Countdown: One week left to douse the ‘five-alarm’ fire

People send me headlines and news alerts that drive them crazy.

It’s no doubt because I’ve written here, often, about the failures of the mainstream media, in fully making Americans aware of the dangerous moment we’re living in. One of the ways those failures make themselves obvious is in headlines and news alerts, which is about as deep as many people get.

A friend wrote to me: “I thought of you this morning when I saw the NYT headline, “Trump’s threat could thwart vote in Alaska.” Why, she demanded, didn’t it make it clear that this “threat” is, “illegal, unethical and in violation of DOJ guidelines” about not tinkering with voting rules immediately prior to an election? (It’s also an absurd legal argument, meant to confuse the public and help lay the groundwork for later challenges to the election. More on that later.)

“Sanitizing again!” she fumed. The prominently displayed story, of course, did get into the issues more deeply, as it detailed how the Justice Department has asked a federal court to block the certification of the Alaska election if the Republican incumbent loses in a close result. The flimsy pretext is the presence of another candidate on the ballot (yes, don’t blame me, they are both Sullivans!) with a similar name.

A well-known journalist wrote to me with an infuriating one, also from the Times: “The Michigan Senate Race Keeps Getting Nastier.” It was a fine example of all the things I’ve been railing about — false equivalence and “both-sidesing,” giving equal weight to things that aren’t equal at all.

As this journalist noted: The subhead did put the onus where it belongs, on the supporters of Republican candidate Mike Rogers — including Donald Trump — who have described Democrat Abdul El-Sayed as “a jihadist” and “a terrorist.”

But “many people don’t get that far.”

Do a few headlines in the New York Times really matter?

Yes, they do! They matter because they influence how other news organizations report the news, and thus their tone ricochets throughout the entire media ecosystem.

They also matter because they make a statement about how one of the world’s most powerful news organizations is approaching the midterm elections that are only one week away.

Even this thorough story by Zolan Kanno-Youngs who covers the White House for the Times carries a soft-pedaling and therefore misleading sub-headline: “A lawsuit by the Justice Department … reflects a new tactic by the president to try to shape the election results.”

Really? “To shape the election results”? Or to lay the groundwork for Trump’s plan to deny actual results and create chaos?

When the press critic Mark Jacob was invited recently to air his complaints about the Times in an interview with assistant managing editor Patrick Healy, he masterfully explained the problem.

The Times, and many other news organizations, are refusing to fully meet this moment. Jacob used the expression “five-alarm fire” to refer to our current situation — as the president and many in his cult-like party focus on suppressing the vote and preparing to deny and overturn results they don’t like. (Among many, many other problems.)

Healy, defending the Times, credited the paper’s important reporting, and Jacob didn’t disagree. But Jacob noted aptly, it doesn’t need to be an either-or proposition. It’s not strong reporting vs. communicating the dangers with appropriate intensity. It can and should be both.

We can find this reporting, of course — and the no-holds barred presentation that brings it home. Here are two stellar examples:

Barton Gellman, one of our era’s great reporters, has a new piece in the New Yorker, titled: “The State Officials Defending the Midterms from the President.” It begins with an anecdote that shouts, not whispers, how bad things are right now.

Gellman wrote about the Republican lieutenant governor of Utah who is basically afraid to leave her home to go to the grocery store because she insists on standing up for voting integrity. The subhead is clear: “Donald Trump has tried to purge voter rolls nationwide. Deidre Henderson of Utah is among the chief election officers standing in his way.”

Now and then, not often, Deidre Henderson will still work up the nerve to drive herself to the market for milk or bread. She will sit in the parking lots in her big SUV, engine running, door locked, ruminating on risk. Generally, she heads home without getting out of the car.

Later, the article notes: “For months, not a single Utah GOP leader offered her public support.” In addition, she’s been warned by the weaponized Justice Department that legal retribution may await her if she doesn’t stand down. “It would be nice,” she has responded, “if the good folks at the DOJ would focus on actual problems instead of baselessly harassing election officials.”

Excellent piece. But the New Yorker, let’s face it, doesn’t have the circulation of the New York Times.

Here’s another place where you could read the straight-up unvarnished truth, in historian Garrett Graff’s series of articles on his (subscription-based) “Doomsday Scenario” about different aspects of the trouble we’re in.

He wrote most recently about Trump’s sweeping corruption. He delves into the way Trump uses the Justice Department to punish those he sees as his enemies, “even as he, his family and cronies are corruptly abusing the power of government to enrich themselves.” It includes sentences such as “Trump is offering pardons to any comer with cash,” and “the corruption and misconduct is so wide, deep and broad that it’s almost impossible to capture in total.”

The good news, Graff writes, “is that this corruption is so endemic and so obvious that it has broken through to voters.” And granted, some of the reason it has broken through is because of mainstream reporting, including in the Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, the Associated Press, USA Today and elsewhere.

Joshua A. Douglas, writing in the Washington Monthly, addressed the headline problem head-on. (And bear in mind, Douglas is a conservative legal scholar, not someone who’s spouting DNC talking points.) In addition to the Alaska case, he also notes a weak California lawsuit that seeks to separate ballots cast by supposed noncitizens.

“Every news headline about these cases should have the appropriate context. Perhaps the news media should adopt a universal convention. Every headline and push notification about a Trump lawsuit over the election should begin with the phrase, “Without Any Legal Authority…” or “Without Any Evidence…”

He went on:

Articles about the Alaska lawsuit should say, “Without Any Legal Authority, Trump Seeks to Meddle in Alaska Election.” The California News should begin, “Without Any Evidence of Noncitizen Voting, Trump Asks Court to Separate Ballots in California.”

Douglas sensibly notes that such added context could help avoid the confusion that these lawsuits have generated.

He writes, and everyone who runs a newsroom or a politics desk should commit this to memory, and talk about it to colleagues:

“Confusion is the point. Trump wants to sow discord among the electorate so that if Republicans lose, he can claim that the election is rigged. He is weaponizing the courts for a political narrative, not a legal one. We can choose not to let that happen by how we discuss these cases.”

Yes. And by how we write about them. The midterm election itself will be over soon. But the cries of rigged elections, the baseless efforts to overturn races, the intended and weaponized confusion? All of these will continue.

Readers, I’ll be tracking all of that here, and I hope you’ll continue to come along. The relationship between journalism and democracy is my topic and will continue to be; it’s not going to become any less crucial, no matter what the results next week.

Thank you for your support, your interest and your comments, which I always read with attention and appreciation. I’m especially grateful for those who are keeping this paywall-free effort accessible to all by subscribing for $50 a year.

Send examples of the good, the bad and the ugly you see in media. Finally, watch this devastating supercut, contrasting Trump and former president Obama campaigning this week.

And read up on an innovative lawsuit, Roth v. Trump, by the Knight First Amendment Institute in which the plaintiffs are not news organizations but the public — specifically, they are citizens who rely on journalistic reporting out of the White House.

And one more thing, a question: What would a true American comeback look like? What are the first things you would do to begin repairing the damage?

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As my father liked to say, keep the faith.

 

My background: I am a Lackawanna, NY native who started my career as a summer intern at the Buffalo News, my hometown daily. After years as a reporter and editor, I was named the paper’s first woman editor in chief in 1999, and ran the 200-person newsroom for almost 13 years. Starting in 2012, I served as the first woman “public editor” of the New York Times — an internal media critic and reader representative — and later was the media columnist for the Washington Post. These days, I write here on Substack, as well as for the Guardian US. I’ve also written two books, taught journalism ethics, and won a few awards, including three for defending First Amendment principles.

The purpose of ‘American Crisis’: My aim is to use this newsletter (it started as a podcast in 2023) to push for the kind of journalism we need for our democracy to function — journalism that is accurate, fair, mission-driven and public-spirited. That means that I point out the media’s flaws and failures when necessary.

What I ask of you: Shortly after Trump’s election in November of 2024, I removed the paywall so that everyone could read and comment. I thought it was important in this dire moment and might be helpful. If you are able to subscribe at $50 a year or $8 a month, or upgrade your unpaid subscription, that will help to support this venture — and keep it going for all. Thank you!