The Trump Campaign Gives Journalists a Comeuppance: There’S No Substitute for Listening to Voters FACE the NATION
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NIEMAN REPORTS Why all reporters need to understand how science works How coverage of Native American issues is changing—for the better Obstacles and opportunities facing journalists with disabilities The Trump campaign gives journalists a comeuppance: There’s no substitute for listening to voters FACE THE NATION nr_spring_2016_covers_spine_032916.indd 1 4/1/16 4:28 PM Contributors The Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University Juliet Eilperin (page 28) www.niemanreports.org is The Washington Post’s White House bureau chief. An 18-year veteran of the Post, she covered the 2008 presidential campaign and fi ve congressional publisher campaigns. She is the author Ann Marie Lipinski of two books, including editor “Fight Club Politics: How James Geary Partisanship is Poisoning the senior editor House of Representatives,” Jan Gardner published in 2006. researcher/reporter Jonathan Seitz Tatiana Walk-Morris (page 34) is a Chicago- based journalist. Her work has appeared in editorial assistant DNAinfo Chicago, Crain’s Chicago Business, Eryn M. Carlson the Chicago Reader, The Chicago Defender, and The New York Times. design Pentagram editorial offices Michael Blanding (page 8) is a Boston-based One Francis Avenue, Cambridge, author and investigative journalist whose MA 02138-2098, 617-496-6308, work has appeared in The New Republic, Slate, [email protected] The Nation, and Wired. His most recent book, “The Map Thief,” was published in 2014. Copyright 2016 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. Periodicals postage paid at Paul Raeburn (page 16) writes the Tracker, Boston, Massachusetts and a column critiquing science journalism, for additional entries Undark magazine, based at MIT’s Knight Science Journalism program. He has been the science subscriptions/business editor at the AP and at BusinessWeek. 617-496-6299, [email protected] Subscription $25 a year, Jon Marcus (page 22) is higher-education editor $40 for two years; at The Hechinger Report, a foundation-supported add $10 per year for foreign airmail. nonprofi t news organization based at Columbia Single copies $7.50. University. His last article for Nieman Reports was Back copies are available from “Rewriting J-School.” the Nieman offi ce. Please address all subscription Genevieve Belmaker (page 40) is currently correspondence to: covering the confl ict in Israel and the West One Francis Avenue, Bank. She spent the past three years as a metro Cambridge, MA 02138-2098 reporter in New York City. Her work has appeared and change of address information to: in MediaShift and the Poynter Institute. P.O. Box 4951, Manchester, NH 03108 ISSN Number 0028-9817 Michelle Hackman (page 48) is a politics and Postmaster: Send address changes to breaking news reporter for Vox.com. She is a 2015 Nieman Reports P.O. Box 4951, graduate of Yale University and has written for Manchester, NH 03108 the Yale Daily News and The Wall Street Journal. You can fi nd her tweeting @MHackman. Nieman Reports (USPS #430-650) is published in March, June, Michael Fitzgerald (page 51) is a 2011 Nieman September, and December by Fellow who writes about innovation for The the Nieman Foundation at Harvard University, Boston Globe, The Economist, Fast Company, One Francis Avenue, MIT Sloan Management Review, The Wall Street Cambridge, MA 02138-2098 Journal, and other publications. BOTTOM: CALO IMAGES; AUBREY OPPOSITE TOP: TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP/GETTY nr_spring_2016_032416.indd A 3/30/16 12:41 PM Newsrooms are working to stay relevant as social media platforms proliferate and political campaigning undergoes big changes Contents Spring 2016 / Vol. 70 / No. 2 Features Departments storyboard cover From the Curator 2 Adjusting the Frame 8 By Ann Marie Lipinski How journalists and artists are fi nding On the Trail 28 Amid public disaff ection with the press complementary ways to tell stories Live@Lippmann 4 By Michael Blanding and the rise of social media, newsrooms The Marshall Project’s Gabriel Dance are rethinking campaign coverage By Juliet Eilperin Research and Reporting 16 Niemans@Work 6 Understanding how science works is The Future of Fact-Checking 34 Examining the aftermath of war, pushing By Tatiana Walk-Morris important for all journalists the Pulitzers forward, designing a survey By Paul Raeburn tool that delivers fast, accurate results Becoming Visible 22 How mainstream and tribal outlets are nieman journalism lab covering Native Americans—for the better The New Media Monopoly 54 Atul Gawande, By Jon Marcus With news outlets concentrating in major a surgeon cities, journalism faces a new imperative and journalist, watchdog By Joshua Benton is critical of science journals Neither Heroes Nor Victims 40 page 16 Covering the disability community with Books 56 sensitivity—and without sensationalism “Saving the Media: Capitalism, By Genevieve Belmaker Crowdfunding, and Democracy” By Julia Cagé Seen and Heard 48 The obstacles, opportunities, and latent Nieman Notes 60 prejudice facing journalists with disabilities By Michelle Hackman Sounding 62 Mónica Guzmán, NF ’16 Access for All 51 Making news sites easier to navigate cover: By Michael Fitzgerald Patrick Semansky/Associated Press nr_spring_2016_032416.indd 1 3/25/16 10:31 AM From the Curator these editors didn’t simply fail to foretell The depth of Trump’s the rise of Trump. In deciding for the vot- support eluded modern ers rather than covering them, they missed the story hiding in plain sight, the biggest measuring tools of this campaign. That same month, The New Yorker’s Evan Osnos was deep into reporting a piece that would turn out to be one of the most Statistician Nate Silver’s mirror-to- Loathing on the prescient of the season. In “The Fearful and America election forecasts lent a scientifi c the Frustrated,” he documented a six-state polish to coverage of our last two presiden- Campaign Trail journey through Trump country and his en- tial races. So precise, so accurate, so com- Once again, the counters with “a confederacy of the frustrat- forting. I recently reread a talk by a leading ed—less a constituency than a loose alliance national political columnist given at Harvard media discover of Americans who say they are betrayed by in the fall of 2007, 12 months before the elec- that there’s politicians, victimized by a changing world, tion and Silver’s laser-sharp predictions. She and enticed by Trump’s insurgency.” All spoke about the campaign and described the no substitute for the themes we now know to have fueled country as “one year away from the corona- talking to voters Trump’s run were ripe for harvest and ar- tion of the warrior queen.” Another pundit is rayed in his August story: economic despon- later recorded as concurring, asking rhetor- dency, toxic views of immigrants, hunger for ically: “Can an African-American man with a “hostile takeover of the Republican Party.” two years experience in the Senate be more “Over the last nine months, I was baffl ed electable than Hillary Clinton?” Big data and as reporters continued to treat the Trump Silver’s poll aggregation methods were a wel- phenomenon as a joke, even after he and his come assault on the guessing class. if casting for an act one in this supporters had provided abundant evidence But then came Trump and Bernie inglorious season of American political of their beliefs,” Osnos told me. “Recently, Sanders, the surprising socialist who would journalism, a mid-July moment in The that’s become a story, but it’s very late.” be president. Silver’s FiveThirtyEight called Huffi ngton Post newsroom might do. Instead, proof of Trump’s staying pow- Sanders’s victory over Clinton in Michigan “After watching and listening to Donald er combined with his escalating bigotry the “biggest primary polling upset ever.” Trump since he announced his candidacy focused the media on the question of how A post-mortem podcast by Silver and his col- for president, we have decided we won’t best to characterize a demagogue. Having leagues reminded me of childhood interro- report on Trump’s campaign as part of largely sat out the story that would ex- gations by my parents to determine which of The Huffi ngton Post’s political coverage,” amine the roots of his dark appeal, many their four children was responsible for some announced two senior editors. “If you are journalists turned to denouncing him and household calamity; so much fi nger-pointing interested in what The Donald has to say, his voters. If you were building a time cap- but no clear culprit. At one point in the pod- you’ll find it next to our stories on the sule of Campaign 2016 journalism, you cast, an exasperated staff er ventures: “There Kardashians and The Bachelorette.” would want to include this media writer’s were a whole bunch of things.” The imperial post was remarkable for its tweet about an internal newsroom memo: The limits of modern measuring tools effi cient dismissal of what we now know to “BuzzFeed Editor-in-Chief: Fair to call were underscored for me by a riveting recent be millions of voters. Like so many others, Trump ‘mendacious racist.’” Guardian story quoting anonymous Trump Many journalists dismissed Trump’s candidacy instead of talking to voters to understand his appeal ABITBOL OPPOSITE: LISA PRESS; STEVE HELBER/ASSOCIATED 2 nieman reports spring 2016 nr_spring_2016_032416.indd 2 3/25/16 10:31 AM voters at length, many of them describing themselves as “secret” or “closet” support- “saying ers, some fearful of being discovered. “Not what needs even my wife knows,” said one man. to be said” “The data revolution had relied on assumptions about how people behave— Yang Jisheng, this year’s evangelicals do X, liberal Acela-riders recipient of the Louis M. do Y—and it was enormously eff ective in Lyons Award for Conscience a conventional race,” Osnos wrote me.