Politico Gets Raked Over the Coals for Kamala Harris Post: ‘One of the Worst Headlines Written in a Long Time’
Hopefully the mods are okay with a little journalism about journalism so that people know where Politico stands in terms of being a trustworthy source.
The headline in question:
‘Next question’: Harris evades questions about her identity
The background to the headline is from Harris' recent CNN interview:
“I want to ask you about your opponent, Donald Trump,” Bash said to Harris. “I was a little bit surprised. People might be surprised to hear that you have never interacted with him, met him face-to-face. That’s gonna change soon. But what I wanna ask you about is what he said last month. He suggested that you ‘happened’ to turn Black recently for political purposes, questioning a core part of your identity.”
“Same old, tired playbook,” Harris replied. “Next question, please.”
HOLY SHIT. This is a much bigger deal than people realize. Politico is suggesting that her identity is in question to begin with. It's not.
She didn't evade a question about her identity because there is no question about her identity. She passed an opportunity to get upset over Trump's comments.
It's just a different version of that Birther shit they tried to use on Obama
At least with the birther shit, there was a question of whether Obama should just put the question to rest or ignore it.
This is literally just an insult for her being multiracial. And Politico is asking if she's hiding something.
Even pro obama people got gaslit by how hard they tried to sell the lie. The question was always "put to rest", his birth certificate was already released, birthers were demanding a document that was the first result in a google search of said document.
I just looked up something birther related and the second result was a legit looking site that just had a ton of misinformation posted in 2016.
Politico belongs to Axel Springer now so it has absolutely 0 credibility left.
Just changing the word"evades" to "deflects" would have made all the difference in the world.
Not a Kamala fan, but her response seemed totally appropriate.
... would have made all the difference in the world, and been more accurate as well. I wouldn't even have minded the "slams" here.
It was a dismissal.
yeah this is like saying "next question" when someone asks you if you're an extraterrestrial lizard and then politico saying you "avoid questions about extraterrestrial origins".
Feels like how they treated Obama over the birth certificate
Like she said: same old, tired playbook
I immediately thought that they were questioning her gender identity when I saw the post title. 😅
Journalism was already in a death spiral but this type of article just highlights it.
They're just taking a secondary source with a shitty headline, cherry picking spicy reactions on Twitter and then writing another shitty headline.
I could theoretically do the same thing, cherrypick Twitter and then post the following "article" to my own shit-tier political news blog:
"Mediaite panned for misleading headline about headlines."
The only "sources" I have to cite are random Tweets that I preselected because they already agreed with my point of view.
We are approaching something that is close to the opposite of journalism.
Not journalism. Mainstream media.
Axel Springer bought Politico a while ago. In other words: it's utter shit and absolutely useless for any actual reporting. But great if you want to peddle some reactionary bullshit.
Reminder that politico was bought by the german Axel Springer Publishing.
They (Axel Springer) own very big far right media outlets in germany and WILL try to meddle in the elections, if the price is right.
They have no morals and do journalistic malpractice all the time. It is a textbook evil company and belongs in the dumpster.
ps: The scientific Springer and Axel Springer are not the same.
These corporate media companies are all the same and are a blight upon our society.
Is there punishment when you falsify reports like this?
Yes, collective punishment, i.e. trump gets elected.
Legally no. Practically yes. Lots of newspapers are throwing themselves out the window this election. They don't realize it yet, though.
Honest question from a European: Do you guys still have journalism somewhere? It all seems to be political propaganda or outrage clickbait with you guys.
Very little, but there is NPR, which generally attempts to do real journalism.
https://www.npr.org/
Democracy Now! Also
ProPublica, PBS, and don't forget the Daily Show
I wouldn't say the Daily Show does real journalism. They do make important stories public, but they have a clear slant both in terms of politics and in terms of making it funny.
Agree, though their coverage of Bernie's 2016 presidential run towed the DNC party line, which made me less sure about their neutrality. Now I tend to hit up the BBC if I want US news coverage and I don't have time to ingest multiple sources.
A lot of British people can tell you all about the BBC's toeing the government line. But both are a lot less biased than many other Western media sources. NPR's biggest problem is similar to what the NYT and WaPo do, just to a lesser extent- overcompensating and causing an imbalance toward conservatism in an attempt to look unbiased. WaPo and especially the NYT are far worse though.
Point of order from an American: Politico is a wholly owned subsidiary of German multinational Axel Springer.
Didn't know that (i'm German), but Springer ist known in Germany to outright lie to push rightwing agenda
Better regulation in EU and Germany. And better freedom of speech too.
Many Americans confuse the right to lie with freedom of speech.
There are a lot of 'content creators' that pose as journalists.
There are journalists that do great work but since their stories can run counter to a narrative, it can be more difficult to find those articles.
Most of our real journalism lives online or is parroted from foreign journalists
I get most of my news from Reuters (which is UK-based I think). I used to read NPR but I think Reuters has more quality content. Beyond that, the Associated Press I guess, and that's all I really trust.
The Onion too, for when I need to forget how fucked we all are as a species.
Drop Site news, 404 media, Pro Publica, Vox is occasionally good.
Short answer is “not much.”
Local affiliates and independent papers tend to be much better.
Until they get bought up by Sinclair or Gannett.
This is extremely dangerous to our democracy
Related question: what do you guys think of the associated press?
American here: their goal is clearly factual reporting, and I don't see too often where they've missed the mark. Nobody's free of bias, but they're pretty good at balancing theirs out.
Get off your high horse, you guys are just as bad
This is your future if you can't stop the liberals.
Hey, remember when you said you'd vote if Biden was replaced? Good times. How's that going?
Liberals... Those who want liberty
Liberty for whom?
The rich, the powerful, the Elect. They want the freedom to own and control anything, even the truth. The """Liberty""" they seek is total privatization of everything, and journalism is part of that.
Politico's bullshit is your liberty. You're free to be lied to by anyone you want!
For once, this complaint is fully justified. She answered the question and said 'next' and they're implying she didn't answer the question by just saying 'next.'
I feel like sometimes "out of context" means they didn't report on additional relevant nuance in an answer but I'm sympathetic to headline authors who need punchy headlines, you can't have a full 20 minute answer in a headline. But this was a 6 word response and they took the last two and pretended she didn't say the first 4. That is bad.
The hypocrisy. Trump evades questions about EVERYTHING, yet gets called almost never. Her answer isn't even an evasion. It was a whole dismissive argument on the absurdity of both the claim and question summarized in a terse “Same old, tired playbook. Next question, please.”
Trump lies about EVERYTHING too. Not a peep out of the media when they interview him. How about, "Sir, why do you lied constantly?"
Same energy as Quinten Tarantino refusing to answer some questions about violence in media or using the N word in movies.
It's been asked a thousand times, you have nothing new to add to this discussion, we're moving on.
But trump is white.
I just assume all media actually want a Trump victory, because they get money writing articles and the money was good his first term. If Trump is good at anything, it's making headlines.
Saw this on Mastodon:
Trump gives tax cuts to the rich. Rich people own the media. This has always been true, but with the extreme increase in inequality, it’s never been worse. There’s no longer a liberal media.
I agree that Politico is a rag, but this sounds made up.
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/politico-owner-pray-for-trump-mathias-dopfner-axel-springer-1234587243/
You don't even have to click the link. It's literally outlined right in the URL.
Thanks for providing the link
They're also the ones refusing to release the JD Vance/Roger Stone email leaks.
Bash said: "But what I wanna ask you about is what he said last month. He suggested that you ‘happened’ to turn Black recently for political purposes, questioning a core part of your identity.”
Where was the question? That's simply a statement about what Trump said.
Politico's headline is outrageous, but what was Bash even trying to do here? Because it reads like she was trying to ask (without asking) if Harris is black, which is just as weird and absurd as Trump's original comment.
Harris's reply is great because it applies both to Trump's racism and the problem with journalists giving these comments anything more than ridicule.
Keep in mind race is very important to conservatives. VERY IMPORTANT. to them, once an association is made ... It can not be changed. And you can't be 2 races at once. its very important to them and they have lots of rules about it.
Hence their ongoing efforts to ban Critical Race Theory.
Multi race people are use to this shit. We are denied one race or another. If you don't look how people expect you will receive racist shit about both races, really fun.
I have many issues with Harris, but I'm glad she is exposing this shit. I'm tired of closet and undercover racists.
Mostly we just make up our own race. I’ve pretty much settled on “dark white”.
It's amazing how many of them feel emboldened to come out of the woodwork now. It's because they're a bunch of 30- and 40-somethings who grew up and/or spent their on 4Chan and never left that mindset.
You would be surprised how many whisper at work and get upset when you expose them. I love doing it. I'm the undercover brother.
I’m not biracial but I am a dual citizen. When I lived in Canada I was called a yankee and when I moved to the USA I was called a Canuck. Can’t win lol.
How is plainly calling it out as the bullshit that it is "evasion?" That headline isn't just misleading; it's a straight-up lie.
The headline is, “Harris sidesteps spotlight when it comes to her identity.”
No it's "Donald Trump's attacks on harris' race fail to land"
Acting like there's any legitimate questions about Harris being a black person is inherently racist and doing the bidding of Trump. I didn't think very highly of Politico before this but unless they fire whoever wrote that headline they are dead to me now.
...she's half caribbean and half south-asian...
...is that black?..that's on you...
...does it matter?..that's on you, too...
...any issue says more about the person asking the questions than it does about the candidate; what i think is noteworthy is that nobody's talking about her gender, a fact which constitutes a substantial milestone for cultural progress...
Wow, I don't give a shiite about her identity or she even is. Is she gonna bomb people ? Yes, next question !
Trump is gonna bomb people AND run the Project 2025 playbook while being the same idiot president he was last time, so what's your point?
TANKIE DETECTED. Argument is invalid.