Not the odds, but the stakes.
That's my shorthand for the organizing principle we most need among journalists covering the 2024 campaign.
Not who has what chances of winning, but the consequences for Americans and their democracy. What is likely to happen if... Again and again.
Not the odds, but the stakes.
Reporting the odds engages something like Heisenbergās Uncertainty Principle: the more you report on them, the more you influence them, and then the less reliable your reporting is.
Correct.
@DavidM_yeg @jayrosen_nyu I woukd think it is less objective, rather than less reliable.
Putting your thumb on the scales can reliably produce a result, but it is poor journalism.
@jayrosen_nyu
*Not the odds, but the stakes*
Every journo shld tape that to their screen. Makes the job harder, but so much more /real/.
I think that claim (We don't do value judgments) is weaker than ever, by which I mean it's less convincing to themselves, but, YES, sure, there are going to people in journalism who say that.
There are also more and more who say there are certain bedrock values that are basic to journalism.
For example, the Timesās new executive editor, Joe Kahn told David Folkenflik of NPR: āYou canāt be committed to independent journalism and be agnostic about the state of democracy.ā
The Times has all sorts of problems with its political coverage. No argument.
"He doesn't mean it" is not the way I would put it. I think he was recognizing how convincing and widespead is the view that democracy can't be one of the things journalists are neutral about.
Whether he "means it" or not, he has admitted that the argument has won the day. There are limits to neutrality.
Most people who are critical of the Times don't agree with me that such admissions are significant.
@jayrosen_nyu I never would have thought of that interpretation! You know far more about the context in which he worksāor against which he labors?āthan I ever will.
Iām still perplexed at how such an acknowledgment might be validated by actions. (As in the basic Pragmatist idea, ābeliefs are rules for action.ā)
Any overall movement by The Times towards a guiding maxim for political coverage like your excellent, āthe stakes, not the oddsā? I havenāt seen it. Not so farā¦
A Republican win in the Senate, House, or Presidency will end American democracy in 2024.
Republican billionaire donors spent over a billion dollars on the 2022 midterms.
They'll spend even more to end genuine elections forever in 2024.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/03/us/politics/midterm-money-billionaires.html
Along with democracy, a GOP or Tory win ends any chance of climate action and the retention of civil rights for women, immigrants, religious minorities & PoC.
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/20/the-big-business-of-climate-change-denial-.html
"And so together we shared the fate of all the failed democracies before us, joining those pitiful beings who had held the light of freedom in one hand, and put it out with the other."
SearingTruth
@jayrosen_nyu
Stakes don't change like odds do. Odds can be tracked, there's a whole industry just for polling and commenting poll results. Politics made into sports, polls turned into scoreboards and vote tallies into box scores.
It's so easy, to the moth of lazy journalism, scoreboard politics is a beacon fire. Never mind we'll all burn.
yeah well what are the odds that anyone will follow that advice? š
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