Guardian (10/20/22)

This week on CounterSpin: This midterm is a big-picture election. It’s not just about the laws and policies and priorities governing our lives, not merely about whether we can control our own bodies or the environment has a future, the possibility of racial justice, or whether you can make rent with a full-time job. It’s about all of that, plus how we’re positioned to fight for the system that’s supposed to give each of us a say in those decisions.

OK, but here are the elite media headlines:

• “Did Democrats Peak Too Early Before the Midterm Elections? Signs Suggest They May Have”
  
• “Will Inflation Boost Republicans’ Chances in the Midterm Elections?”
  
• “With Midterms Looming, Biden Isn’t Attending Big Campaign Rallies”
  

What’s happening here? What’s not happening here? FAIR always says that news media work in election season should be judged not by how reporters “treat” Democrats or Republicans, but about how they inform and engage the public—including vast numbers of people who don’t even vote, because they can’t, or because they don’t see the connection between pulling that lever and their day-to-day life. Is it too much to say it’s journalism’s job to make those connections, and to err on the side of reflecting public needs to politicians, rather than presenting politicians as celebrities for people to muse about from a distance?

CounterSpin talks about midterm election coverage with FAIR editor Jim Naureckas and FAIR managing editor Julie Hollar.

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Plus Janine Jackson takes a quick look at recent press coverage of Haiti.

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