The 2020 Election 2 Contents
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Covering the Coverage The 2020 Election 2 Contents 4 Foreword 29 Us versus him Kyle Pope Betsy Morais and Alexandria Neason 5 Why did Matt Drudge turn on August 10, 2020 Donald Trump? Bob Norman 37 The campaign begins (again) January 29, 2020 Kyle Pope August 12, 2020 8 One America News was desperate for Trump’s approval. 39 When the pundits paused Here’s how it got it. Simon van Zuylen–Wood Andrew McCormick Summer 2020 May 27, 2020 47 Tuned out 13 The story has gotten away from Adam Piore us Summer 2020 Betsy Morais and Alexandria Neason 57 ‘This is a moment for June 3, 2020 imagination’ Mychal Denzel Smith, Josie Duffy 22 For Facebook, a boycott and a Rice, and Alex Vitale long, drawn-out reckoning Summer 2020 Emily Bell July 9, 2020 61 How to deal with friends who have become obsessed with 24 As election looms, a network conspiracy theories of mysterious ‘pink slime’ local Mathew Ingram news outlets nearly triples in size August 25, 2020 Priyanjana Bengani August 4, 2020 64 The only question in news is ‘Will it rate?’ Ariana Pekary September 2, 2020 3 66 Last night was the logical end 92 The Doociness of America point of debates in America Mark Oppenheimer Jon Allsop October 29, 2020 September 30, 2020 98 How careful local reporting 68 How the media has abetted the undermined Trump’s claims of Republican assault on mail-in voter fraud voting Ian W. Karbal Yochai Benkler November 3, 2020 October 2, 2020 101 Retire the election needles 75 Catching on to Q Gabriel Snyder Sam Thielman November 4, 2020 October 9, 2020 102 What the polls show, and the 78 We won’t know what will happen press missed, again on November 3 until November 3 Kyle Pope Kyle Paoletta November 4, 2020 October 15, 2020 104 How conservative media 80 E. Jean Carroll, sexual assault, covered the 2020 election and a lesson in perspective Howard Polskin Kyle Pope November 4, 2020 October 19, 2020 105 What will the press do without 84 The powerful have realized they Trump? don’t need the Post Bill Grueskin Hamilton Nolan November 12, 2020 October 20, 2020 86 Trumpism grows erratic, and both-sides-ism retreats Maria Bustillos October 22, 2020 88 Historian Rick Perlstein on media ‘bothsidesism’ and why 2020 definitely isn’t 1968 Jon Allsop October 26, 2020 COVER PHOTOGRAPH BY CHIP SOMODEVILLA/GETTY IMAGES SOMODEVILLA/GETTY CHIP BY PHOTOGRAPH COVER 4 Foreword ood riddance to 2020. Never account, and our digital media writers to dissect forget 2020. Hope is finally misinformation and the role of the big platforms in here. This is the darkest time spreading it. in US history. This compilation is intended to give you a taste of And so it goes for this awful, momentous, CJR over the past year. This project began as an effort Gextra ordinary year, one in which the news both to provide a quick overview of our election coverage. accelerated and melted together in unimaginably The fact that it ballooned to these hundred-plus complex ways. What started as a critical election pages—with so much left out—tells you both about year became the story of a pandemic, which then the year we have had and about the tireless efforts of turned into a national reckoning over racial injustice. our team of writers, illustrators, editors, and photog- At the Columbia Journalism Review, we have raphers. My deep thanks to them all. sought to cover these interwoven story lines as they We invite you to enjoy this collection, and to revel reflect, and are reflected by, journalism. It turned out in the fact that 2020 is really, truly, almost done. to be a very wide lens. Writing about the election of 2020 meant we also wrote about policing and why the racial makeup of newsrooms got in the way of telling that story. It meant chronicling Donald Trump’s estrange- ment from Matt Drudge and his new romance with Kyle Pope Newsmax and One America News Network. And Editor and Publisher it required our public editors to hold big media to Columbia Journalism Review Kyle Pope Kyle BOB NORMAN 5 Why did Matt Drudge turn on Donald Trump? Bob Norman att Drudge, who rose to Trump,” said Sutton, who is pushing the president’s January 29, 2020 stardom when he broke reelection efforts in South Florida, where Drudge the Monica Lewinsky resides. “It was nice to know there was a friend.” story around the last Trump reciprocated Drudge’s affection after presidential impeachment, still runs the news the election, calling him a “great gentleman” and Maggregation site that bears his name during this hosting him at the White House. But cracks began one. And he’s still one of the most influential people emerging in Drudge’s devotion two years into in the media. Trump’s term, with the president’s inability to get The now-fifty-two-year-old Drudge and a full funding for the border wall. The issue was clearly skeleton staff effectively invented clickbait. They central to Drudge’s support, as it was to that of other still present lines of juicy, but contextless, text, hardline conservatives, including Ann Coulter, who aggregated from around the Web, in a typewriter has heavily criticized Trump for failing to build the font: “STUDY: Farmers have most sex…” “Interior wall as promised. minister warns of repeat of migrant influx into EU…” Drudge had been serving up a diet of stories “HILLARY 2020? ‘DON’T TEMPT ME’…” painting “illegals” as job-taking, disease- carrying It’s been an effective recipe. In recent years, criminals long before Trump deemed them rapists. according to one analytics firm, the Drudge (Just three weeks before Trump announced his Report has surpassed the New York Times in Web candidacy, Drudge posted a story alleging a “surge” traffic. On his site, Drudge boasts ten billion views in deaths and gang activity “as illegals flood the for the past year, which is generally in line with other border.”) And Drudge clearly wasn’t pleased reported estimates. And during the last presiden- when Trump didn’t follow through on some of tial campaign, he used every bit of that influence to his campaign promises. This summer he posted a back Donald Trump, going all in on the candidate banner headline that slammed Trump for building well before many other major conservative entities, “no new wall at all!” including Fox News. Following that opening salvo, his hits on Trump Trump’s main rival, Ted Cruz, lashed out at began stacking up. Through July and August last year Drudge for his apparent bias, calling the Drudge Drudge warned that big government had expanded on Report “an attack site for the Donald Trump Trump’s watch, that his “trash talk” turned off suburban campaign.” Carl Bernstein called Drudge’s backing women, that farmers were struggling, and that the presi- “an influence unequaled” in Trump’s ascent to the dent was ruining markets with his trade wars. GOP nomination. Bob Sutton, a self-described “foot And since the impeachment proceedings began, soldier” in the Trump movement and chairman Drudge has gone further anti-Trump, pounding him of the Broward County Republican Executive day after day. Committee, said the backing from a media power- I wanted to ask Drudge about his changing stance house helped rally the Trump movement. “Drudge on Trump, but he hasn’t given a mainstream media was an early supporter of our grassroots effort with outlet an interview in years. The voicemail I left him BOB NORMAN 6 went unreturned, so last year, just as the headlines colorful, vibrant, takes chances, bold, stands up to began to turn, I drove out to Drudge’s house in power. And that’s where I’ve made my success.” a remote farming community called Redland in Drudge’s other relatively recent public appear- southwest Miami-Dade County. ance was in March 2017, when he briefly appeared I did not have high hopes of finding him. Drudge’s on the radio show of Michael Savage, a white nation- house, which he bought along with the adjoining alist and conspiracy theorist. There Drudge spoke property for about $2.2 million in 2013, is hidden in of Trump in near-heroic terms, calling him “one of woods, not far from the Everglades. Pulling up to the the most fascinating Americans that has ever lived entrance after driving on some of Redland’s idyllic in the modern era.” He said he suspected that the tree-domed roads, I expected nothing less than a new president was the victim of “sabotage” from high-walled bunker. A wooden gate greeted me Congress and worried Hillary Clinton might win the instead. It was wide open. presidency in 2020. “We’re trying to save this young Trump adminis- hough decidedly reclusive, Drudge hadn’t tration,” he said. completely fallen off the earth before my Savage boasted that he and Drudge were the Tvisit. He’d surfaced, or at least his voice had, “two people on earth” who had done the most to get twice in the past four years, both times within the Trump elected. “I don’t know about that,” Drudge confines of his acolytes in the conservative media. demurred. The first came in October 2015, when he joined a sort-of protégé, Alex Jones, on Infowars. inding through palm-spangled Florida The Drudge Report has linked to hundreds of woods on Drudge’s driveway, I caught a Infowars stories over the years, driving millions of Wglimpse of a swimming pool and the edge views to the conspiracy-driven site.