“Our interpretation of the polls is what we need to work on in 2020,” said Sam Feist, CNN’s Washington bureau chief. “It’s incumbent on us as political journalists to remind our audiences that a two-point race could very well be tied.”
Cherie Grzech, the vice president of the Fox News Washington bureau who oversees the network’s campaign reporting, agreed. “The news cycle is so quick that I think polling will face even a bigger challenge this time around; people’s viewpoints change so quickly,” she said. Still, Ms. Grzech added, “We know there’s great polarization in the country. Some people are going to vote one way or the other, no matter what happens.”
CNN faced criticism in 2016 for broadcasting hours of Trump rallies, once showing footage of an empty Trump lectern even as Hillary Clinton spoke elsewhere. Many networks allowed Mr. Trump to phone in live to answer questions, lured by the direct access to a candidate and the ratings that came with it.
In the election’s aftermath, Jeff Zucker, CNN’s president, issued a mea culpa. Anchors and network executives, though, noted that Mrs. Clinton rejected many of their requests for on-air appearances. Mr. Feist, in an interview, defended CNN’s coverage and said that, “We simply have to make a news judgment each time, and weigh all of the factors as news editors.”
“The first three letters of the word news are ‘new,’” Mr. Feist added. “If a candidate or a newsmaker is able to join you by phone and has something newsworthy to say, that’s an option for us, depending on the moment.”
Mr. Oppenheim, of NBC News, noted that journalists ought to contextualize the news, not censor it.
“I don’t think it’s the obligation of a cable channel to shield its audience from something it might disagree with,” Mr. Oppenheim said. “If you watched the programming around those rallies, you would have heard harsh, aggressive criticism of what was being said.”
Mr. Trump is still attacking journalists’ credibility, and many voters remain concerned about the way 2016 was covered. Mr. Oppenheim acknowledged that the next 21 months would be crucial for trust in the news media as an institution.
“I see every minute of every day as a test for the national media,” he said. “We are under intense scrutiny, and appropriately so. It’s never been more imperative that we get the facts right in our reporting. We know if we slip up, the consequences are going to be significant.”
Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/28/business/media/2020-elections-media.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
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