Writers and Editors

A pre-election reform plan for the media

 

You can read the full Media & Democracy article here.

The following are just the headlines.

 

COVER ELECTIONS LIKE THEY MATTER MORE THAN SPORTS SCORES

Prioritize substantive coverage of the issues that matter to voters' lives.
Make headlines accurate and informative, not clickbait.
Stop making predictions and pushing polls at the expense of issues coverage.
Celebrate and uplift election workers, voters, and the election process.
Don't set aside moral judgment when covering obvious lies and bigotry.
Hold politicians to account for their positions, statements, and behavior, as well as those of their party's leader.
 

MAKE THREATS TO DEMOCRACY CLEAR

Inform voters of the freedoms they will lose if the MAGA movement wins.
Abandon false equivalence between traditional and fascistic candidates. 
Expose candidates who foment political violence.
Call out lies and bad behavior in every piece of reporting.
Prominently cover the Big Lie-fueled attack on election legitimacy and voting rights.
 

PROTECT AMERICANS FROM DISINFORMATION

Avoid euphemisms that conceal and normalize extremism.
Explain that disinformation by MAGA is a strategy.
Don't platform liars or act as stenographers for strategic MAGA lies.
Include a public figure's history of coup participation when quoting them.
Inoculate Americans against a repeat of the Big Lie strategy.
Build public trust by explaining the newsroom decisions you make about elections.
Have a plan for handling deepfakes.

 

You can read the full article here:

A non-partisan, grassroots organization called the Media and Democracy Project has just published an open letter to executives, publishers and union leaders of major media organizations.

    You might recognize the names of some of the nearly 4,000 letter signers: Norman Ornstein, Mark Jacob and Ruth Ben-Ghiat. I have respect for each one of them and their perspectives, and have quoted them all in my own work. -- Margaret Sullivan

https://www.mediaanddemocracyproject.org/2024-election-coverage

 

Margaret M. Sullivan is an American journalist who is the former media columnist for The Washington Post. She was the fifth public editor of The New York Times and the first woman to hold the position. On Nov. 2, 2023, Sullivan was named the executive director for the Craig Newmark Center for Journalism Ethics and Security at the Columbia Journalism School. ~

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Sullivan_(journalist)

 

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Originally published 5-7-24

As you may recall, law enforcement officers in a rural Kansas county raided the offices and homes of the editors of a local newspaper, seizing electronic newsgathering equipment and reporting materials -- resulting in a nationwide uproar over the threats to our First Amendment principles of a free press. Following are some articles about the incident.

---A conversation with the newspaper owner raided by cops (Marisa Kabas, The Handbasket, 8-12-23) Eric Meyer says his paper had been investigating the police chief, Gideon Cody, prior to the raids on his office and home. They did so because of a complaint by a local restaurant owner named Kari Newell. [This is the piece that took the story viral.]

---How a small-town feud in Kansas sent a shock through American journalism  Read More