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🌊 Roca Visits the US' Most Important County
Plus: How the media has kept its 2016 bias
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To mark the launch of our swing-state on-the-ground series, we’re doing another giveaway this week. As with last week, just sign up for a free trial and you’ll be automatically entered to win. If you’re already a subscriber, you’re already entered. If you’re not, enter here!
On election night 2016, the New York Times published a story: “How Did the Media – How Did We – Get This Wrong?”
“It’s 3:30 a.m. in the newsroom, and we’re in a state of shock. Donald J. Trump, against what we thought were all odds, collected swing state after swing state after swing state. Hillary Clinton has conceded the race. Mr. Trump has won.
“How did he pull off such a stunning victory? How did almost no one — not the pundits, not the pollsters, not us in the media — see it coming?” the New York Times asked.
A different Times journalist that night declared the mainstream media’s coverage of the election a “failure.”
“It was a failure to capture the boiling anger of a large portion of the American electorate that feels left behind by a selective recovery, betrayed by trade deals that they see as threats to their jobs and disrespected by establishment Washington, Wall Street and the mainstream media.”
In the days and weeks that followed, outlet after outlet rededicated itself to understanding not just New York, San Francisco, and Washington, DC, but the United States – the 3,809,525 square miles that contain 330,000,000 people of every political persuasion, living from the Bay Area to the Bayou. They vowed to set aside their own biases, listen to Americans without judgment, and take their learnings to their audiences.
Did they follow through?
We at Roca believe they did not. Rather than set aside their biases, the media continued to deem those they disagreed with misinformed at best and dangerous at worst. People who fit a narrative were listened to; those who didn’t were excluded.
A few recent examples of this groupthink: The mainstream press collectively dubbed videos that made Biden look old “cheap fakes.” When the country saw irrefutable evidence during the debate that he was, the media did a 180 and began running story after story about how “sources” wanted Biden to resign.
They’ve since run stories about how J.D. Vance is “weird,” while denying that Kamala Harris was the “border tsar,” which – until last month – they all agreed she was. Harris, meanwhile, is yet to give a single interview or press conference since becoming the presumptive nominee.
Anyone who spent time with an open mind outside the largest American cities would have known that most of the US thought Biden was too old, or that Kamala Harris was, informally, the “border tsar.” Yes, many of these people had their opinions spoon fed to them by Fox News. But many, if not most, did not.
The media still collectively said, “Don’t believe your lying eyes.”
Just like in 2016, the media didn’t treat Americans with respect. It deemed them “biased” or “misinformed,” the sad victims of “cheap fakes” and right-wing propaganda.
To be clear: Fake content, conservative news, and right-wing propaganda do exist. Fox News is the US’ most-viewed cable news network. But that’s not a reason for outlets like the New York Times – ”the paper of record” – to slant the truth to the other side.
This is the problem with mainstream media: It’s either liberal or conservative. We believe there should be a third option that seeks to hold a mirror to the world – regardless of what will shine back.
We do not believe the current media can be trusted to do this ahead of the upcoming election, so we’re spending the next three months on the road. We will be visiting the country’s swing states, beginning with Pennsylvania, and will document the country here – not as we want it to be, but as it actually is.
We begin this series below. We want it to be accessible, yet it’s not cheap to do and will therefore mostly be available only to paid subscribers. If you want to subscribe to read it or support our mission, you can do so below. Thank you.
The rest of this story is only available to paid subscribers. Subscribe to get full access here. Once you do so, you can find all our full articles here.
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