"So what happened? Political journalists were suckered by a wave of Republican junk polls in the closing weeks of the campaign. They were also swayed by some reputable polling organizations that, burned by past failures to capture MAGA voters, overweighted their polls to account for that in ways that simply didn’t make sense. And reporters fell for Republican feints and misdirection, as Republican operatives successfully created an artificial sense of momentum by talking about how they were spending money in reliably blue areas. [snip]
"The news media took the faulty assumption that Republicans would enjoy a
red wave and plugged in explanations for the imagined outcome.
Democrats blew it because they spoke too much about abortion and
democracy, and too little about the economy and crime. (In fact, crime
and the economy figured prominently in many Democratic campaigns.)" -- Dana Milbank, Washington Post, writing about how the media largely fell for the Republican narrative of a "red wave," becoming the biggest loser of the election cycle. Milbank offers much more evidence of the media's enchantment with the Republican narrative and their highly dubious polls. We're old enough to remember that this is not a new phenomenon, which is why "Republican- wired media" is a phrase that has a history going back decades. The most charitable explanation would be that political reporters are simply not good at their jobs; another would be they dread showing any bias that could paint them as "liberal media." Of course, both explanations could be true (and likely are) at the same time. And don't worry, they'll be back -- in 2024.
BONUS: See also here, here, here, and here.
BONUS II: Perfect example. The New York Effing Times stuck with the "red wave" narrative even into Wednesday morning (and despite its own polling!):
lol you do you, @nytimes pic.twitter.com/1g5aNjz35J
— Anil Kalhan • @kalhan@mastodon.social (@kalhan) November 9, 2022
(Cartoon: Al Goodwyn, gocomics.com)
