During Thursday night's somber warning about the threat to democracy posed by Donald Trump and his rising fascist movement, President Joe Biden repeatedly emphasized the importance of being "honest with each other and with ourselves" about the current situation. "But as I stand here tonight, equality and democracy are under assault. We do ourselves no favor to pretend otherwise."
The president reiterated that point later, noting that it is "my duty to level with you, to tell the truth no matter how difficult, no matter how painful."
Presumably, it is also the duty of the mainstream media to level with the American people, to tell these truths, no matter how painful and regardless of how much whining they get in response from Republicans. So too, it is the media's duty to set aside the cynical "horse race" coverage that can reduce existential issues to little more than political game-playing. And to admit that the typical "both sides" and "partisanship" frameworks don't apply in a situation where one party has embraced a fascist assault on democracy, while the other party is trying to stop them. It is on the media to prioritize the truth over some ill-fitting "balance" between two parties in an era when one of those parties rejects democracy itself.
But of course, what we all too often get is a bunch of media hand-wringing about "partisanship" while ignoring the seriousness of the crisis in favor of a reductive lens treating this as little more than some campaign shenanigans.
Amber Phillips of the Washington Post formatted her post-speech analysis in a listicle format. The first item? "This speech did not shy away from partisanship." Yep, Republicans are embracing authoritarian, anti-democratic politics, but the Beltway press keeps acting as if "partisanship" is the thing to worry about.
Peter Baker's equally blinkered analysis at the New York Times starts with the headline, "A Rematch of Biden v. Trump, Two Years Early" and just gets worse from there.
"Rather than a referendum on his own presidency, which has been hurt by high inflation and low public morale, Mr. Biden wants to make the election a choice between 'normal' and an 'extremism that threatens the very foundations of our Republic,' as he put it on Thursday," Baker writes. It's as if a literal fight over whether we'll continue to have a democracy is little more than the usual pre-election political posturing.
ABC News also approached the question of rising fascism as if it were political theater criticism with the headline "Biden seeks to reframe midterms into stark choice between democracy and Trump-led extremism."
What's frustrating is that all of these outlets have otherwise done rock solid reporting showing that Biden's warning is not "partisanship," but flat-out facts.
"We are not powerless in the face of these threats. We are not bystanders in this ongoing attack on democracy."
The Washington Post recently published an extensive expose of how insurrectionist candidates are winning Republican primaries, based on insinuated but unsubtle promises to use the offices they're vying for to steal the 2024 election for Trump. ABC News has reported on how Trumpist politicians and activists have already dramatically undermined the election system. The New York Times editorial board even went so far as to recently call for Trump's prosecution, in light of the growing threat he poses and the crimes he's likely committed.
Yet, once a Democrat opens his mouth and speaks, the bone-deep terror of Republicans' bad faith whining kicks in, and far too many mainstream media outlets hide behind chatter about "partisanship" and "optics" and "both sides," unable to speak the plain truth to their readers.
Spinning a stark message about the future of democracy into little more than a political gambit may feel "fair" to journalists, but it's actually very unfair to readers. It signals to readers that they shouldn't take the threat seriously, but should simply tune this all out as political hyperbole. But the opposite is true. Readers need to understand that Biden is telling the truth and, if anything, he understated the case. (Mostly by underestimating how many Republicans are, in fact, fully on board with Trump's authoritarian agenda.) That this isn't about partisan politics at all, but about whether democratic politics as we know it will exist after the next two election cycles, or whether Trump will succesfully destroy it.
To be fair, many other outlets took a more responsible approach, framing Biden's speech as the warning it was intended and not merely as a political posture.
CNN's Stephen Collinson drew the necessary contrast, in his opening paragraph, "Even on the day that President Joe Biden delivered his most jarring warning yet that democracy is in severe danger, Donald Trump teased how he might use a new White House term to further erode that core American birthright."
Journalists had a choice: Do they level with their readers and tell them Biden is telling the unvarnished truth? Or do they sidestep the issue of what is true, in favor of the usual "he said/he said" coverage?
In a surprising twist, Politico — which is usually the worst about reducing every story to a "horse race" one — acceded to the truthful nature of Biden's remarks. Biden is described as issuing "a stern warning about the future of the nation's democracy," and his behavior is contrasted with Trump's. "Hours before Biden forcefully addressed election deniers and the rise in political violence, his predecessor was defending Jan. 6 rioters," Jonathan Lemire and Merideth McGraw write.
This is what responsible coverage looks like: Focusing on the most important issue at hand — the fate of democracy — and not getting caught up in the cynical assumption that every communication from a Democratic president is a ploy.
In her final column for the Washington Post, media columnist and former New York Times public editor Margaret Sullivan warned her fellow journalists that now is the time to rise above the typical bothsiderism that defines Beltway journalism. Noting that Trump is "by no means a normal political figure, and he will never reform into some kind of responsible statesman," Sullivan asks what the media's role is when dealing with a politician who is using the democratic system to destroy democracy.
The deeper question is whether news organizations can break free of their hidebound practices — the love of political conflict, the addiction to elections as a horse race — to address those concerns effectively.
For the sake of democracy, they must.
She calls on the media to instead prioritize "using clear language, plenty of context and thoughtful framing to get that truth across." Biden's speech was an opportunity to do that. Journalists had a choice: Do they level with their readers and tell them Biden is telling the unvarnished truth? Or do they sidestep the issue of what is true, in favor of the usual "he said/he said" coverage that refuses to adjudicate, even when one side is plainly lying? Some outlets (Politico, can you believe it?) rose to the challenge. Others sadly failed.
As Biden said in his speech, "We are not powerless in the face of these threats. We are not bystanders in this ongoing attack on democracy."
He was speaking to the general public, but his words should be heeded by mainstream journalists. This isn't normal politics and covering it that way is no longer sufficient. If the threat of Trump and his fascist movement is beaten back, then maybe normal politics will return and we can once again fall into the "both sides" stupor. But to get back to where they want to be, journalists need to deal with the world as it is now. There is simply no other choice.
