There are annual conferences where medical professionals and other experts discuss the deaths and illnesses of historic figures through the lens of modern medicine. At some point in the future, historians, political scientists, journalists and other experts will convene to discuss and debate the Age of Trump and how the “world’s greatest democracy” succumbed to autocracy and authoritarianism. The role of the mainstream news media is sure to be prominently featured in any political autopsy.
During the 2024 election, the American mainstream news media continued to practice its obsolete norms of “fairness,” “balance,” “objectivity,” and “neutrality.” Coverage remained steadfastly focused on “bothsidesism,” an obsession with the polls and the “horserace,” and inside the Beltway gossip rather than critical coverage of Trump’s campaign and his MAGA authoritarian populist movement. As an institution, the news media did not treat Donald Trump’s chances of victory over the Democrats in the 2024 election with the seriousness and alarm it merited. The result was to normalize and minimize the existential harm that Trump’s return to power would cause the nation.
In this future political autopsy, media scholar Jay Rosen’s advice and warning to the American news media to emphasize “Not the odds, but the stakes” in its coverage of the Age of Trump will be written in bold or repeatedly underlined.
At The Guardian, Rebecca Solnit indicted the American news media for its failures during the 2024 election:
The first thing to say about the hate and scorn currently directed at the mainstream US media is that they worked hard to earn it. They’ve done so by failing, repeatedly, determinedly, spectacularly to do their job, which is to maintain their independence, inform the electorate, and speak truth to power.
Ultimately, as an institution, the American mainstream news media did not adopt the prime directive that, in a time of such extreme peril, it should be emphatically and explicitly pro-democracy, rather than just a referee, bystander, or stenographer of current events. This is a failure of principle, self-interest and survival.
Donald Trump has now been president for two months. He is ruling as an autocrat and aspiring dictator who appears to have no intention of leaving office. The news media has, with some exceptions, not risen to the challenge. In his January essay “Why is Trump coverage so feeble?” journalist and media watchdog Dan Froomkin summarizes the news media’s choice to fail:
In some cases they have been explicitly muzzled — told by their bosses to “be forward-thinking and to avoid pre-judging Trump,” as CNN chief Mark Thompson told his staff, according to Oliver Darcy.
In some cases, it’s all internalized; they’re so into being “above the fray” that they’re unwilling to render judgments that might alienate Trump and his voters and subject them to accusations of having “taken sides.”
But for whatever reason, by failing to properly situate Trump’s individual acts, they effectively play down the significance of what he is doing. They normalize it.
Let’s Be Clear
Most of what Trump is doing is coming right out of the authoritarian playbook....
Here’s the thing: I believe our top political journalists know full well what is going on, and would actually like to explain it properly to their readers and viewers. They just haven’t figured out a way to do it yet….[O]ur political. journalists need to find a way to get over the view that putting what Trump is doing in its full context is somehow “taking sides” in a partisan political battle. Yes, it’s “taking sides” – but it’s taking sides for the truth. It’s taking side for an informed electorate. It’s taking sides for journalism
As Robert Kuttner asks at The American Prospect, “where are the firebreaks?” that should be slowing down and stopping the Trump administration and its forces as they rampage against American democracy and society. The firebreak that is the American news media (the Fourth Estate) against Trump’s assaults on democracy, the rule of law and the Constitution has not been effective.
Leading media outlets such as the Washington Post and LA Times are engaging in anticipatory obedience where they are self-censoring or otherwise modifying their coverage and tone to please Donald Trump, his MAGA movement and the larger right-wing. For example, as directed by ownership, the editorial board of the Times did not issue its customary endorsement of a presidential candidate in the 2024 election (Kamala Harris would have been endorsed). To great controversy, the Washington Post also made a similar move. The Post has now gone even further, with its billionaire owner Jeff Bezos issuing a guideline that the opinion section of the paper will focus on amplifying “personal liberties and free markets." Opposing views will not be given a platform in the newspaper.
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In his newsletter, historian Timothy Snyder offered the following critique of the logic of “free market” orthodoxy and how Bezos’ decision is doing the work of authoritarianism and plutocracy:
The assumption that "free markets" and "personal liberties" work together as "pillars" is mistaken. These two concepts are not the same, and very often point in opposing directions. A "free market," for example, would mean that companies can pollute as much as they like. But if the atmosphere poisons me and I die of cancer, I am not enjoying "personal liberties" of any sort…
Snyder continues:
The language of "free markets" is authoritarian. Freedom belongs only to people. It does not belong to institutions or abstractions — and least of all to non-existent institutions or abstractions. The moment that we yield the word "free" to something besides a person, we are yielding our freedom. And we should be aware that others who abuse the word by taking it from us intend to oppress us. When we endorse the fiction of "free markets," we are entering a story told by others than ourselves, in which we are the objects, the tools, the non-player characters. We are accepting that we people owe duties to those markets. By way of an unreal concept we pass into real submission. We are accepting that we have the duty to oppose "government intervention," which is to say that we must oppose political actions that would help us to be more free: safety for workers, protection for consumers, insurance for banks, funding for schools, legality for unions, leave for parents, and all the rest. We must accept whatever the market brings us, to go wherever the billionaires take us, to surrender our words, our minds, ourselves.
CNN and other television and media outlets are also adjusting their coverage to feature more “conservative” voices and perspectives in what appears to be an attempt to conform with the Trump administration’s desires (and also to avoid retribution). These decisions are justified as responses to a changing market and declining ratings.
The acts of anticipatory obedience by the Washington Post and other leading news outlets will have a cooling effect across the entire news media. The many failures of the news media in the Age of Trump (and in the years and decades prior that birthed this era) to, for example, accurately and effectively describe America’s political and social reality and the country’s deep troubles and what to do about them have contributed to its lack of trust and respect among the American people.
Last December, Semafor asked dozens of leading news and media figures what they were wrong about in 2024. The survey should have received much more attention when it was published. It was a rare moment of critical self-reflection and potential soul-searching for a news media that rarely admits its errors and failings because to do so would be a threat to its legitimacy and authority. Some of these failings, errors and oversights included downplaying Trump’s popularity, mistaking Kamala Harris’ “brat energy” and the enthusiasm of her base as compelling evidence that she would win the election and turning a blind eye to Biden’s apparent inabilities, due to age and energy, to effectively campaign against Trump. I have reread Semafor’s survey several times during the last three months. Trump’s shock and awe campaign against American democracy is escalating and the news media as an institution appears to be continuing with many of the same errors (or worse) it made in 2024 during one of the most critical elections in American history.
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I asked Brian Karem, who is Salon’s White House columnist, for his thoughts about the media’s failures in 2024 and what he would have done differently:
We fail in the press because more than 90 percent of what you see, read or hear is owned by six companies who are part of the billionaire ruling class.
We are owned by entertainment companies and are treated as cheap entertainment. We produce pap with snap for various news-information silos. More intent on going viral than informing, we are no longer capable, at least most of the time, to produce vetted factual information for the masses. We hire cheap, uninformed and under-experienced editors to bow to the owners, and hire uninspired and under-experienced reporters to produce stories. We neither grasp nor search for anything other than reactions to press releases and official pronouncements. We fail to understand and are proud to be along the ride to doom.
What we got wrong in 2024?
Rather than point to individual stories we got wrong, I will simply say we got all of it wrong by not providing vetted factual information, for failure to communicate, for failure to investigate, understand or search for answers using the scientific method to communication and producing news we can all use.
I also asked Matthew Sheffield, who is a progressive writer, commentator, and media critic for his reflections and insights:
I think the biggest lesson that progressives should take from the 2024 election is that the mainstream news media will never adequately promote our ideas. This is a mistake that should have been realized a long time ago. Paradoxically, even though the mainstream media as always refused to comprehensively document and expose Republican politicians' fanaticism, Republicans still believed they needed to create their own media environment to promote their ideas to the public. And so they did. Democrats actually have more money at their disposal, but they need to start spending it on advocacy media, instead of worthless TV ads that are despised by voters as much as they hate email spam.
It's easy to blame voters for staying home or making a bad choice, and they do deserve moral accountability. But unless you have a plan to stop it, raging against the machine only gets you crushed by it.
The two things I got the most wrong in 2024 were 1) that I trusted that the Joe Biden White House was telling the truth when they said he was capable of running a full-scale presidential campaign. He very obviously was not, even before his disastrous debate performance against Donald Trump—who actually performed worse, but his aberrant behavior has been, regrettably, normalized for many people; and 2) I underestimated just how little engagement that the Kamala Harris campaign was attempting with younger voters. Trump won the election because of people who had never voted before. And he did it by appearing on countless podcasts, which Republican donors have spent millions creating while Democratic donors pleasured themselves to anti-Trump video ads.
The Democratic establishment has failed now twice against Donald Trump, a man who thinks that windmills cause cancer. We can point and laugh at Trump all we want, but since he's won twice now, which politicians are actually the fools?
Nathan J. Robinson, the co-founder and editor-in-chief of Current Affairs magazine, offered this call to action:
We need to build an alternative media infrastructure that is sharply critical of both Trump and the anemic Democratic opposition. That is what we have been trying to do for eight years at Current Affairs, despite having no corporate backing and working entirely off reader support. The people quoted in that Semafor article are right that they were wrong. They do not, however, realize that their wrongness discredits them and shows why people should stop listening to them. Some of us had much better records in 2024. If you go through the archives of our magazine, I think the commentary holds up pretty well. In fact we warned in 2020 that Biden’s presidency would be a failure and Trump would be back. I would encourage consumers of media to switch and follow independent publications that have a good track record of analysis (not just my publication but The Intercept, Lever, Jacobin) and stop paying attention to blowhard pundits who are confidently wrong about everything.
As an institution, the news media developed extremely poor habits during the Age of Trump. This was preceded by years and decades of bad habits that collectively have now brought the United States to such a low place. Moreover, these are now more than bad habits; they are the dominant culture of the American mainstream news media.
Donald Trump and his MAGA movement are quickly consolidating their power. The American news media is almost out of time to learn new habits and norms by being brave defenders of democracy and freedom. The American news media is now facing an existential collective action problem, where to paraphrase Benjamin Franklin, they need to work together or be defeated alone. The future of America’s news media is clear: If they continue with their bad culture and acts of anticipatory obedience, they will become de facto ministries of state propaganda that are owned by the autocrat and his friends and allies, like in Orban’s Hungary or Putin’s Russia.
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