In the aftermath of Kamala Harris' stunning loss in this year's presidential election, Democrat leaning politicians and pundits offered up a range of blame for the fiasco. The most common hot takes include:
- Blame the Voters: Too many were motivated by racism, misogyny, and sexism. A view endorsed most explicitly by the National Organization of Women.
- Blame Joe Biden: He should have stepped down earlier to allow the Dems to have a competitive primary.
- Blame the Global Movement Against Incumbents: Given the toppling of incumbent parties and politicians all over the globe, 2024 was going to be tough for the Democrats no matter who got the nomination or how they got it.
- Blame the Democrats' Abandonment of the Working Class: This is Senator Bernie Sanders' shtick, which he trots out after every Democratic Party loss. Before the election, Sanders was calling Harris a "progressive" and lauding Biden/Harris for accomplishing more than any administration since FDR. If Sanders sincerely believes the Dems have abandoned the working class, he should stop endorsing establishment Democrats.
- Blame Kamala Harris: Her campaign undoubtedly sparked more enthusiasm than any since Barack Obama in 2008. Unfortunately, she could not or would not distance herself from Joe Biden, which made it impossible for her to be the candidate of change in a year when voters clearly wanted change. Anyone who has ever run a losing political campaign can think of a thousand things they would have done differently, but I'm quite sure that for Kamala Harris it would be this: her answer that "There is not a thing that comes to mind" to a question about what she would have done differently from Joe Biden.
- Blame Identity Politics: According to this view, Democratic preoccupation with issues of gender identity, race, and sexual orientation are an electoral turnoff not only to white working class voters, but to working class people of color. The Trump campaign's anti-trans ads, featuring the tag line "she's for they/them and he's for you" clearly had an impact on the race that the Harris team was not prepared to respond to.
- Blame Democratic Party Consultants: The Harris campaign spent millions of dollars on consultants, whose solution to all campaign problems is to buy another 30-second ad. Worse, the high-paid consultants generally get their ideas for what should be the dominant messages of a campaign from party insiders and wealthy donors.
Given that this is a Media Rants column, it would be easy and maybe even appropriate to add "blame the media" to the litany of "why she lost" explainers. I won't do that, because in my view no matter how awful the media perform in a given election cycle, it is never THE main reason why candidates win or lose. Smart candidates and political parties proceed from the assumption that media coverage will be awful, and plan accordingly.
Still, it must be acknowledged that mainstream media in 2024 failed in an epic fashion. I want to highlight ten of the most egregious media shortcomings of the year. None of them were unique to 2024, which makes them even more tragic as it proves that mainstream media never learn from past mistakes (or does not care to learn.).
#10.The 2016 Campaign All Over Again. In 2016 then CBS Chief Executive Les Moonves said of Donald Trump's candidacy: "It may not be good for America, but it's damn good for CBS." Moonves tried to walk back those comments, but in 2024 it became clear that the networks really can't get enough of Trump. As former CNN commentator Roland Martin put it: "A lot of legacy media people were pining for Trump's return because they know it's going to be a sh*t show every day. It will be another four year reality show about his craziness." The irony is that legacy media stand to be a major target for persecution in Trump's second term.
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| Was 2024 merely a repeat of 2016? Mainstream media willing to suspend civic responsibility for profits? |
#9. Sanewashing Trump. President-elect Trump is convinced that the mainstream media are his enemies (and the enemy of The People), and yet the mainstream media have assisted him greatly--not just by giving him millions of dollars of free campaign coverage--but by turning him into a "normal" candidate by grossly cleaning up his most nonsensical comments and overall image. A typical example would be when Trump sent out an unhinged, insult laden social media post that seemed to include an agreement to debate Kamala Harris. Major media simply reported it as "Trump agrees to debate Harris." Parker Molloy in The New Republic wrote the best piece about the media "sanewashing" of Trump:
This “sanewashing” of Trump’s statements isn’t just poor
journalism; it’s a form of misinformation that poses a threat to democracy. By
continually reframing Trump’s incoherent and often dangerous rhetoric as
conventional political discourse, major news outlets are failing in their duty
to inform the public and are instead providing cover for increasingly erratic
behavior from a former—and potentially future—president.
The consequences of this journalistic malpractice extend far
beyond misleading headlines. By laundering Trump’s words in this fashion, the
media is actively participating in the erosion of our shared reality. When
major news outlets consistently present a polished version of Trump’s
statements, they create an alternate narrative that exists alongside the
unfiltered truth available on social media and in unedited footage.
Voters who rely solely on traditional news sources are
presented with a version of Trump that bears little resemblance to reality.
They see a former president who, while controversial, appears to operate within
the bounds of normal political discourse—or at worst, is breaking with it in
some kind of refreshing manner.
#8: The George Clooney Op-Ed. On July 10, 2024 the New York Times published an op-ed by the actor George Clooney called "I Love Joe Biden. But We Need a New Nominee." I found it fascinating that the New York Times, which recoils at even the suggestion that they allow themselves to be exploited for partisan purposes, gave Clooney a green light to send out the message that big money Dem donors were done with Biden. The most outrageous part of the op-ed was this:
We are not going to win in November with this president. On top of that, we won't win the House, and we're going to lose the Senate. This isn't only my opinion; this is the opinion of every senator and Congress member and governor who I've spoken with in private. Every single one, irrespective of what he or she is saying publicly.
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| The New York Times allowed its op-ed page to be used as a space for rich Democratic Party donors to express their unease with Joe Biden. The people at-large had made it clear long before Clooney's piece that they thought President Biden should keep his 2020 pledge to be a transitional figure. The fact that Biden resisted those calls, yet dropped out not too long after Clooney's op-ed appeared only seemed to reinforce the perception that the voice of the wealthy, not the people at-large, is more important to establishment Dems. |
How on earth could the Times publish that without demanding to know the names of the officials who spoke to Clooney? Clooney and the big money donors ultimately got their way, Kamala Harris ended up setting fundraising records, and yet the end results were exactly what Clooney predicted would happen if Biden stayed in the race.
#7. Local Media Campaign Rally Announcements. Donald Trump came to Wisconsin many times during the campaign season. Each rally featured his standard litany of insults, grievances, exaggerations, and lies. Appalling to me was the way local television news announced the rallies: "Donald Trump will be in Green Bay today to talk about economic policy." "Donald Trump heads to Milwaukee today to lay out his plan for immigration reform." The announcements made it sound like Trump was running a traditional Republican campaign, when in reality his speeches rarely addressed policy matters in any meaningful way.
#6. Focus Group Failure: For the entire campaign season, the New York Times ran a series of focus groups with voters. Many of them were moderated by Frank Luntz, the political consultant most known as a Republican spin doctor. The focus groups were maddening in how much the participants were guided by inaccurate information or just sheer ignorance. At the end of each focus group, Luntz and other moderators included this qualification:
"As is customary in focus groups, our role as moderators was not to argue with or fact-check the speakers, and some participants expressed opinions not rooted in facts."
Without any kind of fact-checking of the focus groups, the Times in a real sense allowed itself to be used as a space for partisan propaganda. The Times should have published a column after each focus group that, at a minimum, identified factual inaccuracies in the focus group content. Doing that would not have required arguing with the participants. Perhaps they would have learned something.
#5. The Los Angeles Times and Washington Post Non-Endorsement: Ownership of the L.A. Times and Washington Post made the odd decision, within two weeks of the election, of not endorsing a candidate for president. Instead of admitting the obvious--that they did not want to risk angering Donald Trump should he win the election--they instead gaslighted their readers and tried to argue that they were upholding some kind neutrality principle. A number of staff resigned, and thousands of readers cancelled their subscriptions. Here's what former Washington Post editor Marty Baron called the paper's action: a case of "disturbing spinelessness at an institution famed for courage."
#4: No Pushback On Political Advertising Lies: We all expect political ads to feature exaggerations, and for candidates to stretch the truth just enough to make themselves look good and their opponents look bad. In 2024, however, there just seemed to be an overabundance of ads that had absolutely no basis in reality. The example that stood out for me was Wisconsin Republican US Senate candidate Eric Hovde's ad claiming that incumbent Tammy Baldwin "gave stimulus checks to illegals." That one stood out for me because it's easily refutable.
It is true that FCC guidelines prohibit censoring or rejecting ads paid for and sponsored by legally qualified candidates. But it is also true that there is nothing that prevents the network running the ad from exposing lies that are being broadcast on said network. During campaign season, each network should create a weekly news feature dedicated simply to fact-checking the ads being run.
#3: Debate Moderating: I've been watching television political debates since the 1970s, and I can honestly say that the moderating this year was the worst I have seen. Joe Biden clearly was not ready to participate in the June debate with Donald Trump, but even a younger and more coherent Joe Biden would have done poorly in a debate in which the moderators refused to fact check even the most baseless assertions. Moderators for the Trump/Harris debate in September were mildly better, but there too Mr. Trump was for the most part able to spew alternative reality with little pushback. I argued in July that Biden should have refused to debate Trump, and I would have given the same advice to Harris. When one side in a debate lies repeatedly, and continues to tell the same lie(s) even when corrected, then genuine debate is not possible.
My field of Communication Studies is guided by a code of ethics ("Credo For Ethical Communication") that should guide debate moderators and participants. Moderators should especially be ready to call out violations of these two principles:
We advocate truthfulness, accuracy, honesty, and reason as essential to the integrity of communication.
We condemn communication that degrades individuals and humanity through distortion, intimidation, coercion, and violence, and through the expression of intolerance and hatred.
In Wisconsin, Democratic Senator Tammy Baldwin and her opponent, Republican Eric Hovde, had one debate that was broadcast live on a Friday evening. The moderators asked a boatload of questions with little follow-up and limited time for the debaters to respond. The end result was a "debate" that featured each candidate reverting to their stump speech talking points and/or taking a cheap shot at their opponent. It really was one of the most awful debates I've ever seen. The Wisconsin Broadcasters Association, which hosted the debate, needs to be better.
#2: Ignoring the Urban Voters, Distorting the Rural: Given the the existence of the Electoral College, candidates have to spend most of their time in swing states with large rural populations. Since 2016 mainstream media have given us countless reports, feature stories, podcasts, and documentaries about the plight of the rural voter allegedly abandoned by Democrats. Meanwhile, about 80 percent of Americans live in urban areas, yet the concerns of urban America rarely get sustained attention during presidential campaigns. This in spite of the fact that urban issues like failing infrastructure, housing shortages, underfunded schools, cost of living, and many others create an urban population every bit as distressed as the rural. Without question, urban distress contributed to Trump making significant gains with Black and Latino voters in urban areas even as he trashed the cities they live in and has produced no clear plan as to what he might do to address the distress.
What distresses me as a citizen following the campaigns is that the mainstream media not only minimize the concerns of 80 percent of the population, but they don't even provide a complete portrait of what exactly IS rural America. According to professor Christabel Devadoss of Middle Tennessee State University, rural America is not just White America, as always implied in mainstream news reports. Dr. Devadoss looked at census data and found this:
Nationwide, 24% of rural Americans identified as people of color in the 2020 census.
That figure is probably low because the census tends to undercount nonwhite respondents – a problem that was particularly evident in 2020. Even so, that’s a quarter of rural residents who don’t fit the national stereotype of rural America.
Rural America is white and Republican. It’s also trans, queer, Black, Hispanic, Indigenous, South Asian, Democratic and much more. Even if some are Republican, they still aren’t the rural Rust Belt Republicans portrayed in the national media.
Ignoring these nuances reinforces stereotypes that the rural Rust Belt is the exclusive domain of white conservativism. But this region isn’t now, and never has been, simply red and white.
#1: Resurrecting the Dead Horse Race: New York University Journalism Professor Jay Rosen has long been critical of mainstream media's "horse race" coverage of elections. Horse race coverage minimizes discussion of issues of concern to voters, or the consequences of elections, in favor of nonstop "who's in the lead" stories. In 2024 a running joke became the image of political junkies frantically checking their phones every five minutes to see if the polls budged. In 2023 professor Rosen asserted, quite correctly in my view, that the 2024 election coverage should be guided by these six words: "Not the odds, but the stakes." Put another way: "Not who has what chances of winning, but the consequences for American democracy."
Writing for the Freedom Forum, Scott Leadingham argues that horse-race journalism is interested in more that just polls: "More broadly, it's a focus on the day-to-day and ins-and-outs of campaigning; Who said what at a rally? Who posed for a photo with what group? Who posted what on social media and how did their opponent respond? Who 'won' the debate or had the most 'cringe' response to a question?"
As we entered the 2024 campaign season I was hoping, probably in a naive way, that mainstream journalists might declare the horse race model dead and instead cover "the stakes." Instead they resurrected the horse race and made it more prominent than ever.
In every election cycle there are individual journalists who resist resorting to conventional templates. I might recognize some of them in next month's annual Tony Awards column. But the responsible journalism of a few will not prevent future generations from concluding that 2024 election coverage, on balance, represented an epic fail. That failure did not cause, but was certainly a contributing factor, to Donald Trump's victory. What could that victory mean for the free press? I'll let media researchers Julie Posetti, Kaylee Williams, and Mel Bunce answer that and close out this post:
Donald Trump’s second term promises to deliver historic threats to US press freedom – directly from the Oval Office.
The president-elect made it clear during the campaign that he had the press in his sights. He told a rally on the eve of the election that he “wouldn’t mind” if an assassin shot the journalists standing in front of him.
Ahead of the election, he also signaled his desire to jail journalists, hunt down their confidential sources, cancel the broadcast licences of major networks and criminalize work to counter disinformation.
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| Is the threat to jail adversaries just another case of Trump throwing red meat to his MAGA base? Or is Trump 2.0, thanks to the Supreme Court not having to worry about prosecution while in office, intending to make good on his threats? We will soon find out. |
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