When news makes politics

In this episode of Double Take, Monica speaks with Fintan O’Toole, an Irish Times columnist, advising editor at New York Review of Books, and winner of the European Press Prize, Orwell Prize and the Robert Silvers Prize.

O’Toole has bracing views on how the media covered the U.S. election, and how changes in the media landscape have paved the way for monumental shifts in US politics. Notably, the recent election of Donald Trump – again! O’Toole points to the galvanisation of disaffected young men - traditionally a non-voter base - through new media. Problematically, when legacy media organisations share content on new media platforms, they are far less successful than digital natives at attracting eyeballs.

Legacy media, he thinks, needs to catch up. To begin with, it might need to rely less on polls. O’Toole points out that while polls are still useful, they have consistently failed as predictive mechanisms, and they discredit legacy media where it cannot risk failing informationally. Also, sheer repetition doesn't work anymore – expecting audiences to be enraged by what enrages the media is not going to work. The sustained focus on Trump as felon was based on such wishful thinking.

And as far as self-examination goes, the truth is that legacy media has been responsible for a lot of the sludge in politics, he notes, citing Murdoch. Collectively, we need legacy media to differentiate itself from corrupt media by promoting the ethics of journalism; otherwise, O’Toole tells us, legacy media will end up a junior partner in the practice of corrupting democracy.