Newsrooms Must Become Partisans For Democracy

National news desks need to forcefully denounce fascist lies while standing up for democratic values.

The upcoming November election represents a critical juncture for Americans. We face the potential return to power of the only president to ever attempt a coup, who is also the only convicted felon to run on a major party presidential ticket, and the only candidate in our nation’s history who has inspired thousands in his party to continually repeat election lies. With less than three weeks until Election Day, it is past time for campaign news coverage that accurately frames Donald Trump and the movement supporting him as inherent threats to the electoral process and democracy itself.

In the face of this threat, news organizations need to become partisans for democracy. A pro-democracy newsroom provides voters with the information they need to make decisions at the ballot box, in the best interest of themselves and their loved ones. To achieve this, major media needs to conduct a reassessment of several harmful habits. 

An incessant focus on polls and predictions, so-called horse race coverage, crowds out substantive discussion of the issues that voters need to understand. Both-sides coverage that presents opposing sets of talking points as having equal merit, without any regard for whether one side or the other is true, leaves voters unable to discern fact from fiction. And stenography, the mindless repeating of a politician’s spin without any contextualizing information, results in lies being delivered directly to voters.

We at the Media and Democracy Project (MAD) have created 18 election coverage guidelines that draw inspiration from the work being done by journalism nonprofits and respected media critics. The guidelines propose three key principles: treating elections like they matter more than sports scores, clearly communicating threats to democracy, and protecting the public from disinformation. 

The guidelines provide specific actions reporters and editors can take, including:

• Prioritize substantive coverage of the issues that matter to voters' lives

• Make headlines accurate and informative, not clickbait

• Stop making predictions and pushing polls at the expense of issue coverage

• Celebrate and uplift election workers, voters, and the election process

• Don’t set aside moral judgment when covering obvious lies and bigotry

• Expose candidates who foment political violence

• Hold politicians to account for their positions, statements, and behavior, as well as those of their party’s leader

The standard paradigms of political journalism may have served voters in the past, but fail in the face of a major party given over to lying about something as sacred as elections. Journalists have seemingly become so numb to norm-breaking behavior that actions that would have been disqualifying in the past are now covered like politics as usual.

In August, Trump flagrantly violated the law during a disrespectful campaign event at Arlington National Cemetery and boosted Truth Social accounts that have made “numerous calls for [his] political opponents to be killed.” In September, he and his running mate, J.D. Vance, told racist lies about the Haitian residents of Springfield, Ohio that led to bomb threats, vandalism, and school evacuations. And this month, Trump’s lies about FEMA’s hurricane response endangered those still suffering from Helene’s destruction and led to the arrest of an armed individual for threatening federal workers. Major media coverage of Trump consistently brushes such actions aside, or worse, whitewashes them. This bizarre surrender to normalization has reached systemic proportions, and it is dangerous when our most prominent newsrooms fall victim to it. 

Normalization of Trump’s Arlington desecration by the Washington Post.

Thankfully, there are journalistic bright spots among the scores of nonprofit newsrooms across the country. Outlets like Colorado Newsline, Vermont Public, and Arizona Mirror explain for readers exactly how they will deliver meaningful coverage that informs and empowers voters. In a Colorado Newsline article by editor Quentin Young entitled “We’re demoting horse race election coverage. Here’s why.” Young explained to readers: “Coverage that serves the community well focuses on what’s important not to politicians but to the people. It discusses policy not according to official messaging but to impact. It shows not only who could win but what it would mean.” 

We need such attitudes at the major national news outlets too. And we need them immediately.

Americans remain disturbingly unaware of critical information regarding the candidates. Less than a third of respondents in a March survey said they’d “heard a lot” about Trump’s fascist rhetoric, like his statement that he’d “terminate” provisions of the Constitution or his promises to persecute his “vermin” opposition. Meanwhile, in May it was revealed that a third of voters had heard nothing about the Biden/Harris administration’s domestic spending initiatives. And nearly one in five swing state voters incorrectly blame Biden/Harris for the overturning of Roe v. Wade. 

These findings point to a significant information gap with profound implications for voter decision-making. And news consumers are noticing. According to a recent Gallup poll, in 1976 72% of Americans trusted mass media to fairly report the news, but only 32% feel that way today.

The nation faces an election with unprecedented stakes that make the journalist’s job more important, and harder, than ever. Holding the powerful to account while maintaining access to the politicians the public needs to hear from is no easy feat. Media organizations must rise to the occasion and provide the informed, principled, and substantive coverage that voters deserve. 

As former Chicago Tribune editor Mark Jacob said of our effort, “The news media know it's their job to warn people when a hurricane is bearing down on them. But when a fascist assault on our democracy is bearing down on them, the media sometimes think it would be biased to warn people about it. That has to change before it's too late.”

In these vital final days of the 2024 campaign season, my MAD colleagues and I urge journalists and editors to prioritize the public interest and democratic integrity.