Make ’em take bad-faith test

Almost a month has passed since Joe Biden won the election, and the Republican Party still refuses to acknowledge him as president-elect. With hardly any exceptions, Republicans in Congress support President Donald Trump’s lie that imaginary voter fraud stole the election from him.

There is no vaccine for this delusion. But journalists in the news business do have the power to stop the spread of this dangerous disinformation by quarantining this conspiracy theory to where it belongs — Fox News, Newsmax and One America News — rather than allowing it to infect viewers of real news outlets.

It starts with rapid testing. And unlike the covid-19 rapid tests, this test is 100% reliable.

Whenever Republicans appear on a news show, the first question to them must be: “Do you acknowledge that Biden won the election and that he is president-elect?” If the Republican politician doesn’t say yes, they’ve failed the test and are at risk of spreading disinformation. The host of the show has an obligation to viewers to stop the interview there and say goodbye.

If an interview subject is willing to lie about a fact so plainly obvious and integral to American democracy — “the election is real and it happened” — we have to assume they’re willing to lie about anything.

Real news outlets don’t interview flatearthers or Sandy Hook truthers like Alex Jones for this very reason: Giving a platform to conspiracy theorists is dangerous, and offering them airtime validates their beliefs. Why aren’t TV news networks applying the same approach to the Republican Party’s election truthers?

Recently two Republican senators were invited on separate Sunday morning news shows and denied that Biden won the election: Kevin Cramer of North Dakota on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Nov. 22, and Roy Blunt of Missouri on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Nov. 29. In both instances, they were asked point-blank if they acknowledge that Biden is the president-elect. In both instances, they refused to say yes.

Yet the interviews were allowed to continue, and both Republicans used those platforms to disseminate false information about the election on the air.

Administering the bad-faith test would have stopped these conspiracy theorists from furthering Trump’s attack on democracy on mainstream outlets — and it also would have the effect of disincentivizing other Republicans from spreading that same disinformation.

Conspiracy theorists only want oxygen, and if cable producers show them they’ll cut off their supply unless they act in good faith, they might change their behavior. You haven’t seen real desperation until you’ve seen a senator without access to a Sunday show.

This is obviously a radical approach to suggest to TV journalists, but throughout the four years of Trump’s presidency, the industry has been slow to adapt to an era defined by unadulterated bad faith.