U.S. Media and the 2024 Election

New coverage models are urgently needed for an authoritarian-democratic face-off

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Many of you have written to me because you are upset about the state of U.S. media coverage of the 2024 election. You have noted the skewed coverage about the age of the two candidates and their mental and physical fitness for the job, diagnosing a double standard that benefits Donald Trump, who markets himself as the “dynamic strongman” and lies with gusto and vigor.

Opposing him is the incumbent Joe Biden, whose personal frailty has come to be the focus of media coverage, although he has been the strongest and most assertive pro-democracy president in many generations, with domestic policies that take a long view in defending democracy by addressing the inequality and insecurity that cause people to turn to authoritarians in the first place.

As this University of Pennsylvania Computational Social Science Lab research from March 2024 shows through a case study of the New York Times, this lopsided coverage predates the aggressive campaign by U.S. media against Biden that followed “the debate,” as I refer to the authoritarian spectacle of propagandizing by Trump which would have forced any candidate, even one in far better shape than Biden was that night, into a defensive mode.

I have written about that “firehose of falsehood” spectacle here, and you can see clips from my TV appearances on the subject.

Continuing with the Times as a case study, the newspaper issued an extraordinary editorial board call for Biden to step aside because during those 90 minutes on stage he did not seem up to the task of defending the nation from Trump’s many threats. The editorial was thoughtful, and pledged to endorse Biden if the matchup remained between the president and Trump.

Yet it was one of reportedly 192 pieces the Times published in the week following the debate that raised doubts about Biden on grounds of his fitness. None of the 92 pieces the paper published about Trump in that same period focused exclusively on the former president’s inability to pronounce words, his mental confusion and forgetfulness, and incoherent rambling at numerous campaign rallies.  

Lucid is about big-picture thinking, and here I step back and consider the state of media-politics relations as a symptom of a profound political shift that I first discussed three years ago. “What happens to a bipartisan democracy, and its media landscape, when one of the two parties turns toward autocracy?,” I asked in an April 2021 Lucid essay.

“Half the political class, and the press, operate within a democratic framework, while the other half and its media allies increasingly embrace extremist politics. Understanding this asymmetrical political and media environment is essential to a realistic appraisal of where American politics may be headed in the coming years.”

This asymmetry has only deepened, but you would not know it from coverage of this election as it has been managed by media executives. Things may appear to be proceeding normally, with the usual caucuses, rallies, conventions, but the meaning and purpose of these political rituals has changed as the GOP has abandoned democratic political culture for autocratic methods and platforms.

This novel situation complicates election coverage based on the bygone reality of two parties, or two candidates, that may differ on issues and tone but are assumed to be acting in “good faith,” meaning that they accept the will of the electorate, checks on the power of the leader, and the ideal of a peaceful transition of power.

The Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection Trump incited to stay in office illegally, and the GOP’s conversion into a personal tool of a demagogue, have taken us into an emergency situation that conventional coverage cannot adequately convey.

Yet Joe Kahn, executive editor of the Times, referred to democracy in a recent interview as merely one issue of interest “at the moment,” to be covered alongside other issues that are top of mind, such as immigration and the economy. Kahn has modernized the Times, investing in visual journalism, but his attitude that democracy is a topic, rather than a political system that makes coverage of any and all topics possible, seems old-school rather than adaptive.

The stakes of the upcoming election make the problem of this and other “media failures,” as Margaret Sullivan has termed them, an urgent matter.

Seeing this election through the lens of authoritarian tactics highlights the incommensurability of the two candidates. Biden wants to be re-elected as a democratic president, subject to checks and balances on his authority and loyal to the Constitution. Trump is running as a strongman untouchable by the law. To acknowledge this incommensurability throws the whole coverage used by most media outlets into crisis.

So what can be done? Perhaps the media can take a more holistic approach to threats to American democracy, looking at how the loss of freedoms would impact specific issues that voters care about, be it economic life, our national security, or our reproductive and voting rights. Containing democracy coverage to a beat focused on politics risks missing chances to inform the millions of Americans who don’t follow party politics.  

Moreover, we are seeing how effective it can be to give talented journalists the freedom to methodically expose, in real time and on camera, the lies that GOP lawmakers are telling the American people. Kristen Welker’s tenacious querying of Sen. Tim Scott on NBC’s Meet the Press, and Alicia Menendez, Michael Steele, and Symone Sanders’ interview with Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts on MSNBC are examples.

The saddest thing about the skewed coverage resulting from decisions by C-suite media executives is that their hardworking journalists on the ground will be the ones targeted if Trump returns to the White House. It will become more dangerous to cover political events such as MAGA rallies in person, and press briefings will be occasions for intimidation and open hostility. 

Trump supporter at a rally on Nov. 6, 2016, in Minnesota. Reuters.

Over the last year, the United States fell ten points further on the Reporters Without Borders World Press Freedom Index ranking, to 55/179, with “open antagonism from political officials” cited as a factor as well as popular distrust of the media and polarization.

"The times demand that we liberate ourselves from the old conventions about journalism," declared Professor Nikole Hannah-Jones as she introduced the inaugural Democracy Summit at Howard University in November 2022. That is all the more urgent in the run-up to the most consequential election of our lives.