We’re Still Waiting for ‘Early and Often’ Climate Debate Questions
Election Focus 2020: Across all the Democratic presidential debates thus far, questions on the climate crisis have accounted for only 7% of all questions, or 1 in every 14.
Bloomberg’s Scandals Ignored or Underplayed by Press Cheerleaders
Election Focus 2020: If media are going to celebrate Bloomberg’s achievements as an executive, they need to address his baggage in those roles as well. The media crowing for Bloomberg’s sensible executive skills leave out several notable scandals during his mayoralty.
Sanders’ Plan to Fight Global Climate Disaster Too Ambitious, Says NYT
Election Focus 2020: It’s as if the New York Times can’t resist slipping in gratuitous digs at Bernie Sanders any chance it gets, even as the world burns.
NYT Recycles Polling to Tell Dems Once More: Move to the Right
Election Focus 2020: Support for progressive candidates in battleground states should give any journalist pause before drawing the conclusion that those voters are “counseling” pursuit of the so-called middle ground.
Throwing the Base Under the Bus—and Other Deep Thoughts From NYT
Election Focus 2020: Thomas Edsall looks at evidence that Trump won because of his “aversion to political correctness,” and concludes that jumping on that train is how Democrats will win back the “swing electorate.”
Fretting About Progressives’ ‘Electability,’ Establishment Dems Are Really Worried About Their Power in the Party
Election Focus 2020: What establishment Democrats are really worried about is their own power in the party, which is threatened by a surging left wing. Don’t look to their establishment media counterparts to report on that transparently.
LGBTQ Issues Missing in Presidential Campaign Coverage
Election Focus 2020: After four rounds of debates and more than 500 debate questions, moderators have asked only one question about LGBTQ issues to a Democratic presidential candidate.
Russia Accusations a Distraction From Gabbard’s Actual Troubling Ties
Election Focus 2020: Lost in the noise about Russia is the reality that Gabbard’s most troubling attribute is her documented connection to the far-right Hindu nationalist movement.
Only One View at The View: Biden Not So Bad
Election Focus 2020: The View has served as a sort of daytime rapid response room for Joe Biden’s candidacy: defending him against charges of being too old, normalizing his invasive interactions with women or dismissing his mangling of a war story.
In Ohio Debate, Media Stuck to an Increasingly Rigid Script
Election Focus 2020: This week’s Democratic presidential debate confirmed that media are stuck in a fairly rigid debate script that elevates questions about healthcare and the economy above all else, and leaves many pressing topics deeply underexplored.
WaPo Goes After Warren With a Posse of Centrist Sources
Election Focus 2020: Establishment Democrats and their big donors are suddenly looking at Elizabeth Warren’s rising polls numbers as a sign that her candidacy has very real potential—and is a very real threat to their power.
How Ageist Is Too Ageist to Be Published?
Election Focus 2020: Just as coverage wondering whether female candidates and candidates of color are “electable” serves to heighten the very stereotypes and prejudices it purports to be passively observing, “how old is too old” stories draw on tired prejudices that need to be challenged by reporters, not reinforced by them.
Corporate Journalists Push Tax Attack on Medicare for All
Election Focus 2020: Centrist think tank Third Way commissioned an August poll on how to turn people off of Medicare for All, and one of the strongest tactics turned out to be emphasizing what the plan would cost taxpayers. Lo and behold, the tax line has become a central focus of media coverage of Medicare for All.
Media Want Evidence of Anti-Sanders Bias? Here It Is
Election Focus 2020: FAIR has been following the issue of the Washington Post’s bias against Bernie Sanders for quite some time, so we’re happy to offer the evidence CNN and the Post protest is lacking.
What Media Like Best About Elizabeth Warren: She’s Not Bernie Sanders
Election Focus 2020: By reassuring the kind of party insiders the media rely heavily on for framing their stories, Elizabeth Warren has largely avoided the kinds of aspersions—often anonymous—lobbed at Bernie Sanders.
ABC Debate Lowlights
Election Focus 2020: After CNN’s remarkably substantive and thoughtful town hall on the climate crisis, we wrote that the following debates now had a solid foundation from which to go deeper on climate for a larger audience. Unfortunately, ABC took it as an opportunity to do even less on the crisis.
As Biden Invokes Dead Family Members Against Medicare for All, Media Play Along
Election Focus 2020: Corporate media uncritically transmitted the ad’s message as if it were merely a campaign strategy, instead of explaining what Biden, Sanders and Warren’s proposals actually are, and clarifying for voters whether Biden’s charges against his primary opponents are accurate.
CNN Town Hall Went Deep on Climate Crisis—but Was Anyone Listening?
Election Focus 2020: CNN’s climate crisis town hall showed that, when it’s not setting up mock combat among candidates, the network can actually provide thoughtful and substantive discussion about critical policy issues.
‘You Can’t Know This Country’s Story Without Learning How Indian Country Fits In’
Election Focus 2020: “No matter what happens, all of the candidates came away with a new appreciation of the complexity and the depth of some of the issues involving American Indians and Alaska Natives.”
Mark Trahant on Indigenous and the Election; Tea Party Revisionism
Election Focus 2020: The historic Native American Presidential Forum was ultimately less about the candidates than about the 5 million Natives across the country, and the possibility of their seeing government as representing rather than oppressing them.
