The truth about the midterms — and the media’s failure to convey it
Timothy Snyder, who wrote a book called “On Tyranny” gets it.
In general, the mainstream media does not.
Here’s what Snyder wrote recently: “We are now two months from the American midterm elections, probably the most consequential since the eighteenth century. Given that the presidency is held by an oligarch who wishes to bring our republic to an end, a victory of the opposition is a prerequisite for the maintenance of the rule of law and anything resembling political democracy.”
The only thing that’s not true about those two sentences is that we’re even closer now than when he wrote them on Substack.
We’re seven weeks out, as of tomorrow.
But otherwise, the renowned historian nailed it.
But if you were reading, watching or listening to most of the mainstream press, this is not the impression you would have.
Take, as a representative example, a recent edition of the New York Times newsletter known as The Morning. It’s very popular, very well read, very influential. I’ll bet that many of the journalists at the most influential news organizations — and their bosses — are among the roughly 16 million subscribers.
A few days ago, The Morning went out to all those email inboxes with this subject line: “A Midterm Mess.” The first line of the midterms section went like this: “The midterm elections are already uncommonly chaotic.” It’s an unfortunate example of the persistent and widespread problems in political coverage today: false equivalency, “both-sidesing,” and normalizing.
After reciting some recent developments, the newsletter asks (with two question marks underscoring the apparent puzzlement): “What is happening??”
“The answer lies partly in our increasingly polarized approach to elections,” it goes on. Readers, when you encounter the word “polarized,” your antennae for both-sidesing should shoot up. The general idea is something like this: “Things are so divided; it’s nobody’s fault, really. Good arguments on both sides.”
The next few sentences deliver on that. “Trump claims elections are rigged against Republicans — both to rationalize his own defeat by Joe Biden in 2020 and now to impose new rules before midterm contests that may not go his way. And there are some reasons for suspicion. Russia and China have tried to influence our elections. Polls keep missing the mark. And screw-ups aren’t totally unheard-of: Many Americans remember 2000, when Florida’s voting machines failed to tabulate tens of thousands of ballots.”
The piece then duly notes that widespread cheating is a fiction and that there’s no evidence that such fraud has affected any election outcome.
Considering the influence of the Times and the way it affects coverage elsewhere, this is simply not good enough. (See Timothy Snyder, above, for why.) What’s going on with the midterms is that there’s a chance that Trump could face some accountability, at last, and that he’s terrified by that prospect and doing everything in his power to thwart it — including by lying about voting machines, scaring voters about going to the polls, and making it harder for them to vote by mail.
Other examples abound. The media, in general, covered Trump’s claim at last week’s “midterm convention” — a spottily attended two-day rally — in Dallas that he’d give $5,000 to every Americans after the midterms with far too much credulity, particularly in headlines.
Reuters: Trump offers $5,000 to every American if Republicans win midterm elections
NBC News: Trump pledges $5,000 for Americans if GOP wins.
Financial Times: Trump Promises $5,000 ‘dividend’ for US voters if Republicans win midterms
Axios: Trump makes a familiar promise: $5,000 checks for everyone
Time: “Trump Announces $5,000 Dividend if Republicans Win Midterms.
AP’s headline, by contrast, featured some appropriate skepticism: “Trump, hoping to salvage midterms, makes a dubious pledge to give every US adult $5,000 if GOP wins.”
USA Today offered a useful angle: “Trump promised $5,000 checks. What happened to his other payouts?”
In general, midterms coverage so far veers much more toward horse-race than importance, constantly breaking the wise Jay Rosen rule that called for the media to cover “not the odds, but the stakes.” Typical is this Washington Post story on the four takeaways from the Dallas gathering with one item announcing that “Alarmists stayed home. Attendees had a blast.”
Sometimes the reader comments are more instructive than the stories, with the top comment on that Post story (one of more than 1,000) reading as follows:
This story is horrific sane washing on the part of the WaPo!!!
-No mention of the low attendance, even when giving away free tickets.
- No mention of the strange things Trump said during his dull rambling 106 minute speech.
- No mention of major Republicans who stayed away from this sham.
- Trump’s $5,000 giveaway is strange/desperate/illegal. Why not discuss this as a takeaway?
Over the next seven weeks, I’ll be pressing hard here for more on the stakes and less on the odds, and keeping track of how these extremely consequential midterms are being covered. Please give me your best examples of coverage that does it right, or (too often) wrong.
I want to point out the strong Times news analysis by Jim Rutenberg and Maggie Haberman, “How Trump is Wielding Power to Stifle Speech” (gift link here). It notes:
“Almost 20 months into Mr. Trump’s second term, his long-running media clashes have grown into a sweeping campaign to control speech in America that stands out for applying so many levers, so fast, all at once.”
And now on to the most distressing and the most encouraging media news of recent days.
The deep cutbacks at the media chain McClatchy were another blow to local news in many regions of the country. The company owns the Kansas City Star, the Charlotte Observer, the Sacramento Bee, the News & Observer in Raleigh, and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, among many others.
The Miami Herald, which has done such important reporting on Jeffrey Epstein and his victims, is one of the hardest hit, as the bestselling author Carl Hiassen put it: “This is a death blow to the already skeletonized Miami Herald, once one of the country’s top newspapers.” The paper, according to the Times, cut more than 30 newsroom staff, more than a third of the editorial staff.
You can’t cover regional news without sufficient reporters, editors and visual journalists. This has happened almost everywhere and it is tragic, including for our democracy.
Bringing a bit of welcome light are the recent moves by the newly renamed Washington Sun, formerly NOTUS. Based in DC, the outlet has hired many former Washington Post journalists, including such stars as restaurant critic Tom Sietsema and the great Robin Givhan, who won a Pulitzer in 2006 for her fashion criticism and who later broadened her scope to politics and culture. It’s heartening to see this ambitious growth. While I’m still a dedicated Post reader (and sometimes its critic), I’m also rooting for the Sun’s success.
What’s happening to local news in your area? Does it get the job done or leave you dissatisfied or even angry?
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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.
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