Trump’s challenge begins Tuesday night, when the former president is expected to announce his 2024 presidential election. The media would be wise not to cover the press conference live.
In fact, in principle, the media should be especially clear whenever Trump tells a lie (virtually every time he opens his mouth). If his statements aren’t true, they need to keep assembling headlines to highlight them. They shouldn’t be giving him more time or space than the top contenders in .
Polls and reporters, beyond Trump, need to realize that women are not minorities or interest groups. They are average voters. Forget the diner as a place for voter interviews. Go to yoga studios, school drop-off lines, supermarkets, and other places where normal women are. Find out what worries them and what qualities in candidates keep them away. If they do this, then the media may not underestimate women’s distaste for right-wing politicians.
The media should also acknowledge the fallacy of the widespread narrative that Latinos are fleeing the Democratic Party. is not. Although Florida, with its large Latino population, tends to be Republican, nationally, the majority of Latinos still vote Democrat.
In Texas, Democrats retained the state’s 28th congressional district and overturned the 34th congressional district. Both are regions with a large Latino population. The border area remained blue, partly because Democratic gubernatorial candidate Beto O’Rourke was strong in the area. News outlets should be aware that the blue trend continues in several other states with large Latino populations, such as Nevada, Arizona, and Colorado.
Even better, the media needs to realize that “Latino” is largely meaningless as it encompasses people with vastly different backgrounds, experiences and perspectives. It makes little sense to treat a Puerto Rico-born American like a third-generation businessman who has a Spanish surname but doesn’t speak Spanish fluently.
Second, it’s long past time to stop allowing polls to shape reporting. Moving away from the often false and utterly irrelevant coverage of horse racing allows the media to focus on the experiences and personalities of candidates, key policy issues, and changes in voter attitudes and demographics. Journalism shouldn’t be a magic eight ball. It is about understanding and analyzing the recent past and present.
Here’s an idea: Limit the number of monthly articles that cite or rely on polling. Expand your use of focus groups, track local media coverage, and monitor where candidates are spending their money. Be careful if both sides seem to agree that the issue is valid for one side. (As I pointed out, in the battlegrounds, Democrats were leaning toward the abortion issue, and Republicans were scraping their positions on the issue off their websites.) The media aren’t good at speculating on outcomes. No, but I’m pretty good at explaining what the problem is. happens in a race. After all, that’s the point.
Political reporting should also be more candid. We should admit that the Republican Party is full of weirdos, conspiracy theorists, and election naysayers who are at odds with the masses. If the media had been doing this for the entire cycle this year, the outright rejection of these Republicans by millions of Americans might not have been so shocking.
While they do, the media should stop obsessing over the debate. Voters virtually never change their minds after such events, and the media’s own judgments about who “won” often go against voters’ perceptions. A town hall or lengthy interview might provide voters with just as much information — no tedious news reviews.
Finally, the media should recognize where they have succeeded. Some news outlets have highlighted election naysayers and put a lot of effort into promoting the secretary of state. This helped inform voters about previously obscure races. Armed with information about the threat posed by election deniers, voters found themselves vetoing them in virtually every battleground state gubernatorial and secretary of state election.
This does not help the media get their predictions right, as the intention is to keep them out of the prediction business. Surveys give experts false confidence.
Journalism can improve its image by leaving the predictions to betting markets and tarot card readers. This should free up resources to focus on the threats that still face democracy.
