America’s mainstream media tried to get Kamala Harris elected. Now it faces a reckoning

Liberal bias is deeply embedded into the industry. That’s a problem for the whole country

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As angry Democrats point fingers, blaming each other for their decisive loss, one group can’t be allowed to escape a reckoning: America’s mainstream media. They did all they could to help elect Kamala Harris. “No job too big,” as the ads say. They were wrong. This job really was too big for media outlets that have lost the public’s trust and are haemorrhaging viewers, listeners, and readers amid a fragmented media landscape.
That landscape was bound to split in an ideologically fraught political environment. But the changes were accelerated and the split deepened by modern communications technology. Fast internet connections, ubiquitous connectivity, and low costs of entry opened the door for new podcasts, blogs, and videos. Most of them have been crafted to capture audiences that want to see their views confirmed, not challenged.
In this environment, mainstream outlets like CBS, NBC, ABC, PBS, and CNN faced a hard choice. All sold themselves as centrist and politically neutral. The same choice faced their newspaper peers, led by The New York Times and Washington Post.
What the 2024 election revealed was a naked Emperor of National News strutting down the street, pretending to be clothed in neutrality. What the public saw with stark clarity was pervasive political bias. 
The media had been tilting that way for several decades. Now, the tilt was marked and undeniable. That stance didn’t just affect editorials and opinion columns, which are supposed to convey opinions. It suffused so-called “hard news” coverage. That bias alienated readers who disagreed, plus many others who simply wanted straight reporting. 
The data bear out these observations, as do the specifics of election coverage. 
Take the portrayal of the two candidates on the three major broadcast networks. For Harris, that coverage was 78 per cent positive. For Trump, it was 85 per cent negative. Journalists’ political donations were even more slanted. According to one study, 96 per cent went to Democrats. It would be hard to top that, but journalism schools have done it. They have almost no Republican faculty. 
That bias was on full display throughout the campaign. Before Harris entered the race, mainstream outlets in the US offered Joe Biden uncritical support. That ended only after his disastrous debate against Donald Trump. Voters could see what much of the media had covered up. 
President Biden’s poll numbers plummeted and senior Democrats realised that he would almost certainly lose to Trump and sink many down-ballot candidates with him. Many outlets finally reached the same grim conclusion. Soon, America’s “centrist” newspapers and progressive opinion organs were filled with articles and editorials demanding Biden quit the race. He resisted mightily but was forced out by Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, and Barack Obama, backed by the party’s major donors. No American media outlet has reported – or even asked – what threat Pelosi ultimately used to force Biden out.
Once the Democratic troika had settled on their new candidate, the “progressive” media began singing Kamala Harris’s praises. Until then, polls had showed that she was even less popular than Biden. Now, she soared skyward on a sugar high.
The MSM worked assiduously to gloss over Harris’ myriad problems. She had accomplished nothing as vice president and was closely associated with the administration’s most damaging blunders. Before that, she had achieved little as a US senator. Her last real accomplishments came earlier, as California’s attorney general. Those were the ones she stressed on the campaign trail.
Besides showering Harris with unearned accolades, much of America’s media gave her a pass on two issues crucial to voters: illegal migration and high prices. 
Whether Harris was called the “immigration czar” or not, she had been given a central role in dealing with border issues. The job went poorly. Some ten million or more illegal immigrants poured across an open southern border. Most were simply poor people, but some came from well-established criminal organisations. Others were terrorists and spies. The public was furious.
Although Harris tried to blame these problems on Trump, who killed a bipartisan border bill, nearly all the migrants came across an unguarded border long before that bill was drafted. The real blame goes to Biden. But he was vocally supported by Harris.
The vice president was also linked to another bête noire for voters: inflation. As the Senate’s presiding officer, she cast the tie-breaking vote on two huge spending bills, which contributed directly to 40-year high inflation rates early in the administration.
Biden repeatedly praised his vice president as “the last person in the room” on major decisions. It was meant as praise. It turned damning when things went wrong. Harris was tightly bound to the administration’s terrible “right track/wrong track” numbers (approaching 80 per cent for “wrong track”) and the foreign policy debacle leaving Afghanistan.
No vice president, no matter how skilled, could escape those problems. But Harris couldn’t offset them by pointing to any major accomplishments. Not that America’s mainstream media stressed these problems or pressed Harris to explain them.
The clearest signal of media support was its failure to demand a full-scale press conference. Without that pressure, Harris simply went on friendly talk shows.
Oddly, it was one of the most vapid and partisan of those talk shows, The View, which proved her undoing. She expected – and got – only soft-ball questions. Still, she whiffed on a slow one right down the middle. Co-host Sunny Hostin asked, “If anything, would you have done something differently than President Biden during the past four years?” Harris paused and responded, “Uhhh…there is not a thing that comes to mind in terms of – and I’ve been a part of most of the decisions that have had impact.” She seemed surprised even to be asked.
It was the worst moment of a bad campaign. It tied her, by her own admission, to every unpopular policy in an unpopular administration. Equally important, it revealed a candidate ill-prepared to handle the most challenging office in the world.
She had a chance to redeem herself later on a late-night talk show. She was asked the same question and whiffed a second time. She merely laughed and said you can look at her and see she is not Joe Biden or Donald Trump. Better answers are routinely heard from “Miss Congeniality” at teenage beauty pageants.
With Harris soundly thumped on November 5, her party is beginning the painful process of recalibrating. America’s mainstream media should do the same. Newsrooms should begin by encouraging “cognitive diversity”, not the Leftist conformity they now exhibit.
These changes won’t come easily for those media outlets or the reporters and editors who work there. They will resist every step of the way. But until they change dramatically, the public will rank them with used-car salesmen.
 
Charles Lipson is the Peter B Ritzma Professor of Political Science Emeritus at the University of Chicago. His latest book is Free Speech 101: A Practical Guide for Students. He can be reached at [email protected]
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