An Open Letter To The Media: Please Do Not Screw Up The 2020 Election
"I want you to hate the industry you are in and the pressure you feel to treat politics like a popularity contest. "
by Ben Cohen
I would like to preface this letter by acknowledging how immensely stressful it is covering politics in America. With the 24/7 news cycle, reporters and commentators are under an astonishing amount of pressure to flood our airwaves, Facebook feeds and Twitter timelines with up to the minute content. This matter has been made infinitely worse by the emergence of Donald Trump and his incredible ability to make headline news. Trump’s WWE style presidential campaign was unprecedented in US history, and much of the media simply did not grasp what was happening to them before it was too late.
That being said, it is vital that those in the field of journalism take a large amount of responsibility for the colossal fuck up that was the 2016 Presidential election. Through a mixture of greed, cowardice and inability to adapt, political reporters and commentators helped elect a racist, alleged sexual predator to the highest office of the land. This was a nearly unforgivable sin, but 2020 is just around the corner and you have a chance to put things right.
I do not want to retread the horrors of 2016, but some of it is necessary if you are to learn in time for 2020. Let’s look at the major sins you committed:
You insisted on treating both candidates as political equals.
You treated Hillary Clinton’s “scandals” with the same fervor as you did Trump’s.
You turned the election into a giant sporting spectacle and covered it the same way.
You covered every damn thing Trump said and let him dominate the airwaves, regardless of whether it was newsworthy.
These severe abdications of journalistic responsibility helped to normalize Trump and give Republican voters permission to vote for the deranged lunatic we now see in office. Trump started out as a joke, but the non-stop media coverage and the political movement he started after questioning President Obama’s birth place gave him a lot of power. Instead of confronting that power, you acquiesced to it and helped legitimize his overt white nationalism. You cannot do this again.
Hillary Clinton was not the Democratic party’s most likable candidate, and you did your best to make this a major talking point on the campaign trail. This helped Trump enormously as he was able to paint Clinton as a cold hearted liar who only wanted power for the sake of it. This was deeply irresponsible (not to mention factually inaccurate), and you did little to put it right.
For 2020, the field is filling up with immensely talented prospects. You can put this right if you take your jobs seriously. From Kamala Harris to Cory Booker and Pete Buttigieg, the Democrats have a real chance of putting forward a superb candidate who could smash Trump at the polls in 2020. And by superb, I mean not a racist idiot incapable of self control. This may seem like an incredibly low bar, but that’s where we are as a society. Thanks in part to you.
I am aware that this sounds harsh. But I fear this is the only way to ram home the message. I want you to feel responsible. I want you to hate the industry you are in and the pressure you feel to treat politics like a popularity contest. I want you to feel like you are not a real reporter when you use fancy graphics and talk to moronic Republicans who still do not believe in global warming. More than anything, I want you to feel deep shame that you played a part in helping Trump become president.
Why? Because then maybe you will think twice before filling time with inane polling numbers or fancy graphics highlighting minute changes in popularity. Maybe you will stand up to your editor who insists that you talk about Elizabeth Warren’s “likability” or Cory Booker’s “blackness”. Maybe you will refuse to talk to conspiracy theorists on your show despite them bringing in a big audience. Maybe you don’t bother talking about what Trump tweet-farted at 7 in the morning because you know it’s almost certainly a lie.
These small things can add up over time. The more you talk about substance with people who actually know something, the more informed your audiences will become. The more you talk about issues, the more the country will understand how utterly useless the current president is. The less you treat the presidential election like the Super Bowl, the more seriously Americans will take it.
And if that happens, this grotesque nightmare might end and we can go back to some semblance of normality. You do not have to give the Democratic candidates a free pass or stop covering Donald Trump altogether. You just need to behave like real journalists and understand that your reporting has serious consequences. We can all see what happened in the wake of 2016 and what happens when reporters fall asleep at the wheel. It doesn’t take a genius to work out what will happen after 2020 if Trump gets another term. It won’t be good. So please, just do your goddamn jobs.
The world is watching and you cannot screw it up.
Sincerely,
Ben Cohen
(image via AP)
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The Puppet Show President
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by Bob Cesca
There’s a scene in Adam McKay’s Dick Cheney biopic, “Vice,” that made me think of Attorney General Bill Barr….
"This matter has been made infinitely worse by the emergence of Donald Trump and his incredible ability to make headline news."
I disagree. I think you have it more correct a few paragraphs later when you note "[The press] covered every damn thing Trump said and let him dominate the airwaves, regardless of whether it was newsworthy.
Trump doesn't publish a paper or own a TV or radio station. His "ability" to appear in headlines is controlled entirely by the press. Sure, he certainly tries to draw attention to himself, but it's the press that provides him with the means for anyone to notice. He can do anything he wants. Without them eagerly pushing it, nobody would notice.
The earlier sentence reads like the press had no choice, when in fact it was very much under their control.
Which is, of course, much the point you make in your article. So what's mine? I see folks saying/writing things like "Trump's incredible ability to make headlines" and it's worrisome. Because it typically comes with an acknowledgement that things should be done differently but then a claim that they can't be. It's a "I know we shouldn't give Trump so much free publicity, but we *have* to." belief. Because the belief is that the beast *has* to be fed, the news cycle *must* be stuffed full 24/7.
And I don't think that's as true as they believe it is. But, of course, they're all too scared to try anything different because a) it might have some risk that it won't work as well as what they're doing now, as harmful as what they're doing now is and 2) it requires effort.
Perhaps I'm an outlier, but I don't like watching news that fills the airways for hours on a a"breaking" story when they don't have anything yet to say. I change the channel. And I suspect I'm not that much of an outlier.
Do you really think (and I do mean this as a question) the media screwed up 2016 in a way that they might regret and not want to repeat? I mean, do you assume they did not act purposefully? I really don't know the answer, but it seems like a stretch to assume they just made some kind of mistake(s) and did not do what they did on purpose.