Public debate has been replaced with partisan battle and truth is the victim
A Sept. 16 study by the PEW Research Center for Journalism and Media entitled Political Divides, Conspiracy Theories and Divergent News Sources Heading Into 2020 Election found that partisan divide, divergent responses to conspiracy theories and misinformation, and duelling information systems were causing serious uncertainty and conflict among voters.
According to PEW, “While Americans across the political spectrum have been getting information about key election-related storylines, their knowledge and opinions about these issues — as well as the candidates themselves — differ strikingly based on their party affiliation and key news sources.”
One of the main issues muddying the Potomac waters this election cycle is a favourite cause célèbre of President Trump’s … voter fraud. This persistent Trump fable has consistently been debunked by (real) facts provided by the FBI, and others. FBI director Christopher Wray testified to Congress on Sept. 24, saying that the agency has not seen “any kind of co-ordinated national voter fraud effort in a major election,” specifically including mail-in ballots.
The Brennan Centre for Justice has stated, “Mail ballot fraud is incredibly rare, and legitimate security concerns can be easily addressed … it is still more likely for an American to be struck by lightning than to commit mail voting fraud.” Despite all evidence to the contrary, Trumpian voter fraud theory remains remarkably fact-resistant and sticky.
Despite evidence that mail-in voting has been associated with only minuscule levels of fraud, 25 per cent of Americans believe that voter fraud has been a major problem with mail-in ballots, according to PEW. This number is larger among Republicans (43 per cent, and lower among Democrats (11 per cent).
Understanding on this issue goes beyond partisan political bias however. The PEW study links individual belief to information sources.
Among Republicans, beliefs vary greatly with the news source. Republicans who get their news exclusively from Fox News, or other right-leaning sources such as talkradio, are far more likely to believe in voter fraud — fully 61 per cent. However, this falls dramatically to 23 per cent among Republicans who get their news from sources other than Fox or talk-radio.
Similarly, Democrats who only get election news from one or more of the five major left-leaning sources (MSNBC, CNN, NPR, New York Times and The Washington Post) are about twice as likely to believe that voter fraud is not a problem (67 per cent) as Democrats who do not get their news from any of these sources (35 per cent).
The PEW American News Pathways project — an initiative focusing on Americans’ news habits surrounding the 2020 U.S. presidential election and COVID-19 — has determined only 19 per cent of Americans believe they get the same basic facts regardless of news source, with 80 per cent believing that they often get different basic facts depending upon on the news sources that they use.
In recent years the traditional model of neutral, unbiased journalism has been replaced by politically polarized news reporting; and the cancerous growth of rabid, partisan, opinion-based, news-commentary programming. This bias is reflected in their readership and viewership. According to PEW, an equal number of Americans (39 per cent) get some of their political news from either Fox or CNN — arguably the two most biased mainstream cable news providers in the U.S. The viewership split by party affiliation is however significant. Viewership for right-leaning Fox was (unsurprisingly) 60 per cent Republican, and 23 per cent Democrat. The inverse was true for CNN, with 53 per cent Democrat, and 24 per cent Republican. The party differences observed in print media were even starker, with few Republicans getting news from newspapers — which generally have a left-leaning bias in reporting. Readership for the NYT was 31 per cent Democrat, and nine per cent Republican. The Washington Post split was 26 per cent Democrat and only eight per cent Republican.
The right-leaning talk-show radio shows of Hannity and Limbaugh are both popular among Republicans at 19 and 17 per cent respectively, but almost completely ignored by Democrats (only one per cent).
These numbers describe an information ecosystem wherein partisan information-bubbles reinforce pre-existing intuitive biases, foster political divide, and further the growing partitioning of society. Public debate has been replaced with partisan battle, and truth is the victim. The press reports daily on a growing divide in society, one that they have helped create. We have stopped listening to others.