Truth And Bias -- Media's Failure Risks Democracy

 

With the stipulation that Democrats often commit political malpractice in their messaging, fail to mount sustained attacks on their right- wing adversaries, and scatter like sheep at the first clap of thunder (what a party!), we have to once again point out the long- term failings of the political media through our proxies this morning.  Margaret Sullivan focuses on "what" the current failure is, while Steve M. focuses on the "why" there's such disproportional, biased coverage of the two presidential candidates.

Margaret Sullivan, The Guardian

... First truth: the president’s stumble and the political fallout that followed is a huge, consequential news story that deserves a lot of coverage.

Second truth: the media coverage is overkill – not only too much in quantity and too breathless in tone, but also taking up so much oxygen that a story even more important is shoved to the back burner.

That bigger story, of course, is the former president’s appalling unfitness for office, not only because he tried to overturn a legitimate election and is a felon, out on bail and awaiting sentencing, but because of things he has said and done in very recent weeks. As just one example, he claimed that he doesn’t know anything about Project 2025, the radical rightwing plan hatched by some of his closest allies to begin dismantling our democracy if he wins another term.

Trump’s disavowal is a ridiculous lie, but I doubt most members of the public know anything about it, nor do they likely know much – if anything – about Project 2025.  [snip]

Meanwhile, what of Trump’s obvious cognitive decline, his endless lies, his shocking plans to imprison his political enemies and to deport millions of people he calls “animals”, his relationship with the late accused sex-trafficker Jeffrey Epstein?

“Sure, you can say, we’ve covered those things,” commented Norman Ornstein, emeritus scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and a longtime observer of media and politics. But, Ornstein pushed back: “Where? On the front page above the fold? As one-offs before moving on? In a fashion comparable to the Defcon 1 coverage of Biden’s age and acuity?”

There really is no comparison in the amount or intensity of coverage. One journalist, Jennifer Schulze, counted New York Times stories related to Biden’s age in the week following the debate; she counted a staggering 192 news and opinion pieces, compared to 92 stories on Trump – and that was in a week when the US supreme court had ruled he has immunity for official acts.

Nor is there much self-scrutiny or effort to course-correct. Only self-satisfaction and an apparent commitment to more of the same...

Steve M., No More Mister Nice Blog 

... [E]ven if you believe that Trump's brain is full of failing neurons rather than right-wing disinformation, it's hard to believe that the media has a categorical bias toward portraying major-party candidates as coherent. If that were the case, we wouldn't have had months of stories in the media questioning the mental fitness of Joe Biden.

What we have instead is a bias toward normalizing Republicans, a process that's usually accompanied by an "othering" of Democrats. This has been going on for decades: Walter Mondale was a gloomy wimp, Michael Dukakis was an effete Ivy League weirdo, Al Gore was a prissy egghead, Hillary Clinton was a cackling ballbuster. Their opponents were Real Americans, fond of country music, pickup trucks, and plain-spoken common sense. Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden fought against this narrative and won some victories, but the idea that Republicans are normal and Democrats are peculiar is ingrained in our politics, and allows Republicans to embrace genuinely extreme policies -- on guns, abortion, climate change, taxation, regulation, torture, and many other issues -- while Democrats are the ones branded as out-of-step extremists. It doesn't help that Democrats regularly praise at least some Republicans (a favor that's never returned), or that Democrats regularly proclaim that some fellow party members really are ideologically beyond the pale, something Republicans know will lead to instant banishment if it's attempted in their party.

It's because we're accustomed to all this that our political culture struggles to define Trump as a mentally ill person or (more accurately, I think) as a dangerous radical. But we're used to marginalizing Democrats. In Biden's case, we're marginalizing him based on perceived mental fitness, but we nearly always do this to Democrats in some way or another, unless, like Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, they're very good at fighting back. 

The key to this is being better at fighting back, not only at MAGAt Republicans but at their enablers in the media.  It seems every election cycle we have those same two opponents, and every proceeding election cycle the stakes get even higher.  We can't expect or rely on these conditions to change;  we can only do everything we can to win in every election until Christosfascist Republicanism in America is beaten back in our culture and politics.

BONUS:  Seconded --

The news seems to forget everything Trump says a day or so after he says them. Could the media be in cognitive decline? I am calling for them to step down.

— The Volatile Mermaid (@OhNoSheTwitnt) July 10, 2024