In the lead up to the 2016 election, US journalists faced a dilemma.\u00a0\u00a0They “came of age” in an era of the \u201cequal time\u201d doctrine, where broadcast media were required to make sure each candidate for office got equal time in news and other unpaid exposures.\u00a0\u00a0They also came from the Edward R Murrow\/Walter Cronkite \u201cschool\u201d of broadcast journalism, where the media was supposed to be unbiased, presenting the information for the evaluation of the \u201cconsumer\u201d, the American public.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
(There\u2019s certainly an argument that \u201cneutrality\u201d was never really true.\u00a0\u00a0Murrow saw his job as revealing the truth.\u00a0\u00a0His broadcasts certainly revealed the lies behind Senator Joseph McCarthy\u2019s movement.\u00a0\u00a0And even though Cronkite was a \u201cliberal\u201d in his private views, a friend of John F Kennedy, his journalism was \u201clevel\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0That is, until he revealed his opinion on the Vietnam War. But those departures from \u201clevel\u201d were exceptions, not the rule).<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n With the advent of 24\/7 cable news, there was a need to find a \u201cniche\u201d of loyal viewers. What was once \u201cunbiased\u201d media became \u201cadvocacy\u201d broadcasting. Rupert Murdock, Roger Ailes and Fox \u201cNews\u201d started it. Their \u201cFair and Balanced\u201d newscasts slanted to the conservative, and for a decade they took the lion\u2019s share of viewership. <\/p>\n\n\n\n 24\/7 \u201cnews\u201d on the right demanded 24\/7 \u201cnews\u201d on the left.\u00a0\u00a0Two organizations tried to fill that void; MSNBC and the original 24\/7 news, CNN, who tried to maintain “neutrality”.\u00a0\u00a0They managed to lose viewers from both directions.\u00a0\u00a0Staying \u201cneutral\u201d wasn\u2019t a commercial option for them.\u00a0\u00a0So CNN began to \u201cdrift\u201d to progressive as well.\u00a0\u00a0Ultimately the three mirrored the American political split, with Fox getting about half of the cable news viewership, and CNN and MSNBC splitting the other half.\u00a0\u00a0(More recently, MSNBC took most of the \u201cleft\u201d, and CNN veered to the center\/right to try to gain viewers back. So far, that hasn\u2019t worked).<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n And it wasn\u2019t just the broadcast media. The giants of newsprint; the New York Times, <\/em>the Wall Street Journal, and <\/em>the Washington Post <\/em>all had their editorial bias, but the \u201cnewsroom\u201d was, theoretically, strictly neutral. And, along with the \u201cregular\u201d broadcast media, CBS, NBC and ABC (and PBS) they all maintained their \u201cequal time\u201d of \u201cunbiased\u201d coverage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Donald Trump broke that.\u00a0\u00a0He had a very different approach to the media, one that, love him or hate him, worked.\u00a0\u00a0Trump learned his media strategy from the tabloid dailies of New York, the\u00a0New York Post<\/em>\u00a0and the National Enquirer.\u00a0\u00a0<\/em>Those newspapers had only a tangential relationship with the truth, and a huge financial stake in controversy.\u00a0\u00a0The way to \u201cwin\u201d in the tabloids was to be the story.\u00a0\u00a0Good news, bad news, anything was better than no news.\u00a0\u00a0And so Trump took that hard won New York knowledge to the national media.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Trump discovered that the more he talked, the more attention he got.\u00a0\u00a0In 2015, when the Trump candidacy was still a late-night talk show joke, he called into his \u201cfriends\u201d on MSNBC\u2019s\u00a0Morning Joe,\u00a0<\/em>day after day.\u00a0\u00a0The premier progressive political morning show gave Trump all the time he could ask for, even if the host was critical, and even if his answers didn\u2019t come close to the questions.\u00a0\u00a0Trump was “out”, all the time.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u00a0The show invited Clinton to do the same. But Hillary, a traditional politician, was not interesting in being \u201centertainment\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0So MSNBC didn\u2019t worry about \u201cequal time\u201d, and Trump supporters tuned in to hear their leader.\u00a0\u00a0It was a ratings \u201cwin\u201d for the network, and it made Trump a \u201creal\u201d candidate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He was always the story \u2013 often for what were negative statements, actions, or events. He lied, he was outrageous, he broke all of the political \u201cnorms\u201d that American politics and journalism depended upon. Even when Trump was \u201cin trouble\u201d with the Access Hollywood <\/em>tape, in one sense, he was still winning. The spotlight remained on him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Add that to the \u201cequal time\u201d inclination, and the \u201cserious\u201d media were forced to balance Trump\u2019s negatives with \u201cequal\u201d Clinton negatives.\u00a0\u00a0So her email scandal dragged on and on; the one big story the media used to show \u201cfairness\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0And any other Clinton failings (she passed out from illness after the 9\/11 ceremonies in New York) were magnified, mostly because it balanced the ongoing Trump negative coverage. Then FBI Director Comey reopened the email investigation into the Weiner laptop, and changed the entire political landscape.\u00a0\u00a0But Trump\u2019s negatives were \u201caccepted\u201d, because, that\u2019s just who he was.\u00a0\u00a0They still are.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the after-action reports from 2017, the media lamented their loyalty to \u201cequal time\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0But they continued to kowtow to the new Trump reality:\u00a0\u00a0some\u00a0<\/em>even made the editorial decision to stop saying the Trump was lying.\u00a0\u00a0He did it so often, they felt the word \u201clie\u201d lost its power.\u00a0\u00a0Fact-checking Donald Trump became a joke, an arduous exercise in truth-telling that few took the time to do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The election of 2020 was fundamentally different because of Covid.\u00a0\u00a0The candidates (even Trump) were isolated from normal public appearances, and their statements were often vetted by staff before release.\u00a0\u00a0The Trump charge of Biden \u201ccampaigning from his basement in Delaware\u201d actually had some truth, and Trump himself was restricted as well.\u00a0\u00a0And when they did appear in debates, the moderators were \u201ctougher\u201d on holding Trump statements to the truth.\u00a0\u00a0Trump lost.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In 2016 the rally going, free speaking, unchecked (and unleashed) Trump won, in spite of the Access Hollywood <\/em>tape. In 2020, the literally muzzled and masked Trump lost. He understood the lesson. In 2024, he was absolutely prepared to come out as the \u201cactive\u201d candidate, opposing the octogenarian President Biden. But then, Biden turned the tables, leaving the race to his much younger and more energetic Vice President, Kamala Harris.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And the media itself has changed.\u00a0\u00a0Fox News\u00a0<\/em>wasn\u2019t loyal enough for MAGA world.\u00a0\u00a0So outlets appeared to their right, like\u00a0Newsmax,\u00a0<\/em>the\u00a0Daily Caller,\u00a0<\/em>and all of the web-based actors like Steve Bannon\u2019s\u00a0War Room.\u00a0\u00a0<\/em>\u00a0The media world of 2024 is splintered. Facts matter even less, and impact (clicks) matter more.\u00a0\u00a0Fox lost viewers to the right, and that pushed the network to return to Trump.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So here we are, a week before the Democratic convention and the official \u201ccoronation\u201d of Harris and Walz.\u00a0\u00a0After the uproar of the last three weeks: assassination attempt, Republican convention, Biden\u2019s withdrawal, Harris\u2019s acceptance, and the Walz candidacy; what looked like 2020 a month ago looks a whole lot more like 2016 today.\u00a0\u00a0The Harris campaign has the advantage of learning from the Clinton mistakes, but the Trump campaign has learned as well.\u00a0\u00a0The Democrats may be \u201cjoyful warriors\u201d, but it\u2019s still likely to be a very close decision.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But, so far, it doesn\u2019t seem the media has learned much. They are falling back into the 2016 trap. Trump did a \u201cpress event\u201d the other day. He rambled for an hour, ostensibly answering press questions. But his answers had little to do with the \u201cprompts\u201d, and the media did little to fact-check or follow-up whatever he said. It was \u201cMr. President\u201d (he isn\u2019t) and polite conversation without interruption, something Joe Biden hasn\u2019t heard from the press for three years. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Trump got an hour to rant, but the following Harris rally was summarized in five minutes.\u00a0\u00a0Trump lied over and over again, with no direct challenge.\u00a0\u00a0A couple of news outlets did a half-hearted effort at factchecking afterwards, but most just let him go.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So as we was enter the last eighty day sprint of campaign 2024; watch what the news media does. Their impact may be fragmented by the web, but they still have an obligation to find something that resembles the truth \u2013 I hope.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mirror Image<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Broken System<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Balance<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
2020<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
2024<\/h3>\n\n\n\n