Writers covering election politics these days generally don’t reveal anything relevant about major issues and candidates. Mostly, they read online speeches and social media posts, watch YouTube broadcasts and segments, report poll predictions, scan databases and launch wave after wave of comments.
We are drowning a tsunami of political opinion.
There are few reports of resonance based on basic principles of journalismas found in The early revelation of the North Shore leader about the ridiculous lies of New York Rep. George Santos. The mainstream media missed this blockbuster. Instead, we get a network of predictions 16 months ahead of the first Tuesday in November 2024.
Conventional wisdom in mid-July 2023 predicts that former President Donald Trump is overwhelming favorite to be the GOP nominee, that voters in swing states he prefers Trump to President Joe Biden, who will be the democrat candidate, that Trump will be found guilty the case of classified documents unless the Judge appointed by Trump Aileen Cannon scuttles the prosecution, which will indict Trump anyway the insurrection of January 6.
The fact is that we will not know who the presidential candidates will be, nor the outcome of the court cases, until they are decided. We just have to wait. In the digital age, we are impatient, checking our phones 96 times a day, or once every 10-12 minutes. We expect answers instantly.
Opinion fills this gap.
But this is not all. Previous predictions didn’t require the writers to do any work beyond looking at polls, social media, and court records. They could do it reports in pajamas.
The 2016 presidential election showed the shortcomings of pollsters who overwhelmingly predicted that Hillary Clinton would defeat Trump. Conventional wisdom failed to account for high GOP turnout as well as undecided and Rust-belt state voters breaking for Trump.
On the positive side, there was less trust than in blog posts and more in research reports. Included in the New York Times The 100 most popular stories of 2016 were revelations about Trump’s Vietnam bone spur adjournments; his avoiding paying taxes for almost two decades, its massive real estate debt and loani risky behavior with women
Clinton may have experienced the worst when her email server he was linked to a disgraced congressman Anthony Weiner, the estranged husband of his top aide Huma Abedin.
We have seen very few such revelations in 2023. There may be two main reasons: newsroom employment down 26% between 2008 and 2020 and it is still going down as more people get their news from social media (62%, 2016 v. 82%, 2022).
And much of this news is regurgitated from other media that actually do political journalism.
The main news site it’s still yahoo with 61% percent of American adults having a favorable opinion of its services. But a closer look at these services reveals that this site, like other aggregates such as Flipboardsimply show, review, analyze and disseminate stories from other media.
aggregator websites, such as Google News and Feedly, also conveniently gather reports based on your clicks and algorithmic preferences.
Viewers gravitate toward convenience, which the Internet provides easily, seemingly for free. Users do not always realize that they are being analyzed with personal information shared with advertisers and organizations. Users’ political affiliations are in high demand as campaigns solicit donations. Reuters reports that political parties use data from more than 200 million voting-age Americans to inform their strategies and tactics.
Now with artificial intelligence (AI), this aspect has increased multiples. You are defined for your algorithms as well as affiliations, reduced to a simple nodewith household appliances and digital devices that transmit and receive information about your political thoughts, words and deeds.
The big five tech companies—Alphabet (Google), Amazon, Apple, Meta (Facebook) and Microsoft—continue to drain the media advertising base. This hurt the journalistic industryin particular, journalists, who generate the bulk of fact-based news, are projected to lose $2.4 billion in advertising revenue by 2026.
Why should you care?
Journalism, the so-called Fourth Estate, monitoring the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government, has one goal: to inform the public so they can make smart decisions in the voting booth. Strong policy reports are essential to this, without which, we have the governments we deserve.
There are still reliable news sites, including States newsroom, of which the Iowa Capital Dispatch is a part. Forbes recommends 10 trusted points of sale, including The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, BBC, Politico and major cable services.
As for the predictions at the start of this column, check back in a year and see how life stepped in and turned the conventional wisdom on its head.
Maybe Trump won’t be the GOP nominee in 2024. Maybe voters in swing states can switch sides and vote for Biden. Elders Trump and Biden may drop out of the race for a variety of reasons, from health to legal complications. Perhaps Judge Cannon, who is overseeing the classified documents case, will be impartial. Or not Maybe the DOJ will lose or modify its January 6th case.
Life and its variables, rather than social media and its bloviators, determine the real agenda for the public to consider. Wait for the facts. Follow the outlets that provide them. Vote accordingly.
