I agree with the point that the sheet volume of Biden coverage from
some big outlets - particularly compared to their coverage of MAGA authoritarianism - is out of wack but this column also ignores a whole lot of reality.
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
The concerns around Biden aren't solely coming from the media. They are coming from within the Democratic Party. Mark Warner and the senators going with him are not pundits - and that's just one example. Dems I speak with are almost universally concerned.
And the reason for this concern is clear. Biden's numbers were not great before this. He's got serious issues and this is a serious moment. It's Biden and his team's job to sell him to the portion of the public that isn't with it. It's not the media's job to do that.
I see a lack of awareness from Biden and his team about how bad he's doing. That's especially clear when be does an interview where he denies the numbers and touts achievements that the public really doesn't see including shutting down Putin, Mideast peace, and the economy.
I don't think press tripling down on that with them is an answer to anything. We should, of course, be aggressively covering how alarming Trump's plans are. But part of making people aware of the stakes is showing that Trump really might win.
I agree with her point about the volume of coverage being way off. I also generally hate op ed pages. It's not a newspaper's job to print a resignation letter or any kind of demand. That being said, it's not any reporters job to ignore that he's in trouble and that many in his own party are upset.
This column is part of a strain of thinking that I also see on social that is like blaming this all on the press. It's disingenuous to claim the calls for Biden to drop are just a result of bad punditry. They are coming from inside the Dems' house too.
Is anyone (besides yourself) capable of forming opinions without consulting the elite press? Is it possible for those opinions to be valid?
All these media-blaming narratives seem to implicitly deny that other voters have any agency of their own , and are just mindless media consumers.
You sem to imagine people are at such dinner parties all the time. I think at least some people watch the debate on their own or with close friends/family and draw conclusions from the unfiltered information.
There were ways to denigrate the Biden old talk but they could not exploit them because Biden can no longer communicate consistently and effectively. That it a killer blow for a US presidential candidate.
I am seeing a lot of articles talking about concern from unnamed democrats. I also saw comments from maybe 5 backbenchers as well as mischaracterizations of other people's comments. Meanwhile nyt has published 192 articles on bidens age. That you claim she's overstating that effect is mystifying.