The Political Media is Striking Out
Recent events show that the media's struggles haven't improved this 'season'
The pain of being a fan
I’m a lifelong St. Louis Cardinals fan. I literally grew up in the cheap outfield seats at old Busch Stadium. I skipped school to attend the World Series victory parade in 1982. I even managed to score a ticket for Game 6 of the 2011 World Series while in town for business and witnessed what’s considered one of the top 10 games in history as hometown boy David Freese knocked a walk-off homerun in extra innings.
I couldn’t talk for three days.
But, that was then, and this is now. The last two seasons have been absolute disasters for my team. Last season was their worst in decades and this season that started with so much hope has been agonizing to watch as they can’t seem to find the W column. They seem to have lost their way.
I’m also a lifelong fan of the media. I’ve always been a bit of a newshound and becoming a public affairs officer in the Army was a dream come true in many ways. I found myself being tutored by two-time Pulitzer Prize winner John Fisher Burns of the New York Times Baghdad Bureau in Iraq. He was an awe inspiring journalist.
But lately it’s been painful to be a fan. Recent events have shown us the same loss of direction of my Cardinals has happened to our political media. The last few ‘seasons’ have been absolute disasters for the media and they seem to have lost their way in understanding their role in our democracy. We are getting increasing coverage of the horserace and reporting based on propaganda coming from the right.
Two recent stories have made this collapse abundantly clear.
Pecker exposed
The very first witness in the Donald Trump criminal election interference trial in New York was David Pecker, the former owner of the National Enquirer, who formed a ‘catch and kill’ agreement with Trump as well as creating outright fake stories that attacked his opponents.
That’s where the entire story about Ted Cruz’s father being a supporter of Lee Harvey Oswald started. They even used a fake photo. From there Trump echoed it and it found its way directly into the mainstream media. Completely fake. But they ran it as ‘Donald Trump accuses Ted Cruz’s father of being involved in JFK assassination.’ The story should have been, ‘no evidence to support bizarre attack on Ted Cruz….” or something similar.
The revelation under oath was treated like ‘old news’ by the media with not a single second of self-evaluation or mea culpa for spreading a blatantly false story. In their view they were simply reporting what candidates were saying so that made it news instead of making it clear it was a lie.
Just a complete failure that directly impacted an election. Not a scintilla of self reflection.
Chasing opinion instead of shaping it with truth
The second outrageous revelation came in an interview that New York Times Managing Editor Joe Kahn did with former NYT reporter Ben Smith now at Semafor. In the interview Kahn was defiant to criticism of his paper’s reporting and shared a number of somewhat off putting insights into his thinking.
Among them that I found most disconcerting was his answer when asked about the criticism that they seem uninterested in the threats to our democracy by a second Trump Administration and attacks on our institutions. Kahn essentially takes this critique as them being asked to campaign for Joe Biden. His full answer is even more bizarre.
While he thinks ‘democracy’ is an issue he goes on to site polls showing that immigration and the economy are the top issues. Just think about that for a moment. He is saying that polls are saying that immigration is a big issue and the economy is not doing well. The Times is following the polls. There was a time that the media saw itself as a leader to shape public opinion with factual analysis and reporting on stories that should be a priority for their audience not reinforcing their bias.
We need the media to dig up stories we should know. A poll that came out this week showed that many voters give Trump credit for recent infrastructure improvements even though he never passed a single bill and the recurring ‘Infrastructure Week’ plans of his Administration became a running gag.
This poll should tell the media that they are failing. The incredible amount of disinformation and outright propaganda from the likes of Fox News, OAN, and Newsmax among the many lies coming from the Republican’s is driving millions to completely miss the truth. That should worry professional media outlets.
Instead it’s treated as a failure by Biden!
That lack of self awareness is going to end with them being thrown in jail someday as the ‘enemy of the people’ and being shocked how we got to that point.
We need media to explore things that are happening. Not be stenographers of lies or react to the fake news. The shaping of our perspective is their job not reinforcing the lies.
An expert weighs in
With these revelations I wanted to speak with someone who knows the business. I’ve been a fan of Mark Jacob for a while. He's the former Metro Editor at the Chicago Tribune among a lifetime of journalism highlights. Since retiring he has become a critic of the failures of the media to meet this moment in our nation.
We discussed these two revelations from this week as well as the normalization of liars like Kellyanne Conway, Kristi Noem’s lies, and much more. Definitely worth your time to watch this episode of ‘On Democracy with FPWellman’.
Mark Jacob
Each day the political media is showing their inability to meet this important moment in U.S. history. From the New York Times using polls to determine priorities to running fake stories as simple differences of opinion. The media can’t seem to call it like it is when it’s needed more than ever. Fred discusses it with former Chicago Tribune metro editor turned media critic Mark Jacob. In addition to decades in journalism Mark is a co-author of eight books on history and the author of the weekly Stop the Presses newsletter at stopthepresses.news, which examines how right-wing extremism is exploiting the weaknesses in American journalism.
Latest Hot Seat with Ashley Ehasz
I chatted with Congressional Candidate Ashley Ehasz taking on Republican incumbent Brian Fitzpatrick in Pennsylvania’s 1st district. Ashley is a lifelong Pennsylvanian, U.S. Army combat veteran, and former Apache helicopter pilot who serves as a government and public service sector consultant to help our leaders better deliver results for the Keystone State. Ehasz grew up in a working-class family that faced many challenges, including financial instability, and joined the U.S. Army after high school. After graduating from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, she went on to flight school and graduated in 2012 as the only woman in her Apache class. Ehasz served in multiple locations nationally and internationally, including in Iraq, before returning to her home state of Pennsylvania, and is now running to continue her service to her community in Congress. If elected, she would be the first woman in Congress to have graduated from West Point.
Learn more about her campaign at: https://www.ehaszforcongress.com/
Great column, Fred.
Most excellent! Thank you.