OH, to have been a fly in the room as Democrats watched the presidential debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump. They were quick to shoot down media reports about panic in the room. The delegates who endorsed Biden’s bid even double downed on their choice: only Biden can defeat Trump.

But with each passing day, as the date for election nears, there are calls from various stakeholders, including Democrats, columnists and actor George Clooney, for Biden to step aside. At the time of my writing, eight lawmakers had called for Biden to step down.

(As a quick aside, I have no skin in this game because it does not matter whether a Republican or a Democrat president chastises us, bombs us or sanctions us. Funnily enough, it is the Pakistanis in the US I fear more who are hell-bent on punishing the country for not working hard enough to get Imran Khan back in power.)

The cruellest calls against Biden are not from the usual suspects — politicians who are panicking about their future — but the media, particularly those who cheered for Biden and are now throwing him under the bus. Like one New York Times columnist who wrote in October that an “older wiser president … had vital strengths…” to writing it was time to “find a way to ease Biden out” — in a span of nine months.

Can journalists reclaim their profession from the pundits?

Of course, people are allowed to change their minds when presented with evidence but many in the media defended this presidency when there was a lot to question. He has given the least press conferences and media interviews than any of the last seven presidents, and this includes the one he gave on Thursday, under pressure I assume, where he flubbed twice. Trump hated the press but gave way more interviews. (Another quick aside, Modi has held just one press conference in his entire tenure as prime minister and is routinely criticised for his inaccessibility.)

Biden’s cognitive difficulty came into view earlier this year in public events when he misremembered names, fumbled here and there, and was reported to have mishandled state documents. It became painfully clear during the debate. To then watch many in the Biden media camp shift the conversation to ‘why doesn’t anyone ask Donald Trump to step down’ seemed disingenuous, especially since the same media has been against Trump since he announced his candidacy in 2015. I watched panellists on American media say the threat of Trump returning to power is so high that questioning Biden’s health amounted to “enabling fascism”. Those who did ask about his age or his way of walking were accused of “ableism”. It’s preposterous to say the press is being ableist in asking about Biden’s policy on Palestine. It is an important issue among voters and may even play a role in determining November’s result.

It’s not the range of voices calling for Biden’s head or Trump’s that concerns me as much as how journalism failed to do its job — 2016 part II. And the implications of it.

Take the lack of proportionality following the presidential debate, where coverage on Biden that night was “full-blown hysteria” wrote Jennifer Schulze in Heartland Signal. She counted 192 news and opinion pieces on Biden in The New York Times, compared to 92 stories on Trump, in a period of less than a week. Through all this “journalism values like facts and context are taking a back seat”, she wrote.

What’s leading is disinformation — Twitter has diagnosed him with Parkinson’s, there are manipulated videos suggesting he wears diapers. It is followed closely by TV pundits, who are blaming the White House staff for Biden’s performance. The White House, meanwhile, is blaming it on a cold and jetlag.

Perhaps poor journalism should take the blame as the debate moderators did not question Trump for a lot of false claims he made.

Why can’t both be done: reporting on how/ why Trump is bad for democracy and reporting on Biden’s competency to run? Can journalists reclaim their profession from the pundits out there making a buck for their bosses, making decisions not based on journalism’s values but on ‘what we think right now’.

Technology has disrupted the way people consume information but the purpose of journalism has not changed: it is to hold the powerful to account. It is not to shield one candidate’s declining health because you fear the other guy is ‘bad’.

Journalists here can learn a lot from this, namely there are no friends in the corridors of power. Today, you are besties with Prime Minister X, posing in bathtubs, rubbishing the opposition but then you’re on the out when it’s Prime Minister Y’s turn. The best way to save democracy is to adhere to journalism’s best practices that enables audiences to make informed decisions come election time.

The writer is an instructor of journalism.

X: @LedeingLady

Published in Dawn, July 14th, 2024