Deadline Pressure

Two weeks ago, I wrote in this newsletter about a horse called Journalism, which was the favorite going into the Kentucky Derby, ultimately losing out to a rival named Sovereignty—a result that was inevitably cheered, in a metaphorical sense, by Trump administration officials and right-wing populists and taken as an ominous sign by many journalists. This past weekend, Journalism got a second chance, at the Preakness Stakes in Baltimore; it looked like it would fall short again, the victim of some jostling—but this time surged back, heroically, to triumph. Sovereignty was not on the track this time, but the symbolism was reversed regardless; Wes Moore, the Democratic governor of Maryland, took the opportunity to declare that “Journalism is alive and well.” (Not that he’d initially backed the horse: “I’ve learned not to bet against America’s Promise,” he said earlier, referencing a different entrant.) Among members of the press, some of the metaphor-making was less self-serious: The Bulwark’s Sam Stein quipped that Journalism “looked lost, stumbled, couldn’t quite find the lane, struggled to get a lede down and then it all sort of came together right before the deadline.”