Introducing "Good News, Bad News:" Our Weekly Review of 2024 Election Coverage
With just over 200 days left until Election Day we need to start asking for coverage that uplifts and defends democracy.
Welcome to our new series, Good News, Bad News. Every week until November, we’ll compare our pro-democracy election coverage guidelines with ongoing election coverage to highlight which newsrooms are standing up for democracy and which ones 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
Washington Monthly Prioritizes Substantive Coverage That Matters To Voters’ Lives
This week, Washington Monthly did something rare. While much of our political press was treating polls like newsworthy ‘events’ and emphasizing the drama of 2024 campaigns at the expense of giving Americans any useful political knowledge, Washington Monthly editor-in-chief Paul Gastris set out to provide voters with information to aid their decisions at the ballot box.
In a piece entitled, “Who Got More Done?” Gastris promised readers that the magazine would devote space in the next three issues to “an accounting of Trump’s and Biden’s presidential records of accomplishment.” How refreshing!
Not only does this type of coverage match our guideline asking newsrooms to prioritize substantive coverage, it also models how journalists can and must evaluate a party leader’s positions, statements, and behavior. A presidential candidate’s effectiveness and political priorities are essential pieces of information that often get drowned out by more superficial coverage.
Honorable Mention (other pro-democracy coverage of note this week):
Buzzfeed reports on Trump’s abortion lies - Voters deserve to know if a candidate is lying and accusing opponents of supporting murder.
Spotlight PA is hosting a panel on state-wide candidates’ backgrounds and their plans for the offices - Informing citizens of what they need to know about candidates running for office. No notes!
Chris Hayes speaks with American Immigration Council policy director about Trump/Biden border and immigration policies - This detailed explainer on immigration had us learning a lot about a topic that is too often covered with sensationalism rather than substance.
Colorado Newsline: Election subversion efforts in 2020 were bad. Now they’re worse. - Our guidelines ask newsrooms to “Prominently cover the Big Lie-fueled attack on election legitimacy and voting rights” and this is exactly that.
THE BAD NEWS
“the baby is executed after birth” - Mainstream Media Ignores Trump’s Disqualifying Abortion Lies
It’s right there in our guidelines, journalists have an obligation to report on a candidate’s statements and behavior, especially when those actions are disqualifying.
This week, Trump released a video wherein he expressed a position on abortion law. Many outlets did nothing to protect Americans from disinformation by failing to add the essential context to their reporting that Trump is a profligate liar whose statements can’t be trusted. But, they failed even harder by omitting from coverage his outrageous, recurring lie that Democrats support killing babies after they are born.
Trump said:
"The Democrats are the radical ones on this position because they support abortion up to and even beyond the ninth month. The concept of having an abortion in the later months and even execution after birth — that's exactly what It is, the baby is born, the baby is executed after birth."
Kudos to Buzzfeed’s Natasha Jokic for covering this and four other lies Trump told in his video, writing, “As for executing a baby after it is born, i.e. murder, no Democrat has ever supported such a thing.”
Aside from Buzzfeed’s coverage, Trump’s unconscionable lie was not reported to the public by the majority of mainstream outlets. The New York Times article on the video, filed by “star” reporters Maggie Haberman, Jonathan Swan and Michael Gold, made zero reference to a presidential candidate accusing his opponents of supporting infanticide. Nor did this CBS Mornings piece, this NPR segment, or countless other reports by the major outlets that provide millions of Americans with their news.
Instead, the national media narrowly focused on Trump’s assertion that abortion law should be left up to the states (another failure, credulously serving as stenographers for a man whose pronouncements cannot be trusted). Newsrooms seemed to employ the limited “left to the states” frame as a means of avoiding doing actual journalism. Most stories omitted important considerations like whether or not Trump could abuse the FDA to make medical abortion illegal nationally or charge medical providers with crimes via the Justice Department.
Voters deserve a fuller picture than the simplified coverage we saw. Voters deserve a media that reports on a candidate’s heinous false accusations.
The New York Times Pushes False Equivalency Between Conventional Biden And Fascist Trump
This week a New York Times article, Two Imperfect Messengers Take On Abortion, flew in the face of our guideline, “Abandon false equivalence between traditional and fascistic candidates.”
Two imperfect messengers? One candidate has a policy position supported by the majority of Americans. The other just ‘messaged’ that the opposition party supports murdering babies after they are born. The subhead, “Neither side of the abortion divide would probably design the exact candidate they have in 2024,” barely makes sense, positing a weird hypothetical that has nothing to do with the life threatening implications of denying the right to an abortion.
NYT “On Politics” newsletter writer Jessica Bidgood and her editors attempt to make the two candidates equal when there are no grounds to do so. The result is sloppy and irresponsible journalism that’s disrespectful to readers seeking to understand the issue of abortion and the impacts of policy positions on the health and safety of millions of Americans. There is barely any mention of the ongoing harms to pregnant people and rape victims caused by the removal of their right to bodily autonomy. Cynical pieces like this one on how candidates “message” important issues crowd out coverage that voters require to make informed decisions.
Voters need explanations of the impact of the candidates’ policy positions on American lives!
Dishonorable Mention (other pro-democracy failures this week):
Terrible USA Today Headline: “Mike Johnson and Donald Trump to promote bill to prevent non-citizens from voting” - Journalists don’t write their own headlines, but how can this one sit at the top of a piece that has the following as its 4th sentence: “However, non-citizens are already not allowed to vote in federal elections in the United States, and it's not a common occurrence.” See our guideline, Make headlines accurate and informative, not clickbait.
The Hill ran the below headline on Wednesday. It should go without saying that newsrooms shouldn’t print fake concerns about election integrity from two guys who lied about elections to facilitate a coup attempt.
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. 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. The guidelines serve as a model of what pro-democracy election coverage can—and should—look like. Share them with friends, civic organizations, and everyone who cares about the future of America so they can demand better media, too.
Read the letter and guidelines and sign on here:
2024 Pro-Democracy Election Coverage Guidelines and Open Letter