With concerns about misinformation and vote-tampering swirling around the coming U.S. presidential election, credible, ethical news organizations play an essential role in keeping the voters informed. But although 58 per cent of Americans polled by the Pew Research Center said they were following news about the candidates “very closely” or “fairly closely” in May, 62 per cent had already reported feeling “worn out” by the large volume of coverage.
News media are gearing up for a reporting marathon that many predict will carry on for days after the polls close on Nov. 5, as some results are contested and verified. But what are news organizations doing to ensure their reporting is accurate? What are they doing to encourage readers’ trust? And how is today’s coverage different from that of previous elections?
Globe and Mail contributing writer David Shribman has been covering U.S. presidential elections since he was a teenager, working for a local paper in his hometown. As an adult, he reported on them for major American newspapers and won a Pulitzer Prize in 1995 for his coverage of U.S. politics. He says technology represents the biggest change in election reporting.
“Here’s an anecdote that explains it all,” David wrote to me in an e-mail. “The big story in the spring of 1987 was the withdrawal of the front-runner for the 1988 Democratic presidential nomination, Senator Gary Hart of Colorado, amid reports that he had an affair. The denouement occurred on the campus of Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, where, a dozen years earlier, I had been an undergraduate. Mr. Hart had a disastrous press conference and, in the only occasion in which I was way, way, way ahead of my colleagues, I got to report the news to my office first. I knew the location of the only pay phone in the building.”
The advent of mobile phones and internet made it possible to file stories almost instantly. “In that 1988 campaign I often had a day, maybe two, to craft my pieces. Now when I write an analysis for The Globe, it is a matter of hours if not minutes.”
This demand for immediacy is at odds with the time-consuming need to fact-check. The Globe’s foreign editor, Angela Murphy, who oversees the coverage of U.S. and international issues, calls the rise of misinformation “probably the biggest thing that’s changed” for journalists covering the election. In their duty to readers, it is not enough for journalists to “know” that a politician’s statement is incorrect; they must research and report evidence that proves the statement is incorrect – a labour-intensive task.
Earlier this month, Angela moderated a Canadian Journalism Foundation panel discussion that focused on this very subject. She asked the panel: Can journalists report on misinformation without amplifying it?
“Not discussing it is not the option,” answered MSNBC chief correspondent Ali Velshi. “Repeating the lie and then putting it out there to get solved is not the option, hoping that the crowd will solve it.” Journalists must report on misinformation, he said, and explain the “long homework” they conducted to confirm it as false.
This added labour has become a resourcing problem for many newsrooms, Angela told me, noting that some larger news organizations have entire teams whose job is to tackle misinformation; U.S.-based CBS News, for example, has devoted “about 20 journalists” to this task, according to The New York Times.
ABC News staffed its real-time broadcast of the Sept. 10 debate between Republican candidate Donald Trump and Democratic candidate Kamala Harris with live fact-checkers, but was quickly criticized – especially by conservatives – for focusing on Mr. Trump’s errors during the broadcast.
“I think the Trump camp has a point here,” said David, whose analysis of the debate was published that same evening. “His reputation for having a casual relationship with the facts hurt him that night; the moderators were on the lookout for tall stories, and worse. He delivered, as they knew he would. But Ms. Harris had a few bloopers too. They didn’t call her on them.” (An online article posted the next day offered ABC News’ fact-checks of both candidates.)
In the same vein, Angela says, “Just because Trump is doing what he does doesn’t mean we give the Harris side a pass. They deserve to be scrutinized.”
So, journalists agree that fact-checking is essential. But do readers notice these efforts, or even care?
Earlier this year, a poll conducted by the American Press Institute and the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that 53 per cent of respondents were “extremely or very concerned that news organizations will report inaccuracies or misinformation during the election,” according to a report from the Associated Press wire service. Further, the report said, “The poll found 47 per cent of Americans also expressing serious concern that news outlets would report information that has not been confirmed or verified, and 44 per cent worry that accurate information will be presented in a way that favours one side or another.”
For the elusive 18-to-25 demographic, herculean fact-checking efforts may not matter at all if election coverage is presented in a traditional news-media format, said Jeremy Gilbert, a professor of digital media strategy at Medill–Northwestern University who oversees the university’s Knight Lab. From interviews with 45 young news consumers, the lab found that many responded to traditional news reporting – written articles in print or online, for example, “with some discomfort,” Prof. Gilbert said. “It’s not that there’s anything particularly wrong with AP Style, but it’s not the way they talk. It’s not the way they write. And it’s not a comfortable way for them to read or listen.”
Most of the interviewees had learned media literacy in school, yet journalistic institutions that followed ethical practices and were transparent with their audiences were not the sources they favoured. “Just because they were thoughtful about what information to consume didn’t mean that authoritative-sounding information was preferred. They were looking for other cues about what to trust,” Prof. Gilbert said. “And so, sounding like someone they knew or know was a much stronger signal than sounding like – I always joke about it, but Walter Cronkite. They were looking for an authoritative friend.”
The interviewees were very aware that most news organizations are for-profit businesses, he said. “That in and of itself made them a little skeptical: ‘Why are you telling me this particular piece of information? Is it because you want to get me to subscribe or you want to get me to view advertising? Are you funded by large companies, or … ?”
Young news consumers are more likely to seek information from podcasts, direct messaging groups and private social-media channels. “They’re much less likely to trust things that are being said to large groups because the assumption is that’s impersonal and therefore not for them.”