The ongoing demise of the old journalistic hegemony.

 

One of the most interesting sidebar stories to come out of the Democratic National Convention last month -- to me, at least -- was about complaints from mainstream journalists that they were kind of given short shrift this year. In their view, the Harris campaign gave preference to social media influencers: meeting with them separately; giving them opportunities for access to the candidates at the same time that mainstream outlets were complaining that the candidates hadn't given any interviews yet; and so on.

Asawin Suebsang covered the convention for Rolling Stone, and he wrote about this kerfuffle last week: 

Much of what I witnessed and heard about during my time in Chicago reinforced my preexisting beliefs that far too many so-called elite members of my profession — national political media scribes who fancy themselves as speaking truth to power, but more often just speak words to financially destructive Google algorithms — are mollycoddled hogs who are doing everything they can to fail to meet the enormity of this moment.

"There were times," he goes on, "I thought I had been teleported back to 2010, when we as an industry were debating how to treat bloggers." And he relates how "multi-lanyard-wearing, sweat-flecked envoys of the U.S. media elite berat[ed] the lowest-level convention volunteers to let them into their seats at once" when security cut off access to the press section due to overcrowding on Thursday night: 

I would be naming names at this point, if I could tell you with certainty who any of these people were, other than the fact that their respective demeanors suggested that they were accustomed to bellowing: "Do you know who I am?"

All this, he says, in an atmosphere where "much of the mainstream political press has been (correctly) programming its audience to believe this year's race is not a normal presidential election, and then too many in that media elite get upset when the public points out that they're covering it like a normal presidential election...".

Amen, brother, amen.

Alert hearth/myth readers know of my journalistic background, and of how I've been gradually coming around to the realization that the business has changed radically since I last sat before a microphone to deliver the news. I mean, I knew the business was changing; that's a big reason why I got out. But the coverage of Donald Trump from 2015 on has made it abundantly clear to me that journalists now see themselves as stars first, deliverers of eyeballs to advertisers and ad dollars to shareholders second, and purveyors of truth third, if at all. Here we are, at another inflection point in the history of our country -- the third election in a row in which democracy is threatened with extinction in the United States -- and these people in my previous profession are all butthurt about their privilege.

Honestly, it doesn't surprise me that the Harris campaign is stepping around them to get its message out. Political influencers command huge audiences, and they're inclined to give favorable coverage to the campaign -- unlike the mainstream folks, who call it hard-hitting journalism when they fall for every made-up controversy promulgated by the other side.

About that: I saw a comment not long ago, although I don't remember where now, from someone in the news business who was asked why journalists aren't talking about Trump's age and obvious decline, the way they did President Biden's. The newsperson's answer? The Democrats have to make an issue of it first -- then they'll cover it.

That's utter bullshit. In no universe ever has a real journalist passed up a story because nobody else was talking about it.

I'm appalled at the state of political journalism today. C'mon, you guys -- do better. Our nation's continued existence -- as well as your continued relevance -- depend on it.

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These moments of bloggy journalistic exhortation have been brought to you, as a public service, by Lynne Cantwell. Stay safe! And be sure to vote!

All that panicking for nothing.

lineartestpilot | Deposit Photos

I thought about writing about Memorial Day today, seeing as how it's that weekend, and explain why thanking a vet is not the proper way to observe the day. But Facebook reminded me that I'd already done that post back in 2017. 

Instead, I guess I'll write about the debt ceiling mess and how the media made it worse. (It's a political post. Sorry, y'all.)

Just so we're all up to speed (if you're already up to speed, skip down past the first break): Several months ago, the speaker of the House of Representatives, Kevin McCarthy, caved to his Looney-Tunes Caucus and announced that the House wouldn't approve an extension of the debt ceiling unless President Biden agreed to cut the deficit -- and further, the LT Caucus wouldn't approve either tax hikes or cuts in military spending. 

Biden told them he wouldn't negotiate over the debt ceiling because Congress had approved three debt ceiling extensions under the former guy without a peep, and to call him when they had a budget proposal.

(This is where I explain that the debt ceiling is about paying bills we've already accrued, and the proper place to talk about narrowing the deficit is during budget negotiations.)

That's where things stood for months, with McCarthy accusing Biden of stonewalling and Biden basically saying he refused to negotiate with terrorists. (I'm paraphrasing, you understand.) Then, somewhat miraculously, House Republicans managed to pass a budget bill. It was so extreme that it wasn't even going to get a hearing in the Senate, but it gave Biden a starting point for talks. So for the next few weeks, more public posturing ensued while aides met behind closed doors to hammer out a compromise. Biden and McCarthy announced the deal last night.

Others have done a far better job than I ever could of summarizing the main points of the deal. (Click the link if you want to read about them.) The big takeaway, from the commentary I've been reading, is that Biden's move was genius. He essentially got the LT Caucus to agree to a budget deal months earlier than it otherwise would have; moreover, it's the sort of compromise that Congress would have ended up with anyway, given that the GOP controls the House and the Democrats control the Senate, both by only a few votes. And we won't have to deal with this debt ceiling nonsense again until after the next presidential election.

So why all the Hair on Fire Theater? Keep reading.

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I've been in an Alfred E. Neuman kind of mood ("What, me worry?") about this debt ceiling kerfuffle, ever since I heard Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell say we were not going to default on the debt. That told me that the crazies in the House could do whatever nutty stuff they wanted, but the Senate would never go along with them. Not that the Senate doesn't have its share of crazies, mind you, but the leadership of both parties there were determined to be adults.

Anyway, because of that, I've been kind of an objective observer of the shenanigans. And I am not proud of the way the news media have conducted themselves.

Longtime hearth/myth readers know what a shocking statement that is for me to make. Back when the former guy first ran for president, lots of people were criticizing the media for covering him as if he were a normal candidate, and that it helped him get elected. For years, I stood firm, explaining how it was literally journalists' jobs to present all sides objectively and let readers/listeners/viewers come to their own conclusions. Then last year, I backtracked, coming down on the side (at long last) of the media not just covering the horse race, but telling the actual truth.

The media failed to tell the actual truth during the 2016 election. They failed again during the 2020 election. And with this debt ceiling mess, they've failed again. Every day since the negotiations began, there have been breathless sidebars: What would a default do to our country's sterling debt rating? How jittery are other countries becoming about America's inability to pay its debts? If a deal isn't reached in time, which Americans would suffer first -- and how? (Super old people, according to that article, and pretty much right away.) 

On and on and on it went. Scaring people. For eyeballs for their ads.

Okay, that's not a hundred percent true. It's a huge story, but a tough one to cover -- reporters weren't allowed to sit in on the negotiations, for obvious reasons -- and it went on for weeks. So assignment editors had to get inventive, dreaming up angles they hadn't covered yet, just so they'd have something new to say every day. 

But the cumulative effect was to make readers/listeners/viewers even more anxious than they already were. Fear and anxiety attract eyeballs, sure. But shouldn't the media also be in the business of allaying fear and anxiety when there's nothing to be afraid of? Why didn't McConnell's comments get more play? (The Hill reported them -- in the 19th paragraph of this story. Newsweek played them a little higher -- in paragraph 13 here.) Why didn't anybody explain what it meant? Didn't anybody feel a responsibility toward telling the actual truth?

The question now is whether the media will do the same thing during their 2024 election coverage -- even after all the criticism and public hand-wringing -- and fail to tell the actual truth again. 

Stay tuned, I guess.

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These moments of no-worries blogginess have been brought to you, as a public service, by Lynne Cantwell. Stay safe -- and don't take any hair-on-fire reporting at face value.

Whither the Hispanic vote?

I love political posts, don't you?

The good news, for those who answered "NO!", is that I won't have a pressing excuse to do them much longer, as the US presidential election is just a titch over two weeks away. Plus I've already voted -- I put my completed ballot in the dropbox at the county clerk's office the same day I got it in the mail -- and as I mentioned last week, there aren't a whole lot of voters who are still undecided. So I'm becoming less interested in the horse-race aspects of this election and more interested in making sure everybody votes, and that everybody's vote counts.

Which leaves me a little room to think about what future elections in this country will look like.

tdoes1 | Deposit Photos

One of the things driving Republican voters, if the pundits can be believed, is a fear among rural whites that minorities will take over America. It's common knowledge that the minority population in this country is increasing while the white population is decreasing. Right now, the American population is 59.7% white, but the percentage has been dropping since the 1950s and it's projected to keep dropping until, by 2045, the population of whites will drop below 50%. To be sure, whites will still be the biggest demographic bloc in the United States, but we won't be a majority-white country anymore. (By the way, all the numbers I'm using are from the US Census Bureau.)

So who will be number two? With all the news coverage of Black Lives Matter this year, and depending on where you live, you could be forgiven for thinking Blacks will be the next largest demographic group. But you would be wrong. Hispanics* will be the second-biggest. In fact, they already are -- they make up 18.73% of the US population this year. In 2045, their percentage is projected to grow to 24.6%. That's right -- in 25 years, nearly a quarter of Americans are expected to be of Hispanic descent.

Blacks are and will continue to be the third largest group. And while their numbers will grow, their percentage of the population is projected to stay pretty stable -- 12.54% this year and 13.14% in 2045.

(What about Asians, you ask? I knew someone would. They're at 5.83% today and are projected to be at 7.85% in 2045. There's a nifty interactive chart here that projects population percentages for all these groups, and more, out to 2060.)

The thing that struck me about this is the emphasis placed by both of our political parties on the Black vote. If you've followed the "horse race" at all, you've seen the speculation from the punditry: Can Biden rely on the Black vote? Is Trump making inroads on the Black vote? 

Why all this emphasis on Black voters, when Hispanics are a larger percentage of the population? I kind of knew the answer, but an article I read in The Atlantic today underscored the particulars: Latinos don't all vote the same. Blacks, as a bloc, have voted reliably for Democrats for the past several decades. With Hispanics, though, it depends on where they're from. Cuban Americans in Florida have family members who fled Fidel Castro's regime; as a result, they have an antipathy toward anything that looks like socialism. They mostly vote Republican. On the other hand, Puerto Ricans who live in Florida tend to vote Democratic. And Mexican Americans, whose families settled in the Southwest (and elsewhere in the country), tend to vote Democratic -- which is one reason why states like Arizona and Texas are beginning to turn purple. But the author of the Atlantic article, Mike Madrid, says young Mexican American men without college educations appear to be emulating their white cohort by turning toward Trump. However, he says young Mexican American women appear to be supporting Biden.

Another interesting thing: Mexican Americans make up the majority of the Latino population in the US. But remember what I said last week, about how certain states -- like Florida -- are more important in presidential races because voters are split pretty evenly between the two parties. That gives Cuban Americans the biggest Latino influence on US presidential politics, even though Mexican Americans outnumber them. Politics is indeed a curious business.

As a recent transplant to the Southwest, I find myself invested in how it all plays out -- not just this year, but in political races to come. 

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*I'm using the terms Hispanic and Latino interchangeably in this post, although technically they are not. Hispanic refers to anyone of Spanish descent, including Spain and its former colonies; Latino covers those from Latin American countries, including in Central and South America and the Caribbean. And I decided against using the alleged generic term Latinx because a lot of Latinos don't like it. That's the hearth/myth style guide and I'm sticking to it.

By the way, if you ever have an hour or two to kill, looking up the nuances of the term Hispanic will lead you down quite the rabbit hole. (Are Filipinos Hispanic? Kind of! But also Asian and/or Pacific Islander...)

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These moments of demographic blogginess have been brought to you, as a public service, by Lynne Cantwell. Mask up, social distance, and vote!

Why I'm voting for Joe Biden.

Yes, folks, it's finally happening. After years of protesting that hearth/myth is not a political blog, Yrs Trly is finally writing an overtly political post.

Don't get used to it. This is the only one I intend to do this year. Honest!

But with the party conventions in our rear-view mirror and with the political climate in this country getting crazier by the minute, I feel like it's time to tell y'all where I stand. And that is with the Democratic ticket of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.

Annalise Batista | CC0 | Pixabay

Now, alert hearth/myth readers know my political leanings lay at the progressive end of the spectrum. I voted for Bernie Sanders in the 2016 primary, and this year I voted for Elizabeth Warren. I'm definitely for Medicare for All and I think the Green New Deal is a great idea.

The Democratic Party platform lacks both of these. Harris signed onto Bernie's Medicare-for-All bill several years ago, but Biden prefers adding a public option to Obamacare. And while Harris released her Climate Equity Act this summer -- which calls for greenhouse gas reduction as a form of social justice for low-income communities of color -- the party has yet to get behind all aspects of the Green New Deal.

Biden is the moderate's moderate, and even though he's been consulting with Warren on financial policy, including on student loan debt, Social Security, and economic recovery post-pandemic, he hasn't gone full-tilt progressive. While Harris's views are more liberal than Biden's, she is nowhere near the progressive end of the party.

So why would I vote for a ticket that doesn't reflect my core values? Why am I not holding firm to my beliefs this fall?

Simple: Because our current adminstration is a clear and present danger to the continued existence of our nation.

Donald Trump and his administration have flouted every norm at every turn. He has lied to us every day, multiple times per day, starting with the size of his inauguration crowd. He has refused to release his tax returns. He has cozied up to dictators while alienating our traditional allies abroad. He won't talk to Russian president Vladimir Putin about reports that Russia has offered to pay the Taliban for killing American soldiers, much less tell him to knock it off. He also refuses to talk to Putin about reports that he plans to interfere in our presidential election this year, as he did in 2016.

I could keep going. But perhaps the three most egregious actions Trump has taken against Americans are these: he has sent federal troops into Washington, DC, and Portland, OR, to crack down on peaceful protests in order to create video for his re-election ads; he has taken steps to weaken the US Postal Service at a time when mail-in voting is expected to surge thanks to COVID-19 - and has admitted he's doing it to keep Democrats from winning this fall; and speaking of COVID-19, he has famously denied responsibility for the US response to the virus, which has resulted in nearly six million US cases and 183,000 deaths to date - one of the worst records in the world. (India has surpassed us in the number of new cases over the past two weeks. But we have three times the number of total deaths than India - and India has three times the number of people we do.)

And yet Trump blames all of this on the Democrats -- even though it has all happened on his watch.

And he has talked repeatedly about how he deserves a third term, which is expressly forbidden by the US Constitution. Why? Because, he says, the Obama administration spied on him. Does he have evidence to back up that claim? Of course not. It's yet another of his attempts to gaslight Americans, which I have written about here before. 

We cannot keep this man in office. 

Joe Biden may not become the most progressive president we've ever had, but at least he will have America's best interests at heart instead of his own. You can cast a purity-test vote, if you must, in 2024. This year, we need to make sure there will be a presidential election in 2024.

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Whether you agree with me or not, please make sure you're registered to vote (here's how). And then please, please, please -- whether you mail your ballot in or vote early or stand in line (wearing a mask!) on Election Day -- make sure you vote this year.

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These moments of overtly political blogginess have been brought to you, as a public service, by Lynne Cantwell. Wash your hands! Wear a mask! Practice social distancing! And register to vote!