How Low Can Political Journalism Sink?
Expect many articles like this in days to come, as Journalists beat their chests, cry “Mea Culpa!” and gnash their teeth, but next week they’ll go back Jack, they’ll do it again…. because clicks, because balance, because.. because .. because fuck truth, they gotta make a living.
Besides all that — you and I are party to the problem… you know you are going to click on that angsty angst piece about who said what about what ahead of that policy piece because that’s how left wing journalism rolls. We’d much rather rubberneck at what Hannity or SMOTI says than write that policy piece, and besides, that rubbernecking piece will get us more attention from our peers and more clicks…
An eye-opening study of the 2016 election by Tyndall Report, which tracks the content of the three nightly news programs on the broadcast networks, finds that since the beginning of the year, they have devoted a grand total of 32 minutes to comparing the major-party candidates for president on policy grounds. Just eight years ago, the tally was 220 minutes.
It’s like the entire business has become an episode of The Talking Dead.No single statistic about this election better explains why Donald Trump has a non-trivial shot at being elected president next week. Internal media pressures and decades of campaign reporting biases converged in 2016 to create a bread-and-circuses election, and it’s only natural that the ultimate bread-and-circuses candidate has reaped the benefits. Even if Hillary Clinton prevails, the means by which we get there—through a media gauntlet that prizes scandal over substance, and gotcha politics over the best tax plan—guarantees a perpetual cycle of distraction.
That’s hardly an original line of criticism, I know. But we often overlook the ultimate consequence: This distortion cycle enables governance that puts the pursuits of special interests over the people. The game is rigged, all right. But it’s rigged against treating politics as something that tangibly matters in people’s lives, rather than as a sideshow.