Election night fear
One of the fears on election night, as I’ve written about before, is this scenario: President Trump will see early returns with him leading and then declare victory on Twitter. Then, as more votes come in (especially mail-in votes) and are tabulated, Joe Biden surges ahead. Then Trump will declare that the election was rigged and stolen from him. Trump already has been spreading that theory well before now.
That’s why it was good to see CNN “Reliable Sources” host Brian Stelter ask Brandon Borrman, Twitter’s vice president of global communications, about it.
“Regardless of who you are, you cannot use Twitter to declare victory if the race has not been called and if you do, we’re going to put a warning that covers the entire tweet,” Borrman said.
Borrman said Twitter will then provide an update on that warning and the status of the race and then link out to a trusted third party.
Controversial Times
(John Nacion/STAR MAX/IPx)
There’s another controversy at The New York Times. Opinion columnist Bret Stephens blasted last year’s Times’ “1619” project that recognized the start of slavery in this country and the lasting impact it has had. In his piece, Stephens talked about how ambitious the project was.
“But ambition can be double-edged,” Stephens wrote. “Journalists are, most often, in the business of writing the first rough draft of history, not trying to have the last word on it. We are best when we try to tell truths with a lowercase t, following evidence in directions unseen, not the capital-T truth of a pre-established narrative in which inconvenient facts get discarded. And we’re supposed to report and comment on the political and cultural issues of the day, not become the issue itself. As fresh concerns make clear, on these points — and for all of its virtues, buzz, spinoffs and a Pulitzer Prize — the 1619 Project has failed.”
At the heart of this issue is a passage in the original publication of the project that many believed suggested that 1619, and not 1776, be recognized as the true birth of our nation.
The original introduction to “1619” said. “What if, however, we were to tell you that this fact, which is taught in our schools and unanimously celebrated every Fourth of July, is wrong, and that the country’s true birth date, the moment that its defining contradictions first came into the world, was in late August of 1619?”
It was later changed to “What if, however, we were to tell you that the moment that the country’s defining contradictions first came into the world was in late August of 1619?”
The project’s main creator, Nikole Hannah-Jones, has said the thinking of 1619 as America’s true birth year was “always a metaphoric argument.”
But Stephens’ talking points echo many critics, including someone who resides at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. in Washington, D.C., who believe all history books are going to be torn up to remove 1776 as the U.S.’s birth year — instead of realizing how we need to include 1619’s significance and lasting effects on our nation.
As Northeastern University’s Dan Kennedy writes, “Now, was anyone who read the original text somehow fooled into thinking that the United States was actually founded in 1619? Did anyone go running to Wikipedia to double-check on that 1776 thing? Of course not. It is ludicrous to think that the idea of 1619 as our country’s founding year is anything other than ‘a metaphoric argument,’ as (Hannah-Jones) argues.”
Meanwhile, the New York Times Guild didn’t think much of Stephens’ piece, tweeting, “It says a lot about an organization when it breaks its own rules and goes after one of its own. The act, like the article, reeks.”
And even more controversy
The latest from New York Times media columnist Ben Smith is “An Arrest in Canada Casts a Shadow on a New York Times Star, and The Times.”
It details how the Times is now reviewing the work of Times reporter Rukmini Callimachi on, among many reports, the audio series “Caliphate,” which looks at the Islamic State and terrorism.
Smith writes, “The Times has assigned a top editor, Dean Murphy, who heads the investigations reporting group, to review the reporting and editing process behind ‘Caliphate’ and some of Ms. Callimachi’s other stories.” Smith also writes that the Times has assigned an “investigative correspondent with deep experience in national security reporting, Mark Mazzetti,” to essentially determine the credibility of the main source for “Caliphate.”
To be clear, this isn’t the first we’re hearing of questions about Callimachi’s work. The Washington Post, The Daily Beast and The New Republic also have written about it. But Smith’s story takes us inside the Times.
He writes, “Ms. Callimachi’s approach to storytelling aligned with a more profound shift underway at The Times. The paper is in the midst of an evolution from the stodgy paper of record into a juicy collection of great narratives, on the web and streaming services. And Ms. Callimachi’s success has been due, in part, to her ability to turn distant conflicts in Africa and the Middle East into irresistibly accessible stories.”
But, he adds, “the terror beat lends itself particularly well to the seductions of narrative journalism. Reporters looking for a terrifying yarn will find terrorist sources eager to help terrify. And journalists often find themselves relying on murderous and untrustworthy sources in situations where the facts are ambiguous. If you get something wrong, you probably won’t get a call from the ISIS press office seeking a correction.”
And there’s much more, as Smith writes:
“What is clear is that The Times should have been alert to the possibility that, in its signature audio documentary, it was listening too hard for the story it wanted to hear — ‘rooting for the story,’ as The Post’s Erik Wemple put it on Friday. And while (executive editor Dean) Baquet emphasized in an interview last week that the internal review would examine whether The Times wasn’t keeping to its standards in the audio department, the troubling patterns surrounding Ms. Callimachi’s reporting were clear before ‘Caliphate.’”
There’s much more detail and nuance to Smith’s story, so I encourage you to read it.
And the winners are …
The Edward R. Murrow Awards, honoring outstanding achievements in electronic journalism, were announced over the weekend. Go here for the complete list of winners.
Some of the notable winners among broadcast journalism were: ABC News for overall excellence; “60 Minutes” for investigative reporting; and “CBS Evening News” for newscast. In the Large Digital News Organization, The Washington Post was recognized for overall excellence. In the Small Digital News Organization, The Marshall Project was honored for overall excellence.
“Florida Florida Florida”
(Courtesy: NBC News.)
It was election night 2000. The late “Meet the Press” moderator Tim Russert held up his whiteboard with the words “Florida, Florida, Florida” on it and said, “All Al Gore needs is Florida. All George Bush needs is Florida.”
That kicked off one of the most controversial presidential elections ever and it all came down to one state: Florida.
Now “Meet the Press” and current moderator Chuck Todd have a five-part podcast series reexamining the historic 2000 presidential recount and its impacts on elections 20 years later. And the title is, naturally, “Florida Florida Florida.” The first episode is available now from The Chuck ToddCast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and all major podcast platforms. The rest of the series will be released daily this week.
The series interviews dozens, including those who worked on both the Gore and Bush campaigns, as well as media that covered the story.
Best tweet of the weekend
The cold open on “Saturday Night Live” was the vice presidential debate with Maya Rudolph playing Kamala Harris, Beck Bennett playing Mike Pence, Jim Carrey playing Joe Biden and “The Fly.” And, oh, Kate McKinnon playing moderator Susan Page, who tweeted: “The good news: I was on #SNL! The bad news: My kids now telling friends that Kate McKinnon @updatedmckinnon is their ‘real’
mother.”
Oh, and just some trivia for you: “Saturday Night Live” made its debut exactly 45 years ago Sunday — Oct. 11, 1975. George Carlin was the first host. Billy Preston was the musical guest.
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