A Trump victory might save journalism. And, who decides who wins — and when?

By Gary Abernathy

If Harris wins, it will reinforce the current trend of partisan reporting at our most vaunted ‘mainstream’ media outlets

Photo by David Travis on Unsplash

Ironically, a Donald Trump victory on Tuesday might be our last best chance to start the long process of rebuilding trust in the mainstream media. How? By forcing the media — particularly at the ownership and management levels — to re-examine their current business models.

The journey began a long time ago, but this election, the mainstream media has clearly become the far-left media. Our legacy media outlets are unapologetically in the tank for Kamala Harris. It’s no wonder that the media is at the lowest possible rung of credibility, according to all available public surveys on the topic.

I make a strong distinction between a news organization’s reporting side and its opinion side. I strongly support opinion pages that include a wide range of viewpoints. Be as partisan and as strident as you want on the opinion side.

It’s the news side that is suffering. At too many outlets, it’s increasingly difficult to tell news from opinion. Yes, Fox News is quite partisan on the conservative side. But the vast majority of outlets — particular those that have existed for decades and have become ingrained in our society — tilt entirely to the left. That includes our major national newspapers and wire services and the vast majority of our broadcast and cable TV stations.

They began going down the rabbit hole when they empowered reporters and editors to make judgments on Trump and other Republicans within their reporting. It has become standard practice to report in a style that permits injecting a judgment on truth versus lies, i.e., “Trump falsely stated that he won the 2020 election” or “Trump repeated the lie that he oversaw the best economy in history.”

Indeed, journalists should report facts, but they should be required to find someone else to quote in their stories to correct the record — not doing so in their own voices. To basically call Trump or anyone else a liar is to inject themselves into the story and, in essence, to position themselves as part of the opposition.

It’s one thing to lean left or be liberal. It’s another thing entirely to twist facts and truth to fit a political narrative, which the far-left (formerly mainstream) media does now on a daily basis.

Recent examples abound.

• A little-known, inconsequential comedian makes a bad joke about Puerto Rico that few Americans even hear in the first place, and media outlets everywhere magnify it to the point that it leads coverage of the Madison Square Garden Trump rally for days on end. It was a dishonest take on the real news of the rally.

• Trump says something about Liz Cheney that people have been saying forever about war hawks — that if they had to be the ones on the battlefield with rifles pointed at them, they wouldn’t be so quick to send troops to war — and the headlines become variations of “Trump imagines guns shooting at Liz Cheney.” In a clear sign of campaign-media coordination, Harris immediately embraces that messaging to call Trump’s rhetoric increasingly “violent.”

• News coverage, day in and day out, paints Trump’s messaging as “dark” or “violent” or “racist,” while Harris is routinely portrayed as “unifying” or “optimistic,” despite her warnings of a Trump presidency in terms every bit as dire and foreboding as anything Trump says.

Trump often says things in ways that are politically incorrect and unlike what any other politician would say. But the media’s choice to twist his words into the most outlandish possible reading — to achieve the most clicks on a headline and generate the most outrage as possible — is misleading and dishonest. More than any campaign in history, Trump’s campaign has been covered in a tabloid fashion that is harmful to our society.

The examples are endless. It’s futile to even debate the reality of where the media has gone in this election. And Americans recognize it, even those who don’t support Trump.

The worst thing that could happen to Big Journalism — I’ll call it that because most small-town newspapers by and large still practice traditional journalism — would be for their efforts to be successful. A Harris victory would reinforce the effectiveness of the ultra-partisan approach and cement its practice. Old-fashioned fair, balanced and detached journalism would be dead and buried forever.

But if Trump manages to win, it would be a defeat not just of Harris, but of the biased, divisive and dishonest style of journalism that has taken root at our most vaunted and historic news outlets. A Trump win in spite of the joint media effort to defeat him would be indisputable proof that they have lost their clout.

The “journalists” who are practicing the new, partisan reporting style will not change their direction on their own, of course. They are true believers in their style of far-left activist journalism. But a Trump victory could be the needed impetus for ownership and management to do a bottom-up revamp of their personnel and standards.

Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos has already indicated that he recognizes the need for dramatic change. After the Post decided not to endorse in this election, Bezos penned a column in which he said the following.

In the annual public surveys about trust and reputation, journalists and the media have regularly fallen near the very bottom, often just above Congress. But in this year’s Gallup poll, we have managed to fall below Congress. Our profession is now the least trusted of all. Something we are doing is clearly not working.

Let me give an analogy. Voting machines must meet two requirements. They must count the vote accurately, and people must believe they count the vote accurately. The second requirement is distinct from and just as important as the first.

Likewise with newspapers. We must be accurate, and we must be believed to be accurate. It’s a bitter pill to swallow, but we are failing on the second requirement. Most people believe the media is biased. Anyone who doesn’t see this is paying scant attention to reality, and those who fight reality lose. Reality is an undefeated champion. It would be easy to blame others for our long and continuing fall in credibility (and, therefore, decline in impact), but a victim mentality will not help. Complaining is not a strategy. We must work harder to control what we can control to increase our credibility. …

… Lack of credibility isn’t unique to The Post. Our brethren newspapers have the same issue. And it’s a problem not only for media, but also for the nation. Many people are turning to off-the-cuff podcasts, inaccurate social media posts and other unverified news sources, which can quickly spread misinformation and deepen divisions. The Washington Post and the New York Times win prizes, but increasingly we talk only to a certain elite. More and more, we talk to ourselves. (It wasn’t always this way — in the 1990s we achieved 80 percent household penetration in the D.C. metro area.)

Bezos’ honest and accurate assessment was, naturally, met with harsh blowback by many journalists who enjoy being able to use their news platforms as outlets for their far-left partisan ideology. But hopefully, after this election, Bezos and others will turn their words into action, beginning the long and difficult — but ultimately rewarding — task of rebuilding their operations to bring more fairness and balance to play.

Our nation — our democracy — depends on honest, balanced, factual and detached journalism. We no longer have that on a large scale, and it’s part of the reason why democracy is endangered. A Harris victory would provide little reason for news outlets to change. A Trump win just might force such a retooling.

Who decides who wins the election — and when?

Photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash

Reporters often breathlessly ask Donald Trump or his surrogates whether he will accept the results of the election. Frankly, no one should just blindly commit to accepting the results, especially in a close election. For instance, Al Gore didn’t immediately accept the 2000 results, and with good reason. Trump didn’t accept the 2020 results and never has, to the detriment of the country.

Since we don’t have a national election — we have 50 separate state elections — there’s actually no official mechanism for determining the winner until the electoral college meets on Jan. 6, 2025.

For “immediate” results, we somehow have come to rely on the unofficial “call” of TV networks, or the Associated Press. And as news organizations become increasingly partisan, their “decision desk” determinations are increasingly open to challenge or suspicion.

That’s why anything short of a landslide will likely not be called for days. State-by-state results will all be unofficial for several days. The unofficial results are reported county by county, state by state. Then, each county and, ultimately, each state has a process for certifying their results, which usually takes days or even weeks.

Once those results are certified, the electors associated with the winners of each state gather in December in their respective states to formally cast their votes. Then, Congress convenes a joint session on Jan. 6, 2025, to count and certify each state’s electoral votes. Only then is the national winner officially declared.

This election might be a long and drawn-out process before either side accepts the results. And if it’s a razor-thin election, taking time is not necessarily a bad thing. The practice of news organization “decision desks” making calls is a fairly modern tradition that doesn’t mean anything, officially.

Nevertheless, most Americans have the common sense necessary to see the results and determine whether there is any real reason for doubt. If the election leaves little room for legitimate dispute, we should all be prepared to accept the results, congratulate the winner, and move forward — as unified as possible.

‘MAGA Republicans Are Already Normal,’ in Print & eBook

My new book, “MAGA Republicans Are Already Normal — And Other Shocking Notions,” is available on Amazon. Buy it here.

The book (actually much thicker than the illustrations above indicate — the hardcover and paperback are each 453 pages) is a compilation of many of the columns I wrote for The Washington Post from 2017 to 2023, and covers a variety of topics.

Here’s a link to our website dedicated to the book. Thank you!

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