Depending on where you look, mainstream media outlets are serving up two entirely different versions of the 2024 presidential race.
The New York Times and Politico in particular, the former authoritative and the latter more smirky and gossipy, provide the conventional horse-race coverage you might expect from those news organizations in any election.
But a growing number of highly regarded journalists and academics are looking at that coverage with dismay, loudly imploring their colleagues to tell their audiences what’s at stake: the nation’s long commitment to democratic values, a commitment shared by only one of the candidates.
While these critics have been vocal for months, the follow-up coverage of the CNN interview of Vice President Kamala Harris and running mate Gov. Tim Walz drove home their point.
In an apparent attempt to out-Politico Politico, the Times’ seven takeaways included these insights:
• “She still struggles to be punchy off the cuff.”
• “Tim Walz is good at sitting and smiling.”
But the Times still couldn’t top Politico, which made the strongest possible case that the campaign is wasting its time submitting to the political press, and the nation is wasting its time paying attention to said press.
In the interview, Dana Bash asked about Donald Trump’s jaw-dropping comment — to Black journalists, no less — that Harris had only recently “become Black.” Harris didn’t bite — “Same old, tired playbook. Next question, please” — and Bash moved on.
Enter Politico: “‘Next question’: Harris evades questions about her identity.” (The headline has since been changed.)
Keith Olbermann tweeted: “Trump insults her heritage, he says she ‘turned’ black, he inflames racial animus, he ruins this country a little more — and your half-witted, irresponsible, sub-journalistic framing is SHE evades QUESTIONS about her identity?” There was more, laced with obscenities.
Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo: “Omg. When someone showed this to me I wasn’t sure if it was real. ‘Evades questions about her identity?’ What? This was refusing to dignify Trumps racist attack abt her ‘turning Black’. Whats wrong w you, @politico? I think you need to address your identity as journalists.”
Will Bunch of the Philadelphia Inquirer: “This is a new low for the broken media, which is saying something. I don’t even know what else to say at this point.”
Charles P. Pierce: “And that’s why we call it, Tiger Beat On The Potomac.”
Then Donald Trump and some Gold Star families posed for smiling, thumbs-up campaign photos by the graves of members of the military who had died in Afghanistan, after shoving aside a cemetery employee telling them that such photos were not allowed.
Parker Molloy of The Present Age: “It was a gross spectacle that disrespected families of fallen servicemembers buried in Section 60 and broke federal law. Trump campaign advisor Chris LaCivita even reposted a video taken at the cemetery to his X (formerly Twitter) account, writing, ‘Reposting this hoping to trigger the hacks at SecArmy.’
“This is a pretty cut-and-dry scandal that only makes Trump look bad,” says Molloy. “Surely, mainstream media outlets’ reporting would reflect that, yes? You’d think so, and yet… The Washington Post and New York Times decided to ‘both sides’ the issue.”
“On September 1, the Post published a piece headlined, ‘With boost from grieving families, Trump sharpens attacks on Harris,’” Molloy says.
“Things didn’t go much better over at the Times, which opened its story, ‘Trump campaign uses statements from Gold Star families to attack Harris,’ by calling this a ‘partisan dispute over Arlington National Cemetery,’” says Molloy.
Turning the graves of American fallen into a photo opportunity might be seen as craven. Turning that act into a savvy political move is the very definition of mainstream political journalism in 2024.