The Political Media is Failing Us.
The Bill Press Pod
BP Pods
4.7 • 601 Ratings
🗓️ 28 May 2024
⏱️ 46 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In this episode, Bill discusses the media's coverage of the 2024 election with media critics Jay Rosen, a Journalism Professor at New York University and Brian Beutler, a long-time journalist and author of the Off-Message newsletter (OffMessage.net) They criticize the media for focusing too much on the horse race and not enough on the potential consequences of a Trump win. They argue that the media should be highlighting the threats to American democracy and the importance of preserving democratic institutions. They also discuss the challenge of covering Trump's lies and the need for journalists to find a balance between calling out his falsehoods and not playing into his strategy. Overall, they call for the media to rise to the seriousness of the moment and provide more informative and responsible coverage of the election.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, good friends. |
| 0:07.9 | Hope you had a great Memorial Day weekend. |
| 0:10.2 | Now, welcome back to the real world and this week's Bill Press Pod. |
| 0:15.3 | Well, one of the biggest complaints I hear from friends all over the country and listeners to this podcast is about the lousy job |
| 0:22.4 | that the media is doing covering the 2024 election. |
| 0:26.7 | They repeat Donald Trump's lies. |
| 0:28.9 | They make a big deal about the occasional verbal slip-up Joe Biden makes while just laughing off |
| 0:36.0 | the slurring of words and the crazy verbal salads that Donald |
| 0:39.5 | Trump spews out every day. And worst of all, they focus on the horse race. Who's up, who's down |
| 0:47.3 | in the latest poll without even talking about the horrible consequences of this country to journalism |
| 0:53.8 | and to democracy were Donald Trump |
| 0:56.6 | ever to win a second term. So what is the media's role in this election, which, because of who's |
| 1:02.9 | running and what's at stake, is unlike any other election in our history? Today, we put that question |
| 1:09.9 | to two leading media critics, Jay Rosen, |
| 1:13.5 | Professor of Journalism at New York University, and Brian Boitler, creator of the off-message |
| 1:19.1 | newsletter and a frequent panelist on our own reporter's roundtable. |
| 1:24.6 | Jay Rosen, Brian Boydler. Welcome to both of you, and thank you for joining us on the |
| 1:29.2 | Bill Press Pod. Thank you very much. Great to be with you. So, in a both of you, in fact, |
| 1:35.1 | that makes three of us, have been critical of media coverage of the 2024 campaign so far. |
| 1:41.3 | And I'd like to talk to you today about what's wrong with it and what we |
| 1:45.0 | might be able to do about it. Jay, let me start with you. You've sort of put out the month, |
| 1:50.1 | what's become the mantra of criticism of the media coverage of the campaign with your six words, |
... |
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