Illustration by Mother Jones; Getty; No Splash
Illustration by Mother Jones; Getty; No Splash
We are entering the slow news day in December-that happy winter week, when reporters took the evergreen story of puppy and kitten (or, with Mama Jones, what would happen if we were to fight Christmas) as The daily headlines fade. Oh boy, can we all take a break?
This year should be the year when things return to normal, but anxious news keeps coming: inflation! Omi Keron! Turn it off! Weather disaster! Mid-term elections! It's easy to conclude that the world is crazy, but historians will remind us that the world has always been crazy-we just don't have 24/7 coverage. The reason why the volume (in the sense of volume and loudness) continues to rise is that two contradictory things about the media are true at the same time.
First, less actual journalism has been created: in the past decade or so, this country has lost approximately 30,000 journalism jobs, while last year’s pandemic eliminated another 6,000. Second, more news continues to come on more platforms and more formats, because more content and (usually) more anger is still the way to get more eyeballs and income.
Why is this important? Because the result of these two things is that the proliferation of incremental news will numb us to the basic issues we need to pay attention to. The biggest of these, in American politics, is an attack on democracy.
As we begin the year with a television rebellion and end with a detailed report of what the 2024 coup might look like, staying rooted in this story is more important than ever. It's not so much a big lie as a big story. This is our focus at Mother Jones next year. If I don’t say that now is the most important time of our fundraising year, I will not do my job. I hope you can support us in reporting through year-end donations to help We achieved our urgent online goal of $350,000.
The big story did not start on November 3, 2020, but it did enter a new chapter that day. Remember those surreal weeks just a year ago? Protesters knocked on the door of the counting center, Rudy Giuliani insisted outside the landscape shop, election officials report malicious threats to their families?
Remember the hope that the chaos is about to end? Each state certified the election one by one. Joe Biden assembled his cabinet calmly. As the holidays approach, we seem to be cautiously relieved. The system has been held.
Because this is what we have learned since then: we hardly did it. Next time, or later, we may not.
This is the story worthy of our attention-not just inflation or supply chain issues, not just Joe Manchin, the climate crisis and the struggle for racial justice are the decisive stories of our time. This is a story that a reporter should yell from the roof and report from all angles every day, just like we were a missing white Instagram user.
This failure to happen represents a terrible failure of our profession. But this is not irreversible. 2022 provides an opportunity for us to act together and report on democracy as important. Before we run out of time.
For decades, the default mode of American political reporting has been sports reporting: which team wins, which loses, what the star players are doing, what tactics the coach is pursuing, all of these are within the framework of the rules that everyone knows. Internal and mainly respect. It is no coincidence that the dominant polling news website originated in fantasy baseball.
This model is rooted in the need to maximize revenue and minimize offense to the audience or advertisers, and has always been problematic. But its most dangerous blind spot is: report by game means we can't see what happens outside of the game. For example, if someone sets fire to the arena.
That is where we are. We can smell smoke. We have another option: we can focus on the court, hoping that there are firefighters nearby. Or we can take a fire extinguisher.
About a year ago, for a moment, the news media reached out for a fire extinguisher. The reporters confronted the "stop stealing" lie and called it. Even Facebook has taken measures to "break the glass" to counter the propaganda flooded with user news sources.
In fact, this is a time to break the glass-much more than we know. Journalists and platforms plan to hold a close election, the results of which will be challenged. But not many people have imagined that the president would reject a clear and convincing result, or that his men drafted a coup memorandum in coup memo after coup memo, detailing how Vice President Mike Pence should overthrow. election. The details of that period are seldom like the fact that former vice president Dan Quill finally told Pence that "you have no flexibility in this area" is even more chilling. not any. zero. forget it. Throw it away. "
On January 6, the Republican Party ushered in its own breakthrough moment. In the days after lawmakers dodge the president’s insurgents, the party seemed ready to end its rush with authoritarianism. Even Mitch McConnell seems willing to consider impeachment.
But then they got rid of it. Today, Republicans are fully committed to plans to undermine democracy. They just want to do it correctly.
Except for Liz Cheney and Adam Kingsinger, who is about to retire, almost no Republican official dares to challenge the big lie. The mainstream GOP series is embodied by Virginia Gov.-Elect Glenn Wharekin, who played a reasonable conservative in front of swing voters, dog-whistling about the "election integrity" of Fox News. The front is business, and the back is the (right-wing) party. This is the mid-end of the spectrum, and at the other end is Marjorie Taylor Greene's QAnon rant, or Tucker Carlson's "January 6th is antifa" horror show.
It would be bad enough if this were all rhetoric of politics and fundraising proceeds, but it is quickly becoming law. This year, 19 states have passed more than 33 anti-democracy bills, and hundreds more are on the agenda. Some are designed to make voting more difficult, and some are designed to ensure that the choice of certain voters (you can guess who it is) is not important. Some give the state legislature the power to send anyone they want to the electoral college. Some people are making redefinition maps to ensure that the Republican Party gains a 2-1 advantage in state and congressional elections, even in states that support Biden.
All along, Steve Bannon, Tucker Carlson and others. Is fanning the flames for the next showdown. When a TV host with presidential aspirations tells his audience that they are being "hunted" and "replaced", it is no longer for performance-it is a real, fascist thing. When a true congressman tells his followers to "arm, be dangerous, and be moral," this is no longer a dog whistle—it's an order.
Do they really believe these things are important? Of course not: what matters is that it sells. It sells pillows, precious metals and guns. It raises donations for trivial legal funds and activities, and receives advertising revenue from Google and Facebook, no matter how many times these platforms claim to block.
What happens on the screen will not stay on the screen. As my colleague Mark Follman wrote, he has investigated gun violence and gun lobbying groups for more than a decade. He wrote that experts have been alerting to the massive increase in gun sales. We The consequences were once again seen at Oxford High School in Michigan. "Consider what happens next year when armed voter suppression (which is definitely coming) encounters armed voter support," researcher Garren Wintermut told Mark. "Perhaps the mandatory requirements for vaccines or masks will trigger more than just isolated outbreaks of violence. Or, the outbreak point may be a more concentrated conflict, such as the private enforcement of the abortion ban in Texas, or the growing heat Fighting for water rights with the drier and drier west."
This is the story. We are at a time when democracy is truly dangerous (and also a real possibility-I'll describe it in detail later). However, as a media scholar j. Siguru Wahutu pointed out that from focusing on mainstream political reports, “People think that the most important issue now is whether the former president will run for another election, and whether the staff of Vice President Harris will find it difficult to work together. It is forgivable, even whether the current president will run for election again in 2024."
To give an example: just a few months ago, we learned of the coup memorandum of Trump's lawyer John Eastman. This is an amazing document, coming directly from Weimar around 1932. As Tim Murphy of Mother Jones pointed out, it has not received the attention of Internet news at all:
"The irony is that considering the popularity of the term'dogwhistle' in popular discourse, it refers to something that everyone can actually hear, but the specific level of the threat may limit the processing capabilities of some institutions. They have not been Programming to deal with issues like this-it disrupts the comfortable balance that defines many political media. Republicans come to talk about one side of things, Democrats come (slightly less) to talk about the other side of things, and there are arguments, and sometimes people will win , Sometimes people lose. But basically, there is always a feeling that everyone is acting under the constraints of the same known universe."
That's it. You can almost feel the relief of DC media returning to familiar politics as a sports storyline: Can Nancy Pelosi keep her core group together? Did Joe Biden go too far? Is Glenn Youngkin an Obama-style uniter?
The relief is understandable: during the Trump administration, it was difficult to get out of normal and face earth-shattering scandals that they began to feel routine (my colleague David Kang called it a "dirty pot" problem). As we see every day between pandemics, economic uncertainties and political crises, it is still difficult today. Just as Dan Rather is no stranger to the pressure of the Daily News, he recently pointed out that anyone can bear so much panic. "The human body and mind cannot always function well, otherwise it will stop functioning normally", you can say the same thing to the news cycle itself: when it needs to be at the peak of its metabolism 24/7, it will stop functioning. Survive.
Disclaimer: The reports about the threat to democracy are incredible. News critic Dan Froomkin lists a lot here. The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, etc. have all published groundbreaking works, especially those about the rebellion and the attempted Trump coup. It is because of their investigation that we know how bad things are. But does their report tell us how bad things are now? How much worse will it get?
Not every day or every week (there are also powerful exceptions)-this is because the news system has structural flaws, as the media critic Jay Rosen said, "It's not really designed for public understanding. It's not really designed for public understanding." The aim is to produce new content every day.” The informed public is the result many journalists hope for, but it is not the result; the product is a website, a broadcast, and a synopsis with new content every day. For large commercial news organizations, the product has its effect in reverse: it needs to generate enough revenue to meet the needs of shareholders or owners. This is not digging these companies. It's just a fact about what they must accomplish in order to continue to exist.
For Mother Jones, as a non-profit newsroom, the job is different: we do produce content every day—sometimes many days—but this is not the point of our existence. Our products are not articles and videos of a specific frequency. It is the impact produced through mission-oriented reporting that can contribute to a more democratic and just world.
Why should I mention this? Because the product you intend to create will affect the choices you make. In our business, few choices are as important as which stories we promote to BFD, 24/7 coverage, and volume to 11 states.
Democracy—except for the brief period in the winter of 2020—has not received that kind of treatment. It has more coverage than before, of course, thank goodness. As CNN’s Brian Stelter (his media show Reliable Sources is one of the few people who continuously and urgently report big stories), more and more people in the newsroom are talking privately about how to report. For example, in the 2024 presidential election, one of the major parties ran a clear anti-democratic candidate. But most of them didn’t talk about it publicly—it’s scary because we don’t have to wait until 2024 to see anti-democratic candidates: we are less than 10 months before many of the people in the election will participate in the election, some People will win.
So, what if a democratic war is covered up like a real war? Or maybe this is the wrong metaphor, because we paid very little attention to the war in Afghanistan until it finally ends. What if we report a wave of election manipulation from east to west with enthusiasm like a surge in inflation or a showdown in the Senate?
Headlines and news broadcasts will be filled with stories like this:
As former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder told MoJo’s Aliberman, “Rebellion, racial discrimination, voter suppression, attacks on professional election officials-all these put our democracy in a state that has never been seen since the Civil War. The extent of passing. What a serious matter."
(Yes, this is the kind of report that Ari and other members of our newsroom pay attention to. If you can participate in our December fundraising event, this is what you will help Mother Jones continue to do.)
The neoconservative historian Robert Kagan was one of the main cheerleaders in the invasion of Iraq. He knew a little about propaganda and false information, and he explained the seriousness of this matter in detail a few months ago. He also accused the media and politicians of failing to recognize the danger:
"Today, we are in an era of hope and fantasy. Those who say Trump will not try to overthrow the last election now say that we have nothing to worry about the next election. Republicans have been playing this game for five years. The first is dismissal of Trump’s intentions or the possibility of their realization, and then silence, or worse, when they insist that the impossible happens. These days, even the anti-Trump media We are also constantly looking for signs that Trump's influence may be waning, and signs that drastic measures may not be required."
Folabi Olagbaju, director of the Democratic Movement of Greenpeace in the United States, grew up in Nigeria under military rule. He has been fighting deja vu while observing what is happening in the United States. "Mainstream media plays an important role in creating a sense of urgency around democracy," he told me. "But I didn't get this from what I saw in the news. I hope the media can clearly determine what the loss of democracy means to our way of life in this country. In this matter, everyone has something Stakes."
Including, needless to say, the media. We only need to look at Hungary, India, or Brazil to remind journalists of what will happen in places where autocracy is ruled.
What does it mean to report democracy like a big story? Here are some ideas. They notified us of the reports in Mother Jones, but nothing can stop other newsrooms from stealing them, or finding better ones. The important thing is that we increase the volume on this issue, both in terms of volume and loudness-if that means turning it down a bit when Kyrsten Sinema is reading tea, maybe it's okay.
Well, you might say, but even if this happens, does it make sense? Hasn't our politics gone too far?
No. And I didn’t just say that because I defaulted to “glass half full” even though I did. I say this because although extremists and authoritarians are dangerous, they are an obvious minority. This is why they manipulate people and systems so hard: they cannot win with their arguments. consider:
These are numbers. The vast majority of Americans want democracy to be stronger, not weaker, and hope that the government will work for more people, not fewer people. That is a half full cup.
However, the news ecosystem does not reflect or serve the news ecosystem well, which is increasingly bifurcated into cheap and superficial content (including, sadly, a considerable amount of cable news and a large amount of Local newspaper hollowed out). On the one hand, and on the other hand, are the elites of the powerful national media, whose highly focused audience pays for access to content that is not visible to other members of the public.
This is why I believe so much in the unique model established by Mother Jones. No owner or shareholder requires a lot of fluff to lay the bottom line. Of course, we must break even (this is why we urgently ask you to participate), but as long as we do, we can focus on the big story, and we can bring it to a broad audience without everyone paying. With the next round of elections approaching, this feels like a very necessary job, and I am very grateful to those of you who can help support it.
Whether you can or not, I hope you consider doing something that does not cost a penny: give yourself a gift to turn down the volume. Allow yourself not to click on that scary headline. Silence the expert who made your heartburn. In any case, really important stories will happen (if you want to register, you can trust that we will send them to you in our daily newsletter or David Corn’s This Land). We will support you and continue to report on MoJo, if you temporarily disconnect to charge, Big Story will still be here. Give yourself a chance to recover so you have the power to take action. You have an absolute majority here.
Image credit: Daniel Alvasd/Unsplash, Marjan Blan/Unsplash, Tiffany Tertipes/Unsplash; Getty
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Last year, we were closer than ever to an overturned election. This is the big story now: we may really lose our democracy. It's best for reporters to start yelling from the roof-because we can also help save it.
Something light, right? Mother Jones is not afraid to say that we are part of this fight, as Monica Bowerlein wrote in her dismantling of the democratic war, and how MoJo must help those who try to use what we have in 2022 All of the people who came to destroy it glowed.
But we need your help to do this: December is the most important month of the year because it brings in donations that drive our report, and we have an urgent goal of raising 350,000 online by December 31 Dollar. If you can now, please join your fellow readers and support our non-profit journalism with a year-end donation today.
Last year, we were closer than ever to an overturned election. This is the big story now: we may really lose our democracy. It's best for reporters to start yelling from the roof-because we can also help save it.
Something light, right? Mother Jones is not afraid to say that we are part of this fight, as Monica Bowerlein wrote in her dismantling of the democratic war, and how MoJo must help those who try to use what we have in 2022 All of the people who came to destroy it glowed.
But we need your help to do this: December is the most important month of the year because it brings in donations that drive our report, and we have an urgent goal of raising 350,000 online by December 31 Dollar. If you can now, please join your fellow readers and support our non-profit journalism with a year-end donation today.
Kaveh Waddell and Maanvi Singh
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