'This was a moment of great failure': Top journalists ruminate on Trump's upset victory and the thre

[applegrove]

by Maxwell Tani at Business Insider

http://www.businessinsider.com/why-media-missed-trump-2016-nate-silver-polling-brian-stelter-2017-1

SNIP..............

Two months after President-elect Donald Trump's upset victory, top media figures are still publicly reckoning with how many journalists and outlets failed to seriously comprehend how he could win.

During a media and politics event at the New York Public Library hosted by Civic Hall and the Knight Foundation on Wednesday, journalists from legacy and new media organizations met to discuss the role of news outlets in the dawning Trump era, dissecting why data analysts misjudged Trump's strength and how the struggling media economy handicapped reporters' coverage of the election.

Almost every panelist had an easy time identifying the media's problems, including the concentration of reporters in urban hubs like Washington, DC, and New York; the way newsrooms spent their money; and the willingness of highly skilled reporters to listen to Hillary Clinton campaign sources about the strength of her lead.

Nate Silver, the founder of the data-journalism outlet FiveThirtyEight, blamed Twitter for distorting how reporters perceived politics. He dismissed the influence of cable news during the general election and placed the blame on irresponsible horse-race coverage that measured who was winning at any given moment.


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[Alice11111]

1. The "False Equivalency" coverage of the media, CNN panels

of blathering idiot Republicans as though anything they said deserved equal coverage, and all of the media fawning all over DT and KellyAnne CONWOMAN, did a lot of damage. Not to mention, the obsession with repetitive stories of Hills emails. You have to give Bernie credit for trying to bury that one.

[underpants]

2. Well lots of industry talk but the main thing was simply airtime

They could resist. The wrestling match came to town and it had to be followed. HAD to be on the air. Even Fox tried to put him away but they ended up cancelling a debate because he wasn't going to be there. If your outlet didn't cover the show people would go elsewhere to see it.

[Abouttime]

3. It wasn't a victory!

The election was stolen from Hillary.

[unblock]

4. they forgot to make editorial decisions about presenting the choice to voters.

they gave voters the impression that there was one exciting, entertaining, controversial, love-him-or-hate-him candidate and can't wait to hear what he says next and oh yeah there's that other person who's boring and responsible but people say she's crooked and something about benghazi and emails.

it was really difficult to see it as a side-by-side choice, except during the conventions and debates. otherwise, it was trump trump trump benghazi trump trump emails trump trump trump emails trump.

it doesn't have to be all about equal time, though. yes, equal time would have forced broadcasters to at least give hillary more airtime, even though many of them no doubt would have used it negatively. but no airtime is probably worse.


basically, the media kept chasing the latest shiny object -- a tweet, and controversial statement, whatever -- and never stepped back and said, ok, over the course of the campaigns, how to we make sure our viewers have a good, complete picture of the two candidates?

that's the way a real *editor* would cover the actual *news* because that's the real story -- two major candidates running for president.


but they managed to miss that obvious story because they were distracted by one of the candidates shouting "squirrel!"