It was the “abnormal” President Trump that allowed for news media organizations to define their operations under his presidency. He constantly attacked them and the truth, whereas they claim to have faithfully presided as truth’s gatekeepers — as a check on Trump’s myriad lies. It made for four years of fluster.
Considering the prevailing posture of the news media — their kid-glove treatment of Joe Biden during the campaign, the liberal bias in so much of their reporting, the dramatic performances of reporters at press conferences and on social media — the “normal” that Biden’s apparent victory restores is most welcome. CNN said as much in a new promotional advertisement.
“Our trust has been broken — in our leaders, in our institutions, even with some of our friends,” a solemn narrator says over piano music and gray-scale faces. “And we are hurting. Now more than ever, we need each other.”
There is some recognition that an era of good feelings will begin shortly in the media. And that is a shame. What this really means is that major voices in the news will insulate Biden’s administration from meaningful challenges because things will just be better with him in office. It will be an unwelcome continuation of media shortcomings.
The Biden-Harris transition team could have aired that same ad itself.
Over the last four years, journalists have demonstrated that they do not understand, or have selectively forgotten, that it’s par for the course in politics to lie, stretch the truth, speak metaphorically, and misrepresent opponents’ views. There is a broad coalition of journalists who operate as if Trump introduced those things to the game. That is absurd.
That explains why a CNN reporter and “fact-checker” was able to write this seriously and unironically during this year’s Republican National Convention, “I think it’s important for objective journalists to note how wildly imbalanced the dishonesty is between the current parties. This one half-night of Republican programming so far has been exponentially more dishonest than the entire four nights of the Democratic convention.”
That is why his colleague, Brian Stelter, could confidently and resolutely concur that there is simply asymmetric lying going on, and to say of the Democrats’ convention, “The media DID fact-check the Dems last week — that’s part of the point — reporters checked and found that the speeches were largely accurate.” Well, they missed a thing or two.
This same disposition explains why the Washington Post would run a “fact-check” on Herschel Walker’s personal characterizations of Trump as if they were checkable facts.
“I watched him as the owner of a professional football team,” Walker said of Trump. “Right after he bought the team, he set out to learn. He learned about the history of the team, the players, the coaches — every detail. Then he used what he learned to make the team better.” Well, actually, the paper’s fact-checkers determined, Trump is widely blamed for the USFL’s demise.
It is why Politifact treated Trump campaign manager Jason Miller’s political calculation as a bona fide claim about how the electoral college works. “We believe that we’ll be over 290 electoral votes on election night,” Miller said before the election. Politifact actually took the time to inform their readers, “No candidate will ‘be over 290 electoral votes’ on Election Night, because electoral votes aren’t cast until Dec. 14 and won’t be counted until Jan. 6.” Seriously? That’s going to be treated as a lie? Thanks for the civics lesson, but not all expressions of political speech or campaign self-confidence merit a fact-check.
These are not examples of the news media doing a good job, to be sure. They are examples of a news media that invested too heavily in the ethos of battle and took a side.
The general risk of a “normal” Biden administration is not that ridiculous fact-checks will be missed, but that the resolve of the news media to challenge everything the Trump administration did will simply vanish. The “asymmetric liars” will no longer occupy the West Wing, so they can rest easy. The risk is that the gatekeepers lay down their arms and give a pass to the president, with whom their general political sympathies inexorably lie.
The news media’s disposition should always, in every instance and under every administration, be one of assuming that the president and his team are being about as forthright as makes them look good. In Trump’s case, it caused them to overcorrect, and often. The risk of a Biden administration is that the media’s preference for Biden will render them impotent.
