Republicans escaped disaster in West Virginia on Tuesday when Don Blankenship finished third in the Senate primary. In fact, Blankenship ended up about 15 points behind winner Patrick Morrisey. That came as a surprise to some in the media and no doubt to some consumer of news who heard reports […] Read more »
‘Transparency’ is the Mother of Fake News
For some time now everyone has been worrying about “fake news” or the world of “alternative fact” and wondering just how and why this unhappy phenomenon has flourished. My take on this question is simple, although I hope not simple-minded: Fake news is in large part a product of the […] Read more »
How Trump’s false claim about African American support happened
President Trump recently bragged about his support among African Americans, saying his poll numbers had “doubled.” His claim has been repeated thousands of times on TV and online. Some media figures have treated it as fact. But it’s not. The news organization responsible for the poll, Reuters, says its data […] Read more »
Information inequality makes voters vulnerable to manipulation
The media industry is unique in its ability to spread information that may influence the democratic process. There is ample evidence that news coverage influences voting and policy-making, and this issue has become even more prominent after the controversy over the role of ‘fake news’ in the 2016 US presidential […] Read more »
Bright Line Watch Report on American Democracy
In April 2018, Bright Line Watch conducted its fifth expert survey, and its third public survey, on democracy in the United States. Between April 9 and 22, we surveyed an expert sample of 935 political science faculty at American universities and a nationally representative sample of 2,000 adults. Respondents in […] Read more »
Why Trump Is Winning and the Press Is Losing
There is alive in the land an organized campaign to discredit the American press. This campaign is succeeding. Its roots are long. For decades, the Republican coalition has tried to hang together by hating on elites who claim to know things, like: “What is art?” Or: “What should college students […] Read more »