Tag: politics

Why Are Political Journalists More Scared of Revealing Their Votes Than Baseball Writers?

Look, we know newspapers are going to overwhelmingly endorse Joe Biden. When political donations originating from employees of media organizations are eventually tallied up, we know they will tilt massively Democrat. Most people who are cognizant of the profession’s recent turn toward “moral clarity” over unattainable objectivity understand that that means those with non-lefty politics will be subjected to harsher adjectives.

And yet the very same media commentators who have long decried the so-called “view from nowhere” are absent in this battle for more journalistic transparency.

Keep reading

Increasing Number Of Americans Believe Violence Is Justified If ‘Other Side’ Wins

“Our research, which we’re reporting here for the first time, shows an upswing in the past few months in the number of Americans—both Democrats and Republicans—who said they think violence would be justified if their side loses the upcoming presidential election,” reads a Thursday article.

The outlet noticed an uptick in the number of respondents who say they would condone violence committed by members of their own political party – which coincided with a willingness by both Democrats and Republicans to justify violence as a means to achieve political goals.

Here’s what Politico found (emphasis ours):

• Among Americans who identify as Democrat or Republican, 1 in 3 now believe that violence could be justified to advance their parties’ political goals—a substantial increase over the last three years.

• In September, 44 percent of Republicans and 41 percent of Democrats said there would be at least “a little” justification for violence if the other party’s nominee wins the election. Those figures are both up from June, when 35 percent of Republicans and 37 percent of Democrats expressed the same sentiment.

• Similarly, 36 percent of Republicans and 33 percent of Democrats said it is at least “a little” justified for their side “to use violence in advancing political goals”—up from 30 percent of both Republicans and Democrats in June.

• There has been an even larger increase in the share of both Democrats and Republicans who believe there would be either “a lot” or “a great deal” of justification for violence if their party were to lose in November. The share of Republicans seeing substantial justification for violence if their side loses jumped from 15 percent in June to 20 percent in September, while the share of Democrats jumped from 16 percent to 19 percent.

• These numbers are even higher among the most ideological partisans. Of Democrats who identify as “very liberal,” 26 percent said there would be “a great deal” of justification for violence if their candidate loses the presidency compared to 7 percent of those identifying as simply “liberal.” Of Republicans who identify as “very conservative,” 16 percent said they believe there would be “a great deal” of justification for violence if the GOP candidate loses compared to 7 percent of those identifying as simply “conservative.” This means the ideological extremes of each party are two to four times more apt to see violence as justified than their party’s mainstream members.

Notably, those at the ideological extremes are more likely to condone violence, with ‘very liberal’ respondents over 50% more likely than ‘very conservative’ individuals to do so.

Keep reading

Journalism or partisanship? The media’s mistakes of 2016 continue in 2020

If there were any doubt left after 2016 as to what too much of the mainstream news media in America has become, it most certainly has been erased in 2020. Too often, many in my industry have revealed themselves as little more than propaganda tools for dueling political sides, no longer reporting the way journalists once did. We compete for the latest anonymous “scoop,” scandalous rumor, or unsupported accusation. We pounce on the supposed “bombshell” du jour and hype it on the news, accompanied by endless round robins with political operatives. Many of us don’t even bother to find and report on stories that powerful people and interests aren’t pushing.

To do this, too many of us have abandoned basic tenets of journalism. We ignore the suspicious timing of the handout “leaks” or scandals — as if nobody notices. We fail to explore or disclose sources’ motivations or conflicts of interest — as if nobody wonders about them. We don’t even pretend to assess the true news value of the “bombshell.” We’re simply happy to be of service to the propagandists; we invite them to use us, and our superiors reward us with admiration. Many of our peers either repeat the reporting, seek to confirm it using equally dubious methods, or discredit it. Rarely do we step back and consider that the whole drama is being orchestrated by political puppet-masters who count their successes by the number of news stories they generate.

Keep reading