Media’s role in ’24 race

After the CNN town hall debacle, the mainstream political media should carefully consider their proper role in the 2024 GOP primary race, which includes former president and coup-instigator Donald Trump, several Trump imitators who continue pushing the “big lie” and a flock that traffics in white Christian nationalism. Given that experience and fidelity to the truth are no longer prerequisites for the GOP nomination (as we saw in 2016), the media must assume the responsibility of helping voters sift between fact and fiction. When so many candidates wander far from reality and reject democratic values, the media takes on the special obligation to tease out the truth. They cannot be passive observers.

That requires more than transcribing the candidates’ conflicting claims. The media must refrain, for example, from false equivalencies and amplification of lies. They become liars’ enablers when, for example, they make assertions such as: Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson says President Biden won in 2020, a claim Trump disputes. Treating truth and lies as worthy of equal consideration makes the media complicit in MAGA deception.

Whether in debates, interviews, brief press availabilities, or print and online analyses of candidates’ views, outlets would be wise to follow at least six guidelines.

1. Do not countenance the “big lie.’”

No matter how many times Trump says it, it is the media’s job to correct and rebut the lie that Trump won in 2020. If that means getting stuck on the same question with a candidate or cutting off an interview, so be it.

It behooves the press to remind voters repeatedly: There was never evidence of fraud sufficient to change the result, as Trump’s closest aides testified that they told him and recounts and audits showed. As soon as reporters decide to “let it go” (i.e., not interject or interrupt recitation of the “big lie”), election denial becomes a normal position, not a heinous attack on truth and democracy. Candidates should have to answer whether they agree with the “big lie” and election denial and, if not, how they could support Trump if he is the nominee.

2. Pressure Trump’s opponents to state their objections.

The non-Trump candidates have generally been wary of contradicting him, whether on factual assertions (e.g., the wall wasn’t completed) or on policy (e.g., their own robust support for NATO vs. Trump’s Russia-coddling). If candidates won’t admit real disagreements with Trump, there’s no cogent argument for why Republicans should pick someone else. It’s up to reporters to help voters decide if Trump’s opponents are alternatives or simply Trump imitators.

Such an effort is not “taking sides” against Trump. Rather, it concerns getting his opponents to explain why they are running and what they truly stand for. Moreover, it’s entirely appropriate to ask them why they are so afraid of confronting Trump and his policy failures. (These would include letting the debt skyrocket, allowing hundreds of thousands of preventable deaths from covid-19 and failing to produce an infrastructure bill or build the wall on the southern border.) Challenging their assertion that they agree with him on policy forces them to answer hard questions about flawed policies and unpopular positions they share with Trump.

3. Challenge candidates on nonsensical “woke” attacks.

Promises to end “wokeness” or to “destroy leftism” are not only meaningless; they suggest an authoritarian mind-set that aims to obliterate the opposition and eviscerate First Amendment principles (by, for example, censoring university professors or passing the “don’t say gay” bill). Some basic questions are in order, including:

■ What is woke — anything you don’t like?

■ Why is it the president’s job to tell social media what it should leave up on their sites or tell teachers what part of history to eliminate from the curriculum?

■ How is punishing private speakers “conservative” or consistent with the First Amendment?

■ Why are you so fixated on something that most voters don’t understand but uninterested in trying to halt school mass murders?

■ What is positive about ignoring social injustice, disparate treatment of certain groups and police officers’ excessive use of force?

4. Push candidates to justify their positions. Republicans who hide out in right-wing media have grown accustomed to seeing their absurd positions go unchallenged. That’s not acceptable in mainstream media coverage.

For example, starving the Internal Revenue Service of funds to go after rich tax cheats (those making more than $400,000) widens the deficit and allows theft of taxpayer money. It literally makes no sense unless you are propagating the myth that IRS agents are storm troopers. Why do they stand with tax cheats instead of honest taxpayers?

It’s the mainstream media’s job not simply to recite candidates’ positions but to expose hypocrisy, lies and leaps of logic.

5. Press candidates on abortion. Republicans who once said to let the states decide now want a national ban. Forced-birth advocates falsely insisted that women would not be harmed by edicts that contradict standards of medical care. Child rape and incest victims face further trauma if denied access to abortion services.

Confronting candidates with the specific tragedies abortion bans have caused prevents them from hiding behind slogans and ignoring facts. Teasing out why they do not trust women and doctors to make life-changing decisions and pressing candidates to either adopt or reject the most extreme anti-abortion posturing might be the most important thing the press can do to help voters (a majority of whom are prochoice) evaluate their choices.

6. Challenge candidates on voter suppression. Republicans now confess they think fewer people should vote. Some MAGA leaders assert that college students should be deterred from voting. Most candidates falsely claim fraud is rampant (which means curtailing voting by mail that allows the elderly, Americans with disabilities, hourly employees and others unable to cast ballots on Election Day).

They’ve opposed extension of the Voting Rights Act. How can they be pro-democracy but anti-voting? Few, if any, of these candidates have been pushed to explain their disdain for democracy. (Giving how counterproductive these positions have been for Republicans, you might even see some contenders renounce classic voter suppression techniques.) If the media, as many outlets claim, understand their role in defending democracy, this is the place to start.