The Media Opens The Debate With An NYT Poll That Crosses Into ‘Falsehood’
On the evening of September 10th Kamala Harris and Donald Trump will have a televised debate. After the last debate, a shaken Joe Biden courageously stepping off the stage and revealed a power-house: Kamala has been in Trump’s nightmares ever since.
So debates can have impact.
But the coming debate will reveal as much about America’s media as it does about the two candidates.
Because after the debate, the media will pronounce judgement. And here we have cause for concern.
The core issue, as noted in a recent article by Robert Hubbell, is with Trump’s onset of insanity: “the deterioration of his already deteriorating cognitive abilities and further loss of control over his delusional impulses. But you wouldn’t know it from reading the stories in the major media outlets—that are obsessing over horse-race polls and debate prognostication.”
It goes beyond negative reporting into the territory of outright fabrication. There was an NYT poll issued recently that purported to show that Trump was ahead of Harris. It used poll weighting and voter misrepresentation to create information that was not just misleading, it was a lie. As they have done all year, the NYT created that headline just before the debate. And then they had the nerve to brag that it was the only ‘high quality’ poll.
It follows a poll it conducted in March with the same outfit, Siena College, that found a majority of Biden voters believed he was too old to be an effective president. That poll touched off a torrent of angry commentary directed at the outlet. Jeff Jarvis, Professor of Journalism Innovation at the CUNY Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism, said at the time “That they even asked this question is evidence of the bias — the agenda — in their poll. Who made age an ‘issue’? The credulous Times falling into the right-wing’s projection. This is not journalism. Shameful. NY Times, did you ask your random voters whether Trump is too insane, doddering, racist, sexist, criminal, traitorous, hateful to be effective as President? This is not a poll. It is your agenda.”
You might have noticed that after media like the NYT performed its function of getting rid of Biden by harping on about his age, the topic of "too old" has gone off the news radar. Remember when every news outlet in the US, including the supposedly liberal ones, were all about Biden being senile. But Trump isn't young, either, and he is measurably more senile than Biden (or of course Harris). But suddenly there are many fewer news stories about Trump's age or senility.
One detail in particular niggles at me: after the assassination attempt, why did Trump not cry out for someone to investigate the plot? I mean, with his life still in danger, and after being hit, he still had the calm to say he wanted his shoes. Then he paused amid the law officers who were trying to hustle him off and waved to the crowd. Then, after one day, his ear miraculously and completely healed, with no scars!
Isn’t there a media story in this tangle of nonsense? Why didn’t Anyone investigate?
Did they think he was healed by Divine Intervention?
In a larger sense, the issue that this September 10th debate will throw light on, is whether American media coverage will be so Trump-serving that the media essentially abandons democracy itself.
Of course, the debate itself will be a lively show.
In one corner, we have an orange orangutan who pushes nonsense out of his face, berates his opponents and treats the female half of the population as if they were reproduction units. In preparing for the debate Trump has said that he believes that he is “entitled to personal attacks” and won’t change his strategy. And his rants have become increasingly disconnected from any logic – a fact that is covered over by mainstream media.
In the other corner we have someone who will stand up to that, even if she is only 5”4” tall (5’ 7” with heels). Trump is making fun of his opponent’s height, of course – which should play well to two-thirds of the female audience. But I can’t think of anyone who is less likely to be bullied by Trump than Harris.
Have you seen her advertisement that ends with Trump saying ‘she’s not really black’; Harris then ends the ad with ‘My name is Kamala Harris and I approve this message’. Trump spouted nonsense and she slammed the door in his face without bothering to contradict him.
Harris is eloquent, unphased, and is comfortable with being first in almost everything she’s been elected to. Her policies in California and as VP have been inclusively generated and innovative. She was a prosecutor attorney who built a career on public speaking and she is facing a senile criminal.
I will be cheering her on, but doubt there will be any big surprises.
The most interesting part of the contest will be what the media says about it afterwards.
The judgements of the media will be a visible indicator of the state of American democracy.
Trust in media has tanked.
Its superficial reporting has driven people away. They no longer trust journalists to report the news accurately and fairly, according to Benjamin Toff, author of a book on the subject. A growing number of people simply are tuning out news entirely: “There’s a larger segment of the public [that is] mostly just indifferent towards news,” says Toff. “They will say in a survey that they are distrusting, but it’s not a deep-seated distrust. It’s actually more of a skepticism about the value and relevance of news to their lives.”
In a book that I will review next Monday, the value of alarmism for media has reached new heights; media have found out that each negative word in a headline increases its number of views by two percent. If you were blinded by the media, for example, you would think that rates of violent crime are soaring…in fact, in the last 30 years violent crime has decreased by 50 per cent.
No wonder people are switching to other sources.
Social channels – digital news – rank much higher as information sources. Facebook outpaces all other social media sites. Three-in-ten U.S. adults say they regularly get news there. Slightly fewer (26%) regularly get news on YouTube, Instagram (16%), TikTok (14%), X (12%) or Reddit (8%).
Twenty years ago, US newspapers took in some $50-billion in advertising revenue; now, that has fallen to less than $10-billion.
The media’s game right now is to pretend that decent Americans might still consider voting for Trump, to keep us excited enough to click through to their news sites. Trump is great for media ratings and that's the metric they use for everything. It's all about the clicks…all about self-interest.
If they judge that Kamala is a big winner after the debate, few people will be stirred enough to read their articles.
Far better to pretend that it was a close match and that Kamala was on the ropes.
The question here isn't "can Harris beat Trump in a debate"? The question is "will the media admit she won if she wins?"
Trump has a massive cult who will rant on cue at any suggestion that Trump lost.
They set such a low bar for Trump’s performance that if he can get through the debate without actually waving his diapers around, the press will report he won. Or they would say that at least he was strong enough to wave the diaper around…and then they will move off and talk about how Kamala needed better shoes.
They want to get clicks, they want to avoid Trumpers screaming at them. So they won't admit that Harris won no matter how well she does.
I’d be happy to be wrong, but there is a reason people have turned away from the Trump-boosting click-happy Mainstream Media.
They would be reporting on Trump’s only four talking points. Mostly Trump just rails about how unfairly he’s being treated and complaining that the prosecutors are out to get him, and he spends about 10% of the remaining time on four subjects: ‘stop the invasion’ of immigrants; defunding schools that have Covid restrictions; defund schools that push critical race theory; and how the attack on the Capitol was a normal day in Tourist Season.
Trump isn’t actually a politician. He’s a demagogue. His only plan, 2025, is to establish a dictatorship. He does not have to make sense or have an economic vision; he just has to be loud and certain. He speaks gibberish with confidence and proves that content doesn’t matter for the uninformed. His only strategy is to say so much insane stuff in a short period of time that no one can possibly fact check it all or argue back.
In response, I imagine that Harris will be firm and clear. She was a very successful prosecutor in her earlier life. She just needs to be presenting her message and let him hang himself when he opens his mouth.
This is going to be won on emotional likeability and little to do with good government. Harris can go in for the kill by talking about his criminality.
She doesn’t need to get in to debating his policies; everything he promised in 2016 during the debate didn’t materialize anyway (The Wall, Healthcare Reform, Infrastructure Program, Immigration reform). It was all lies. Just keep painting him as a felon, a weirdo and too old, and not fit to run the country. And keep mentioning the other legal cases against him.
With a simple glance after a word salad statement from Trump, she can make him look like the fool he is…then be the smart, articulate prosecutor she is and state HER case for middle class America. Should be a cake walk. Getting under his skin a little wouldn’t hurt, because he WILL take the bait and go off. She can look presidential and in control while he bloviates on and on about nonsense.
The fact is, there is no objective metric where Trump is the better choice. Harris is already the objectively better candidate. We don’t need convincing that four years of her is better than another four of him.
She does not need to match every allegation he makes.
Never wrestle with a pig because you'll both get dirty and the pig likes it.
She does of course have to both answer all the questions given to her with precision and grace, and at the same time fact check and call Trump on all his nonsensical rants - without looking like a nasty woman. Which is what the right will call her if she goes on offense too much, and there's an ingrained sexism many people hold which will see it that way. It's going to be a tough debate for her.
But she is way smarter than him, and not afraid of him. And she laughs at him, at his ridiculousness and stupidity.
For the media, though, they can dump Harris in a number of ways: If she goes on the offense, she's nasty and pushy; if she goes on the defense, she's weak and ineffectual. If she corrects him, she's condescending; if she doesn't correct him, she's ignorant of policy detail. If she laughs, she's deranged and flippant; if she's serious, she's cold and emotionless.
They already have a good start with the false NYT poll.
Some in the media want to go beyond pushing for a neck and neck race. They want a Trump victory for ratings, and the owners of media want Trump’s tax cuts and regressive policies. The media are absolutely thumbing the button for Trump and always have been.
And Trump lost the last election anyway, by seven million votes.
The San Franciso Chronicle has prepared this handy presidential debate bingo card, to help you follow the evening more easily:
Happy viewing! Afterward, drop me a line about what you think of the media coverage.