In the wake of the 2016 presidential election, the American news media was the subject of much well-deserved criticism. A report from Harvard’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy highlighted the “overwhelmingly negative” coverage of both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump and the almost total absence of issue-based discussion in the mainstream press. Media scholar Jeff Jarvis declared that “the mere fact of Donald Trump’s candidacy is evidence of the failure of journalism.” Just days after the election, the New York Times published a letter from the executive editor and publisher that tiptoed to the edge of an unthinkable acknowledgement: that the Gray Lady was fallible. “Did Donald Trump’s sheer unconventionality lead us and other news outlets to underestimate his support among American voters?”
It’s worth remembering that Trump’s victory was in many ways a tragic historical accident. After all, he received around 3 million fewer votes than Hillary Clinton and prevailed only because he eked out narrow victories in the traditionally Democratic states of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. Out of 120 million votes cast, 107,000 people in those three states effectively handed Trump the presidency. As always in close elections, numerous factors were at play: an undemocratic Electoral College system weighted toward small rural states; James Comey’s decision, 12 days before the election, to reopen the FBI’s investigation of Clinton’s email server; the release of hacked DNC emails by WikiLeaks; the Russian disinformation campaign; Clinton’s failure to adequately campaign in Michigan or Wisconsin. None of these things alone would have put Trump in the Oval Office. Together, they proved a perfect storm.
