The Harris-Biden-Trump news cycle leaves us thirsty for more

Have you had a chance to breathe yet?

What a wild couple of days. And weeks. It feels like the Republican National Convention was a month ago. The Trump rally shooting? That feels like way more than 10 days ago. The presidential debate — was that this year?

Monday, the day after President Joe Biden said he would not seek reelection, felt like the first time in forever that the news actually slowed down just a tad, yet there’s still plenty to keep the media busy.

Next up at the center of this dizzying news cycle: Vice President Kamala Harris.

With more and more Democrats — including former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi — endorsing Harris, it seems a given that Harris will be the Democratic nominee for president.

When you add that no one is even hinting at being a challenger, Harris almost assuredly will face Donald Trump in the November election. The Associated Press reports that, according to their survey, Harris has the support of enough delegates to secure the Democratic nomination.

But what does the media do when the nominee isn’t officially the nominee even though she is going to be the nominee?

Well, there is still plenty to chase on this story: What’s the latest with Biden? How did he make his decision? What are his immediate plans? What is Harris doing next? What are others saying? What is Trump saying? Who might be Harris’ running mate?

And you cover Harris like she’s, well, running to be president of the United States.

The news outlets, the good ones anyway, are doing that. The work in places such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, the major networks, Politico, and The Wall Street Journal has been impressive. The news stories have been detailed. The opinion pieces have been smart. And the analysis has been thought-provoking.

During those brief moments when you run out of new news? Well, you plow forward anyway. That appears to be the plan of most news organizations. Give the audience something, anything. Keep moving the story forward.

Often, that is not good. Occasionally, it can be irresponsible and dangerous. But in this case, it does seem that most of what’s being written and said is informative, if not entertaining, especially if you stick with the responsible news organizations.

For example, The New York Times and The Washington Post, in perhaps a slow moment, ran opinion pieces on what an alternative to Harris might look like. Both opined that Harris should get the nomination, that she will get the nomination, but that the best candidate to beat Trump might actually be Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.

To be clear, unless something completely unforeseen happens, Harris is going to be the nominee.

So why even write these stories?

Well, maybe something unforeseen does happen, and if not, they do lend some educated guesses on Harris’ chances come November and who her running mate might be, as well as what 2028 might look like should Trump win in November.

And they are fun to read, just like it’s fun to know what Barbra Streisand thinks and why Harris is “brat.”

As often happens in the immediate aftermath of a huge breaking story — and it doesn’t get much bigger than a sitting president withdrawing from the presidential race — we reach a stage where the media feels the need to advance the story when there’s not much actual news to advance it.

So they fill it with opinion and commentary and analysis and conjecture and predictions. Not all of it has been perfect, but if you stick to reliable sources, most of it has been good.

And, hey, political junkies eat this stuff up.

Hopefully, your diet consists of the responsible type of articles and outlets when it comes to all of this. So to point you to what to digest, here are some of the more interesting stories, links and tidbits of the past day for your perusal:

• In a guest essay for The New York Times, presidential historian and occasional Biden adviser Jon Meacham with “Joe Biden, My Friend and an American Hero.” Meacham wrote, “Mr. Biden has spent a lifetime trying to do right by the nation, and he did so in the most epic of ways when he chose to end his campaign for re-election. His decision is one of the most remarkable acts of leadership in our history, an act of self-sacrifice that places him in the company of George Washington, who also stepped away from the presidency. To put something ahead of one’s immediate desires — to give, rather than to try to take — is perhaps the most difficult thing for any human being to do. And Mr. Biden has done just that.”
• The Washington Post’s Philip Bump with “The remarkable contrast between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump.”
• Politico with “15 Experts Predict What Biden’s Dropout Means for the 2024 Election.”
• The New York Times’ Adam Nagourney and Jennifer Medina with “Who might Kamala Harris pick as her running mate?”
• Fox News’ coverage of the Biden-Harris story has gone pretty much the way you would expect it to go. The Washington Post’s Jeremy Barr writes “Fox pundits rehash attacks on ‘radical and incompetent’ Kamala Harris.”
• And here’s Mediaite’s Colby Hall with “Fox News Embraces Baseless ‘Coup’ Theories After Biden Drops Out.”
• The New York Times’ Nicholas Nehamas and Katie Glueck with “How Kamala Harris Will Try to Put Trump on Defense.”
• The New York Times’ Patricia Mazzei, Jenna Russell, Richard Fausset and Christina Morales with “A Lot Has Changed for Women Since 2016. What Does That Mean for Kamala Harris?”
• The Atlantic’s Tim Alberta with “This Is Exactly What the Trump Team Feared.”
• Also in The Atlantic, Mark Leibovich with “You Know Who Else Is Really Old?” Leibovich writes, “Now, just like that, all of those paragraphs that began with ‘Biden will be 82 on Inauguration Day and 86 at the end of a second term’ can be tossed over into the noisy neighbor’s yard: Trump will be 78 on Inauguration Day and 82 at the end of a second term. All of those polls in which massive majorities of voters across the political spectrum kept saying — screaming — that Biden was way too old to be running again are no longer operational.” Leibovich cracked, “Harris’s age begins with a 5. Is that even legal?”
• And on that topic, The Washington Post’s Michael Kranish with “Trump’s age and health under renewed scrutiny after Biden’s exit.”
• Finally, one more from The Atlantic. Ronald Brownstein with “Can Harris Reassemble Obama’s Coalition?”

Local coverage of the Trump rally shooting

It was only 10 days ago when a shooter tried to kill former President Donald Trump at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. Here are two interesting pieces about local reporters who covered what happened.

First, The Associated Press’ David Bauder traveled to Butler to write about the newspaper, the Butler Eagle: “The biggest of stories came to the small city of Butler. Here’s how its newspaper met the moment.”

Then, The Washington Post’s Elahe Izadi wrote about John Paul Vranesevich, the owner and only full-time reporter for the Beaver Countian, in “How a one-man news site beat the national media on a Trump shooting scoop.”

Gershkovich sentenced

Catching up on this expected, yet still very disturbing news from last week. Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich was sentenced to 16 years in prison after being found guilty of espionage. The charges have always been strongly denied by the Journal and U.S. government officials, and the sham trial was held behind closed doors. Gershkovich was arrested in March 2023 and the trial results came as no surprise.

For CNN, Sophie Tanno and Anna Chernova wrote, “The speed of the trial has raised questions over whether the Kremlin is intending to use him as part of a prisoner swap deal with the United States, suggestions which spokesman Dmitry Peskov left without comment when asked about them on a Friday conference call ahead of the verdict announcement.”

Supposedly the time Gershkovich has spent detained will count against his sentence.

In a statement, Dow Jones CEO and Wall Street Journal publisher Almar Latour and Wall Street Journal editor-in-chief Emma Tucker said, “This disgraceful, sham conviction comes after Evan has spent 478 days in prison, wrongfully detained, away from his family and friends, prevented from reporting, all for doing his job as a journalist. We will continue to do everything possible to press for Evan’s release and to support his family. Journalism is not a crime, and we will not rest until he’s released. This must end now.”

In a statement last week, President Joe Biden said, in part, “Evan has endured his ordeal with remarkable strength. We will not cease in our efforts to bring him home.”

Gershkovich is expected to serve his sentence in a high-security penal colony.

The New York Times’ Ivan Nechepurenko and Eve Sampson wrote, “The colonies range from high to low security, but some locations have a reputation for being particularly hellish, even among Russia’s most hardened criminals. Mr. Gershkovich has been sentenced to serve time in a high-security colony. Testimony from those who have been imprisoned in the Russian penal system paints a grim picture of what he might expect.”

Some penal colonies, the Times reports, are known for brutally cold and unsanitary conditions, isolation meant to break the human spirit and, in some cases, beatings. It isn’t known exactly where Gershkovich will serve his sentence.

However, as mentioned, there might be a glimmer of hope. Nechepurenko wrote in the Times, “The verdict opens the way for a potential prisoner swap between the United States and Russia. The harsh sentence represented the first espionage conviction of a Western reporter in modern Russia. But the expedited nature of the case suggested that Moscow might be ready to trade Mr. Gershkovich. The proceedings were recently moved up by more than three weeks, and the court concluded the case, a process that usually takes months, in a matter of weeks, with only three hearings.”

TNT’s Ernie Johnson takes a leave

TNT’s Ernie Johnson, who anchors the network’s NBA and baseball studio shows, is taking a leave of absence to tend to a personal matter and will miss the remainder of the baseball season, including the postseason.

In a statement on Monday, Johnson said, “I’d like to thank the leadership at TNT Sports for allowing me the time away to take care of a family matter during the baseball season. I look forward to returning to the studio for the start of the NBA season.”

Johnson would return for what could be the final season of the highly regarded “Inside the NBA” — the gold standard of sports studio shows with Charles Barkley, Kenny Smith and Shaquille O’Neal. TNT is likely to be left out of new NBA TV rights deals, which begin after next season. (More on that below.)

For the baseball season, Johnson will be replaced by MLB Network’s Greg Amsinger. Awful Announcing’s Sam Neumann has more.

Hold on a second

TNT, which is owned by Warner Bros. Discovery, might not be out of the NBA TV rights business just yet. The NBA has agreed to new TV deals with ESPN/ABC, NBC and Amazon Prime, but TNT says its current deal allows it the right to match any offer.

TNT says it will attempt to match Amazon’s package.

In a statement, TNT said, “We’re proud of how we have delivered for basketball fans by providing best-in-class coverage throughout our four-decade partnership with the NBA. In an effort to continue our long-standing partnership, during both exclusive and nonexclusive negotiation periods, we acted in good faith to present strong bids that were fair to both parties. We look forward to the NBA executing our new contract.”

So now what?

The Athletic’s Andrew Marchand wrote, “While TNT has the contractual right to match an offer, per its current contract, the NBA is expected to decline the network’s right to take the agreed-upon Amazon package, sources briefed on the NBA’s plans said. The league’s preference is to honor the $1.8 billion per year contract it agreed to with Amazon. The schism is expected to lead to more discussions with the cloud of a legal fight hanging over the future of the broadcast and streaming deals.”

The Washington Post’s Ben Strauss wrote, “The high-stakes showdown could land the parties in court and keep the outcome of the NBA’s broadcast rights in limbo for the foreseeable future.”

If all this is true, that means the TV rights deals with ABC/ESPN and NBC will go through as expected. Now we wait on this TNT vs. Amazon deal to play out.

Strauss wrote, “How strong those matching rights are depends on which side of the bargaining table one sits. The NBA is hopeful that its terms with Amazon are different enough that Turner’s offer is not a true match. Amazon is a streaming platform versus Turner, a cable network. And Prime Video has more subscribers than Warner’s streaming platform, Max. Inside Turner, meanwhile, there is belief that the distribution particulars are less important than matching Amazon’s financial terms, which it will do.”

Media tidbits

• In the wake of the Trump rally shooting, my Poynter colleague, Roy Peter Clark, with “The Journalism of Why: How we struggle to answer the hardest question.”
• The New York Times’ Rebecca Robbins with “Judge Rejects Bid to Dismiss Trump Libel Suit Against Pulitzer Board.”
• The Associated Press with “Hunter Biden drops lawsuit against Fox News over explicit images featured in streaming series.”

Hot type

• The Washington Post’s Les Carpenter with “The miracle of 1984: How Los Angeles saved the dying Olympics.”
• The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal with “The insular relationships that protected Shohei Ohtani — until they didn’t.”

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Have feedback or a tip? Email Poynter senior media writer Tom Jones at [email protected].