praise for Hannibal Lecter, disinformation about Democrats supporting infanticide, or his lies about Asian and African countries “emptying out their jails into the United States” because apparently that falls under the hum-drum category of “standard fare.” I guess such disqualifying behavior is no longer even news. Journalism’s imperative to inform be damned!
Another horrific example of NYT whitewashing was this Curt Mills’ guest essay:
The Times allowed the executive director of The American Conservative magazine, Mills, to spin-up a fantasy version of Trump that the aspiring dictator would surely laud. Calling Mr. Trump a “consummate negotiator” who would use his reputation for fawning over autocrats and threats towards NATO as a tool to “surprise in the other direction,” Mills peppered his essay with shocking admiration for the vision of “true believers” like Steve Bannon. Does Times executive editor Joe Kahn regard nonsensical, partisan wishcasting as “independent journalism?”
On our Twitter account @FixMediaNow, I commented “Propaganda and praise today as the @nytimes whitewashes Donald Trump’s coup attempt. The Times thinks ‘independent journalism’ means glossing over and normalizing rape, lies, insurrection, and racism.”
And not to be outdone by the Times, Axios dropped this absolute stinker of a false equivalency:
Axios reporter Stephen Neukam wrote:
Republicans and Democrats in Congress are telling radically different stories about the biggest threats to the election system in the run-up to November.
Why it matters: Confidence in U.S. elections cratered among Republican voters after the 2020 election, and the theories being pushed by congressional conservatives could sow even more distrust.
But both parties are warning the 2024 election could be tampered with, a red flag after the last presidential election.
Neukam’s framing, “but both parties are warning” makes it seem as though both parties could be weaving equally false stories about elections. Never does he clearly say that, as opposed to “the theories being pushed by congressional conservatives [that] could sow even more distrust,” Democrats are warning of election disruption based on verifiable threats.
Though Neukam does detail that there is no evidence of GOP claims that “a lot of illegals are voting in federal elections,” he ends his article with this line: “Democrats in the aftermath of the 2016 election blamed disinformation from the Russian government for influencing the outcome of the contest.” The hyperlink in that sentence goes to an article written by his colleague at Axios that emphatically asserts that disinformation from the Russian government influenced the 2016 election. In order to maintain false balance, Neukam tells the reader it is Democrats, not his fact-based co-worker, who “blamed” disinformation for affecting the contest. No one needs to be blaming, though. It’s a verifiable fact according to Neukam’s own newsroom.
We all suffer from availability bias. All of the information any voter has about politics is filtered to them through newsrooms. While it is true that sometimes some newsrooms have produced accurate portrayals of the threats posed to democracy by Trump and his MAGA allies, most of the news we consume about the modern GOP in some way downplays the severity of their extremism. This is a total abdication of journalistic integrity. We need newsrooms that defend democracy and contextualize threats to it with prominence and frequency.
All of this uninformative reporting could have been different if these reporters had adhered to our pro-democracy election coverage guidelines.
Dishonorable Mentions (other election coverage failures this week):
Only a handful of outlets cover DOJ Election Threats Task Force press conference - As far as I can tell Politico, Axios, and the Washington Post are the only national outlets to cover what should be blaring, front page news about threats to election workers. Axios had a solid headline, “DOJ: Democracy and those who protect it ‘under attack like never before.’” Regrettably, only the Politico article provides context about the MAGA origins of these threats. Of all the things that national newsrooms could be covering, it would seem that death threats to election workers, in a year when one of the two major party candidates for president is a coup-attempting spewer of violent rhetoric, would be a major story. Alas, that is not to be in a country with a corporate, commercialized system for informing the public. When a third of the country, in thrall to disinformation, supports anti-democracy extremists, profit incentives encourage news executives to push for coverage of extremism that doesn’t have much to say about the extremism. Executives fear upsetting the paying customers who support extremism.
Applicable MAD Guideline: Expose candidates who foment political violence.
Extra Credit: Pro-Democracy Quote Of The Week
“My colleagues in the media are serving as accessories to the murder of democracy… Too many journalists are caught in a mindless neutrality between democracy and its saboteurs, between fact and fiction. It’s time to take a stand.”
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.
Thank You!!!!