Reflections on Election Day 2022 News Coverage – Part 1

Election Day 2022 went remarkably smoothly. There are still a number of uncalled contests, most notably three US senate races as of this writing mid-afternoon on Thursday, Nov. 10.

But so far it appears that people were able to reliably vote, the votes were tabulated without controversy, and the candidates who lost conceded with more or less dignity.  (Though a couple of high profile races involving 2020 election deniers have yet to be called.  We may yet have STOP THE STEAL screaming to come.)

Here are a few reflections about this election cycle now that it’s a couple days after the battle. I hope to have a few more that deal with how journalists cover elections in the next day or two.

MSNBC is not the Fox News of the left

There is no question that MSNBC is a progressive, left-leaning network. But that does not make it the mirror image of the right-wing commentary network Fox News.

Fox News is primarily a talk show network (not a criticism, just look at their programming), and their talk programming bears little concern about anything other than conservative talking points.

MSNBC takes a left-leaning stand in what is good or bad, but is absolutely willing to be critical of progressives.

But when Fox News gets into their polling operation and election results analysis, they actually are a good news outlet.

In fact, the Fox News opinion hosts and guests often get quite irate with the Decision Desk on election nights. Their polling and election calling departments do good work based on the best information.

Tired Journalists Dept.

It’s easy to make fun of dumb things journalists say after a long night on TV or radio, and we should cut them some slack. But I really did love this one…

“I Was Wrong…”

It seems like the rarest thing in news and commentary is to hear an opinion writer admit that they were wrong after completely screwing up a prediction. There were lots of bad predictions about Tuesday’s elections where commentators had been solemnly predicting a large-scale GOP victory that never materialized.

Props to WaPo columnist Henry Olsen for admitting he was wrong and explaining why.

On an entirely separate issue, WaPo media critic Erik Wemple (already cited earlier in this commentary) also apologized for his ill-founded criticism of former NY Times opinion editor James Bennet.

And finally, in the realm of really tacky (but funny) media criticism…