By Liz Spayd
Wednesday, November 09, 2016
Note: Liz Spayd is
the Public Editor of the New York Times
It was the night that wasn’t supposed to happen, that had
almost no chance of happening. Having relied on major media, and the overflow
of polls it fed readers on a near-daily basis, the audience sat back and waited
for a Democratic victory, possibly a rout. Could the Senate be reclaimed by
Democrats, or even the House?
On Tuesday afternoon, The New York Times told readers in
its Upshot polling feature that Hillary Clinton had an 84 percent chance of
winning. And for many weeks leading up to Election Day, The Times delivered a
steady stream of stories. One described Clinton’s powerful and well-organized
ground operation — and Trump’s frazzled counterattack. Another claimed a surge
in the Latino vote that could decide the election. Others speculated on the composition
and tenor of a Clinton cabinet. The picture was of a juggernaut of blue state
invincibility that mostly dismissed the likelihood of a Trump White House.
But sometime Tuesday night, that 84-percent Clinton win
Upshot figure flipped. Suddenly it was 95 percent — for Donald Trump. And when readers woke up Wednesday, they learned
that the second forecast, at least, was on target.
Readers are sending letters of complaint at a rapid rate.
Here’s one that summed up the feelings succinctly, from Kathleen Casey of
Houston: “Now, that the world has been upended and you are all, to a person, in
a state of surprise and shock, you may want to consider whether you should
change your focus from telling the reader what and how to think, and instead
devote yourselves to finding out what the reader (and nonreaders) actually
think.”
Another letter, from Nick Crawford of Plymouth, Mich.,
made a similar point. “Perhaps the election result would not be such a surprise
if your reporting had acknowledged what ordinary Americans care about, rather
than pushing the limited agenda of your editors,” he wrote. “Please come down
from your New York City skyscraper and join the rest of us.”
Certainly, The Times isn’t the only news organization
bewildered and perhaps a bit sheepish about its predictions coverage. The rest
of media missed it too, as did the pollsters, the analysts, the Democratic
Party and the Clinton campaign itself.
But as The Times begins a period of self-reflection, I
hope its editors will think hard about the half of America the paper too seldom
covers.
The red state America campaign coverage that rang the
loudest in news coverage grew out of Trump rallies, and it often amplified the
voices of the most hateful. One especially compelling video produced with footage
collected over months on the campaign trail, captured the ugly vitriol like few
others. That’s important coverage. But it and pieces like it drowned out the
kind of agenda-free, deep narratives that could have taken Times readers deeper
into the lives and values of the people who just elected the next president.
In other words, The Times would serve readers well with
fewer brief interviews, fewer snatched slogans that inevitably render a narrow
caricature of those who spoke them. If you want to further educate yourself on
the newly empowered, check out the work of George Packer in The New Yorker.
You’ll leave wiser about what just happened. Times journalists can be masters
at doing these pieces, but they do them best when describing the lives of struggling
immigrants, for example, or those living on the streets.
A fascinating graphic appeared on the front of the paper
and home page earlier this week depicting, state-by-state, the powerful
American working class — the less educated it called them. Many in this group
make up Trump’s base, and the essential questioned posed by the graphic and to
readers was this: to what degree will these voters show up at the polls?
We have our answer. The next question is whether The
Times is interested in crossing the red line to see what this America wants
next.
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