5 suggestions for news media covering Biden

A friend called the other night and asked how journalists planned on remaining employed now that there weren’t any unhinged late-night presidential tweets to reckon with.

He was joking — I think — and somewhat relieved. As are we all, even those of us who spent the last four years bouncing from one chaotic misadventure to another, just trying to keep up. A nation with its hair on fire is interesting, for sure. But not that healthy.

Now Joe Biden is president, and he has spent his first couple of weeks in office … not tweeting insults or “Fox & Friends” talking points. And signing executive orders, and doing presidential stuff, for lack of a better description. This is not a politically partisan statement. It’s just a fact. He hasn’t goaded the media or the country into a slap fight.

Yet, at least.

It’s familiar, if you block out the last four years. Some call it boring. Which leads us to the first of five suggestions for media covering Biden and the nation moving forward:

1. Stop confusing ‘competent’ with ‘boring’

We have gotten in the habit of placing too much news value on the shiny object and not enough on actual governing, getting things done.

Granted, if your administration isn’t actually doing anything except lying about stolen elections, there isn’t much to cover on the governance front. But that’s changed. A COVID-19 plan is finally coming into focus. These aren’t as confrontational as the cry of “enemy of the people,” and not everyone agrees with what Biden is doing or how he’s doing it. But taking action is important and we have to make that clear — and interesting — to audiences.

2. Don’t normalize the unacceptable

This is a balancing act: Media also must not normalize things that just aren’t normal. Pretending you don’t know what QAnon is — looking at you, Rep. Kevin McCarthy — so that you can dodge dealing with a congresswoman who has espoused their views is not normal. For that matter, neither is embracing QAnon. Nor is downplaying the seriousness of the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. This is madness and it must be treated that way.

Will some people get mad? Of course. It’s not our job to make everyone happy. We’re not the ones running for election. We have the ultimate defense: truth.

3. Don’t forget the pandemic

COVID-19 is still with us — something that, depending on your TV news network of choice, you might need to be reminded of. That may be an exaggeration, but it is too easy to get caught up in other stories without remembering that one story hovers above them all, informing every decision we make — not just newsrooms, but families, schools, local governments.

Here is a number the media should keep in front of their audiences every day — every single day: 450,000. That’s the number of Americans COVID-19 has killed. So far. That’s 450,000 stories — the most important stories the families and friends of the dead will ever know. We should tell more of them. Huge numbers are difficult to wrap your head around, and it’s easy to make those who have died anonymous. They aren’t. Yes, the vaccines are promising (their distribution, less so). That’s a great story. There are so many out there.

4. Don’t be cynical, be skeptical

Already some supporters of the previous administration claim the media are going easy on Biden, or that they will. It’s a possibility, given the contentious nature of their relationship with the last president and his spokespeople. More likely the simple lack of daily reports of constant lying — more than 30,000 false or misleading claims in the last four years — will be construed as a lack of diligence.

It’s not. You can’t report on what doesn’t happen. Of course Biden will at some points play fast and loose with the truth. PolitiFact has been on the case for a while now, evaluating his claims during the campaign (always a slippery slope). The Washington Post’s factcheckers have given him four Pinocchios — a “whopper” in their terminology — for saying federal contracts went up 30% under the previous administration.

But dropping a match isn’t the same as shooting a flame thrower. You need to pay attention to both, but they’re just not the same thing.

5. Don’t ignore local news

Our communities are where the stories that point the way forward for what becomes national news. Look at what legislatures in some states, Arizona among them, that are trying to reshape voting, basically by making it more difficult. National publications and TV news teams have remained focused on Arizona even after Fox News created a stir — the fallout from which is ongoing — for calling the state for Biden early on election night. That’s good. It’s also important to look at North Carolina and Virginia and every other state, and the cities and towns within them, if journalists want to get in on the ground floor of developments that will bubble up into movements.

Stay focused. There’s a lot going on out there, still. And a lot of people who need to know about it.