"The Biden news coverage requires less hysteria, more journalism"
https://heartlandsignal.com/2024/07/03/opinion-the-biden-news-coverage-requires-less-hysteria-more-journalism/Media critic Jamison Foser nails it: “A lot of things are newsworthy; media companies do not “merely report the news,” they *decide what the news is.* And when it comes to Trump & Biden, the lack of proportionality speaks volumes.”
Journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones of The New York Times adds this: “As media, we consistently proclaim that we are just reporting the news when in fact we are driving it. What we cover, how we cover it, determines often what Americans thinks is important and *how* they perceive these issues, yet we keep pretending it is not so. If Americans don’t recognize the crisis our democracy is facing, that’s not their fault, it is ours.”
What’s happened to journalism since the last debate is entirely out of proportion and not in keeping with the responsibilities of a free press. “Feeding frenzy” doesn’t even come close to describing the news media coverage about Joe Biden’s debate performance.
Full-blown hysteria has taken over too much of the mainstream press, with the Times leading the pack. By last count, the Times has done 70 stories, 20 opinion columns, four podcasts and one editorial about the president’s dismal debate. All in less than a week. Broadcast media is doing its best to keep pace with the Times, and social media is a dumpster fire of gossip and disinformation.
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My comment at the time was that the initial results mattered less than the results after the media spent several days telling people that they actually did care about the debate and specifically what they were allegedly thinking about it.
It really is astounding how the narrative shifted from “Biden sounded hoarse and unfocused,” building steadily day by day to “Biden is a senile ‘dead man walking’.” Lost among the hysteria were any mention of Trump’s “torrent of falsehoods” (as Reuters originally put it), his ramblings about sharks and batteries or how electric planes couldn’t fly at night, or even the earthshaking SCOTUS decision granting presidents near-monarch status. All of that was swept under the rug for a 24/7 spotlight on “is Biden a vegetable?”
