“Political journalism should be more forceful with the facts, more transparent with its processes, and more educational with its goals.”
Donald Trump’s 2016 election saw national media outlets begin to rethink their political coverage after largely missing what led to his election. 2021 should spur similar reflection on how they’ve covered the aftermath of his defeat.
Sustained attacks on our election systems and a nearly successful insurrection at the U.S. Capitol should not be covered in the same vein as policy disagreements over economic and social issues — and yet here we are. Trump, the most prominent member of one of our major political parties, has spent more than a year lying about how our votes are counted, pushing anti-democracy candidates to change election rules for his benefit, and changing the Republican Party even more into the party of Trump. The media’s coverage doesn’t adequately reflect that.
Lawmakers who challenged the 2020 results, signed onto extreme lawsuits, and used their positions of power to bamboozle constituents into believing false claims still get invited on prominent news shows and leave unchallenged, all because journalists fear losing access or appearing biased against conservatives. Pro-Trump media outlets have created an alternate political reality that is often not based in fact, but which has nonetheless crept into real-world campaigns, conversations, and decisions.
And polling suggests these viewpoints are theoretically in the...
President Donald Trump has created a murky mess of unproven claims and provably false claims about the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. Trump began asserting over the weekend, without providing e...