In the wake of the 2020 election, Columbia Journalism Review editor-in-chief Kyle Pope (11/4/20) lamented “how little we seem to have learned” since media underestimate Donald Trump’s chances of success in 2016. Pope noted that polls were again “overhyped and under-scrutinized,” and argued that while journalists pointed out Trump’s “infinite faults,” they spent too little effort “probing the country.”
“Remember the post-2016 pledges to ‘go out into the country’?” Pope asked. “We seem to have forgotten.”
CJR‘s Kyle Pope (11/4/20) writes repeatedly that “nearly half the country” voted for Trump, and that “our task now is to report on the fact.” He shows virtually no interest in the more than half the country, largely Black and brown, who voted against him.
The piece elaborated:
We’ve kept too big of a distance from too much of America, nearly half of which has voted for an administration that downplayed a deadly pandemic; exacerbated the climate crisis; emboldened racism, xenophobia and gender-based violence; and embraced an authoritarian’s handbook on misinformation. In 2016, the press determined that our inability to grasp Trump’s rise ranked as one of our deepest failures. To repeat that mistake—as it appears we have—is somehow worse. Our task now is to report on the fact, ugly as it is, that Trump won more than 67 million votes. That story is only partly about the president’s odious tweets and lies. Voters who support him know about most, if not all, of his flaws—thanks in no small part to some great journalism—and yet pulled the lever for him anyway. Now is our time to focus on the America he has laid bare.
It’s an assessment that feels stunningly divorced from the last four years of corporate media coverage, which has subjected us to a never-ending stream of reporters traveling to red states or red districts to seek out Trump supporters to ask them how they feel about Trump (FAIR.org, 2/15/17, 7/14/19; PressRun, 11/12/20). The tautology of the Trump-supporters-support-Trump story is nearly always lost on corporate reporters, who somehow never managed to find anything newsworthy in Obama supporters supporting Obama policies (FAIR.org, 2/15/17).
The New York Times‘ main takeaway from interviewing two Trump supporters (4/29/17) was “how much it meant to them to be heard and seen.” This is also true of the underrepresented communities that supported Biden, of course—but it doesn’t get them a profile in the Times.
The self-flagellating argument, then as now, seems to be that if reporters would just spend more time excavating the psyches of Trump supporters without judgment, they might not underestimate his ability to turn out huge numbers of votes, even in the midst of what a casual observer might judge to be a catastrophic and abominable presidency. At a deeper level, it suggests that understanding and empathy can lead us out of this mess in some way.
But if the point is to not misjudge Trump’s popularity, the solution is not to single out Trump supporters in your reporting, but rather to seek out a cross-section of voters—including Biden supporters and the substantial segment of the electorate to Biden’s left.
And if the point is to lead us out of this mess, these stories, with their palpable fear of coming across as disrespectful or condescending, only make things worse by creating an uncritical echo chamber for racist and xenophobic perspectives and conspiracy theories that scarcely need echoing, given that the president and the vast right-wing media network spout them without pause.
Take a recent NPR recent story, “Ohio Trump Supporters on What They Think Biden’s Presidency Might Bring” (All Things Considered, 11/9/20). Reporter Andy Chow went to interview residents in an Ohio county where 66% of voters supported Trump. He found three Trump supporters to put on air to say things like, “They’re ready to tax the crap out of us—the Democrats are,” and noted that all “[made] it known that they’re not convinced Biden will end up in the White House on January 20.” One Biden supporter was interviewed. With no effort made to evaluate whether Trump supporters’ convictions or proclamations have any basis in reality, what is the function of such a report besides to reinforce them?
Meanwhile, notice that in Pope’s account, reporters have nothing to learn about the Black, brown and immigrant America that overwhelmingly voted for Biden, that is under direct attack by Trump’s policies, and that does not have the privilege of having its perspectives promoted incessantly, either by the most powerful person in the country or on television, radio and social media. Nor do they have anything to learn about the working-class white America that does not support Trump, or about the nearly one-third of the voting-eligible population that doesn’t vote at all.
The New York Times‘ profile (11/25/17) of an Ohio Nazi said that its subject and his movement “was hoping to make their ideas less than shocking, even normal.” Photos like this illustrating how white supremacists get groceries certainly help with that project.
The whole framing of the problem is wrong here. We already know plenty about “the America [Trump] has laid bare.” Journalism’s deepest failure hasn’t been its lack of attention to Trump supporters; it has been its inability to stop normalizing Trump and Trumpism—of which the uncritical Trump supporter stories are part and parcel.
Every time a news outlet writes gently and inquisitively about “the Nazi sympathizer next door” (FAIR.org, 11/1/19), or waters down Trump’s racism and xenophobia (CounterSpin, 7/19/19, 8/23/19), or paints his unprecedented weaponization of the powers of government against his opponents as a spat between Trump and his cabinet (FAIR.org, 10/15/20), or deems his press briefings newsworthy, no matter how much misinformation they contain or how much credibility they unjustifiably confer on him (FAIR.org, 4/13/20), or insists on an “objectivity” that must conjure an equivalence between “both sides” no matter how extreme one side might be (FAIR.org, 11/22/19), the media reinforce the idea that Trump—and support for Trump—simply fits into the usual narratives of political contestation under democracy.
By repeatedly conferring legitimacy on a fundamentally antidemocratic president and his actions, media have paved the way for the dangerous place we find ourselves in today, and hobbled their ability to protect our democracy.
‘The tautology of the Trump-supporters-support-Trump story is nearly always lost on corporate reporters, who somehow never managed to find anything newsworthy in Obama supporters supporting Obama policies’
The author of this appears to operate from the false assumption that media exists to inform, rather than to misinform and misdirect. Has the author read Chomsky and Herman?
The reason there were no “Obama supporters support Obama” stories was due to the fact that, in order to write such a story, a reporter-stenographer would be required to identify and highlight points of contradiction between Obama’s obviously insincere promises (e.g. single payer healthcare, accountability for torturers, etc) and his venal actions. To do so would defeat the purpose of “Fact-checked journalism” (sic) circa 2016-20, which is all about diverting the public from class-based economic issues which gave rise to “Occupy” and inter-racial cooperation towards phenotype-based “issues” created to distract.
White washing from “the heartland”
Taibi has a much better take. The news went from 10000 hours of Trump to 10000 hours of Trump is bad flushing any ability to reach his voters with information down the toilet. The Press should not be allowed to hire anyone with an Ivy league degree and make a point of hiring several non college grads. They are nothing but a bunch of out of touch elitist snobs who blame poor people for not rising up in our faux meritocracy. It doesn’t even occur to them that other people at the head of their field would lie, and the automatically assume rich people deserve what they earn. American Exceptionalism is an obvious truth to them and justifies our endless wars and bloodshed.
Wow! Is this FAIR or the NY Times? The problem is being too *uncritical* of Trump and his supporters?? “Normalizing” them?? My jaw literally dropped when I read this.
We have so very few decent media sources left. Please, please, *please* don’t take FAIR away too!
Pjay, FAIR is a far left organization. They often think that left wing views are not reported enough. They oblivious to the fact that probably 98% of all journalists are leftists (as are they). They constantly rail against the two or three right wing outlets. I have numerous left wing friends and family member (at least until they unfriended me for having right wing views). These in the media probably do not have a single right wing friend. We on the right know the left wing perspective – it’s in the newspapers and on TV every day. They know nothing about us. Julie Hollar is no different.
To be clear Tim, my comment does not come from the “right” – if “left” or “right” even has any meaning anymore. Quite the contrary. From my perspective, the problem with this article is that it is the epitome of the elite “liberal” perspective of the mainstream media which is mainly oblivious to the realities of most of America. Being even more critical of the “deplorables” than the mainstream media already has been is about as dumb a suggestion as I can imagine. Claiming that the media conferred too much “legitimacy” to Trump after 4+ years of screeching about Russian collusion is beyond ridiculous.
You would probably agree with this. Our difference is that I do not equate “liberal” with “left.” For me, an *authentic* left can understand how working people in “flyover” country might be fed up enough to vote for Trump, and that they are not all fascistic racists for doing so. Doesn’t mean I liked or supported Trump – at all. But to see FAIR line up with the rest of the liberal Establishment is pretty damned depressing.
Please lay out your thesis, and then defend it – for how FAIR is a “far” left organization. We’ll wait.
When you’re left of the mainstream media, you’re a leftist.
Typical far-righty dodge. If you’re going to say “far left” then you’d better know what that actually means.
But it’s interesting that you inadvertently bring up a good point. Is FAIR left of the mainstream media? And if they are, given that the mainstream corporate media is falsely branded as “leftist” by the American right, is that a bad thing or a good thing?
You seem like someone who views criticism of Trump – OR – not ENOUGH criticism (for your personal tastes) of groups and people you don’t like (Hillary, Obama, Antifa, BLM, Soros, etc.) as evidence of a “leftist” bias, when in fact, not only are you conflating a ton of unrelated things into that analysis (ex. BLM has nothing to do with Hillary or “the left” in any but the most generic way and try as they might, the right cannot quite paint an accurate picture of what Soros is and isn’t funding insofar as activities of BLM, it’s hard to find the corporate MSM *defending* Antifa, but rather correctly stating that it’s not a hierarchical organized entity and perhaps not buying into the right’s constant, but unfounded claims about them – the list goes on).
But back to the point, I think FAIR.org might in fact be slightly left of center, but you said “far left” and then tried to back track by saying “lefitst” which is anything to the left of center. Saying “far left” in the first place is a smear in your mind, so it wasn’t intended as a legitimate criticism in the first place regardless of the fact that it’s totally inaccurate.
But you also strike me as someone who only just recently stumbled onto FAIR and started assuming you knew everything about it rather quickly. Why don’t you go back about 14 years, working your way into the present and see how they dealt with W. Bush and Obama before Trump was ever a twinkle in the RNC’s eye. FAIR criticizes the corporate right leaning (on all but a few topics that the right blows way out of proportion) media – and that included criticizing them in their coverage of both Bush and Obama – AND – in a manner that was not kind to either of them. The corporate mainstream media often tried to paper over or excuse both Bush and Obama’s warmongering and other policies that hurt Americans and people abroad. FAIR.org was here to call it out in an objective fashion using facts and statistics.
So even if they are “leftist” (again, all that means is left of center), at least “the left” has the willingness to criticize both sides whereas you couldn’t find me anything remotely similar to FAIR on the right where you all circle the wagons and refuse to criticize each other in any way, unless it’s for not being far right enough.
P.S. Don’t think I didn’t notice that you were completely unable to lay out a thesis, much less defend it. All you did was say….”well, uhhhh….FAIR is to the left of (*what I mistakenly believe to be the leftist*) the mainstream corporate news media therefore it must be FAR LEFT!!! See????”
To be clear Tim, my reply is not from the “right” – quite the contrary. For me the problem is that this article reflects the elite “liberal” perspective of the mainstream media. An authentic “left” perspective would reflect a much greater understanding of Trump’s support. Not sure these terms are even useful anymore. But I am sure that the problem of the mainstream media was *not* giving Trump and his supporters *too much* legitimacy.
(My first reply disappeared; if it appears later, sorry for the repetition.)
Pjay, I agree that classic liberals and leftists are different. I have no issue whatsoever with liberals. There aren’t too many (or at least too many with the courage to stand up as such). There isn’t a single prominent Democrat today who would agree with JFK’s famous “ask not.” JFK’s views would be considered Republican today. Leftists would call him a fascist, xenophobe, intolerant, racist, sexist, and Islamaphobe today. 50 years later and there would be no room for him in today’s Democrat party.
Do you think “leftists” control the Democratic party today? Or the mainstream media? If so, then we truly do live in different information bubbles. That’s a big part of the problem today – we literally see the world differently, depending on our tribe.
So true. It hurts. Again and again repeating venum against administration and Trump in too many words with hardly a point or credibility.
I had enough. Good Riddance
So true. It hurts. Again and again repeating venum against administration and Trump in too many words with hardly a point or credibility.
I had enough. Good Riddance
Julie;
Ask the public, in particular the 42% INDEPENDENT voters: most of us whom 100% di$like both, horrible dnc neoliberal corrupted candidate, who was only “anointed” by state primary “voter caging” (see California-3.7 million INDEPENDENT voters with ZERO presidential candidates on ballot, OR horrible gop-libertarian trump, who obviously has not been running the $how…pull aside the green curtain, in both cases. Neither is worthy of voter affiliation, and historical records of both + issue orientation leave voters doubting media $crutiny of either. Of course it’s horrible 2016 redux…
The problem with talking to the wrong half of America is that they’re infected with wrong thinking, which is dangerous and highly contagious. Interviewing them is problematic bc they invariably respond in wrongspeak, which is how wrong think is spread. A single brief exposure to wrong speak can spark an epidemic. What’s a right thinking journalist to do? Firstly, avoid talking to wrong thinkers. Anything you say could be interpreted as an invitation to respond. Secondly, try to prevent healthy Americans from hearing the poisonous prose of Wrong thinking individuals. Avoid getting in a shouting match with them it just sows chaos. Cutting their mics is much more effective. Better yet, pretend they don’t exist. The more we ignore the wrong, the righter we’ll be.
Kathy, sounds like you are saying we should just ignore the ‘wrong thinking’ and all of our problems will go away?
(I don’t mean to hyper reduce what you said…but I doubt ignoring or not addressing the class-based issues shared across the political spectrum, will free us up from our tail-chasing exercise).
Maybe I’m wrong, but the concept of “right thinking” and “wrong thinking” is philosophically incoherent, it begs the question of just who or what determines what is right or wrong?
I don’t see how if we just continue ignoring whatever or whomever is ailing, within and outside of the U.S. population, our problems will go away.
Maybe I am misunderstanding your larger point (probably, since these forms of discussion are hard to manage without knowing what the other persons agenda actually is…oh well. Peace.
The media, including FAIR, and many people in general, keep expressing bewilderment at why 72 million people voted for Trump. He really could shoot somebody on 5th Avenue and not lose supporters. What frustrates me is why, when answers are available, they aren’t sought, or if found, are ignored. One source that sums it up is “Authoritarian Nightmare: Trump And His Followers” by John W, Dean and Bob Altemeyer. I’m sure there are others.
After the electronic media turned news over to their entertainment departments’ control, the effectiveness of which measured by eyeball count, Trump’s campaign received two billion dollars of free airtime. (2015) Remember when a major network left an ongoing Sanders speech for an extended focus on an empty lectern —- waiting on Trump to appear! Was the disproportionate public airtime related to corporate monetary interests? Does the average U.S. voter understand the concept of the “Overton Window?”
Thankfully Fair/Counterspin serves as an antidote to much of the above!