President Joe Biden appeared on ABC’s “The View” on Wednesday, and called Donald Trump a “loser,” saying he would have beaten Trump had he stayed in the race.
But, Biden said, he is “at peace” about not running for a second term.
Biden has appeared on “The View” 10 times before, but this was the first time a sitting president appeared live on the show. (Barack Obama sat for a taped interview with “The View” in 2010.)
Biden also gave a ringing endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris, saying, “She has the energy. She has the intelligence. She has the grit. She has the stamina. And she has the guts to do the right thing.”
How the decision desks will work
For this item, I turn it over to Rick Edmonds, Poynter’s media business analyst.
Six weeks out from Election Day, Benjamin Mullin and Michael M. Grynbaum of The New York Times addressed a compelling question, at least for math nerds: How will networks, national newspapers and The Associated Press call state-by-state winners as returns come in?
The big news is that little has changed since four years ago when competing approaches made for big differences in how and when the calls got made. That was especially true for Arizona, where Fox News was ahead of its rivals by days in calling the state for Biden.
That sort of discrepancy could happen again. The key players have their own political teams massaging the data, but a crucial core of information comes from AP VoteCast for some, Edison Research for others.
Fox News continues to employ vote guru Arnon Mishkin, who provided an early call on election night, drawing howls of protest over the following days from Trump and his camp.
Other nuggets from the comprehensive Times piece (with light additions from a conversation I had with AP executive editor Julie Pace):
- The new thing for the AP this cycle will be much more emphasis on transparency, Pace said. That means explainers in advance, during and after the exercise. Pace conceded in our conversation, however, full success could prove tough. Even the basics of projections get tricky. How can a race be called with just a small fraction of the vote counted — sometimes with the “winner” running behind so far?
- Pace and others from major networks the Times interviewed anticipate disputes, challenges and slow counts. Take races that are close in the first place, combined with the Trump camp openly primed to turn over rocks in search of fraud, and the seed has been planted.
- To the extent possible, Pace told me, she nonetheless hopes to keep that potentially huge story separate. Decision desk operations have been largely isolated, and she hopes they can continue to do their work the same way, but maybe with slower calls as vote totals are delayed.
Back in the day, an authoritative call from the AP was typically accepted without question, Pace said. That’s not how it works anymore.
Sponsored content controversy in Maine
Once again, I turn this item over to Poynter media business analyst Rick Edmonds.
The nonprofit Maine Trust for Local News has found itself on the receiving end of sharp criticism for accepting more than $100,000 in sponsored content advertising from the state’s department of education.
The Maine Wire, a small rival with a conservative viewpoint, reported on the ads and accused the trust — and its lead outlet, The Portland Press-Herald — of unethically carrying water for Democratic Gov. Janet Mills.
The first in a series of six sponsored pieces is fluffy as can be — headlined “Maine teachers share their excitement for the new school year.” However, it also is clearly and prominently labeled as sponsored in several places.
The Wire chose to ignore that article-style pieces became a staple of digital advertising more than a decade ago. The Federal Trade Commission has taken the position that as long as sponsorship is disclosed, it’s not deception (though violations, especially among influencers, are not uncommon).
The format is typically employed by companies burnishing their image, but there is no obvious reason the door should be slammed shut on a self-promoting government placement.
This one is objectionable, the trust’s critics say. “Imagine being the statehouse reporter who now has to talk with conservative Republicans who are critical of the Democratically controlled state government,” a tipster emailed me.
Lisa DeSisto, the Maine Trust’s CEO, sent me an opposite take. She wrote, in part, “Branded content is a growing piece of our advertising product offerings. We've attracted new customers to the Maine Trust by offering branded content products, and we think they’re an important part of our revenue goals. In developing these products, nothing has been more important to us than creating a clear distinction between branded content advertising and our journalism.”
The Maine Trust is the largest of several state nonprofits created by the four-year-old National Trust for Local News. Unlike other startups addressing community news shortfalls, it acquires outlets directly. I wrote about the National Trust’s expansion and complex structure earlier this summer. A secondary issue in the current controversy is whether the trust has been transparent in saying who’s in charge and where primary funding comes from.
Alex Jones must pay
A federal judge in Houston ruled Tuesday that conspiracy theorist Alex Jones will have his InfoWars media platform and all of its assets auctioned off piece by piece this fall to help pay the $1 billion he owes to the families of those murdered in the Sandy Hook school shooting in 2012.
The New York Times’ Elizabeth Williamson wrote, “The auction, set for mid-November, will include Infowars’ website, social media accounts, broadcasting equipment, product trademarks and inventory owned by Free Speech Systems, Infowars’ parent company. Mr. Jones’s fate as a broadcaster most likely depends on who buys his business. Though the Infowars name and assets are potentially of interest to a range of entities on the far right, under the terms of the sale anyone can bid.”
For years, Jones said that the shooting that killed 20 first-graders and six educators at the school was a hoax and that the grieving families of the victims were actors. It was all part of a plot, Jones theorized, to gain support for gun legislation in the United States.
Many of the victims’ families were harassed online and in person, and received death threats from those who believed Jones’ false theory. In 2022, Sandy Hook families won nearly $1.5 billion in defamation and emotional distress lawsuits in Connecticut and Texas against Jones. Although he has since admitted the shootings were real, Jones is appealing those civil trial verdicts.
Williamson wrote, “The Connecticut and Texas sides divided sharply over how to go after Free Speech Systems. Lawyers for the families who sued Mr. Jones in Connecticut — the relatives of eight victims — favored shutting down the company and liquidating its assets, with the money distributed among the family members. Lawyers for families who sued Mr. Jones in Texas favored a settlement in which he would pay them a percentage of his income over the next decade, most likely netting more money for each relative. As a condition of the latter deal, Mr. Jones would have had to agree never to mention the shooting again. The asset sale is probably the least lucrative option for the family members, though its potential for shutting down Infowars appealed to some.”
The Poynter Report Podcast
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