After the Saturday elections, Mike Pesca laid down a scathing series of tweets taking the national media to task for failing to clearly and precisely communicate how party primaries actually work in their Sunday coverage. Here follow some of the highlights.
A proper headline from Saturday's voting is: Clinton expands lead on Sanders; Cruz gains on Trump. So let's see how newspapers played it.
— Mike Pesca (@pescami) March 6, 2016
Split states, but Cruz got more delegates, salient point, no? pic.twitter.com/I6UDoIVXjm
— Mike Pesca (@pescami) March 6, 2016
Mixed verdict, but like a boxer winning a mixed decision pic.twitter.com/0G24Bv8pih
— Mike Pesca (@pescami) March 6, 2016
Split, sure. But why not say who won? pic.twitter.com/JpBvsHBR81
— Mike Pesca (@pescami) March 6, 2016
Split victories, yet there was a winner, maybe put that up top? pic.twitter.com/6veHGKwst8
— Mike Pesca (@pescami) March 6, 2016
Packers, Bears each nab 2 quarters– wouldn't we want to know who won? pic.twitter.com/VvmGwAc7Zo
— Mike Pesca (@pescami) March 6, 2016
But states don't count, delegates do. pic.twitter.com/4fHIWBVnJk
— Mike Pesca (@pescami) March 6, 2016
Actually Cruz won. Sanders lost ground and had fewer delegates. This was the worst front page headline I saw. pic.twitter.com/HNeXkS4mbG
— Mike Pesca (@pescami) March 6, 2016
After all this, it somehow gets even worse, because the only headline which Pesca fulsomely praised (on his podcast) was that of the Providence Journal:
(Providencejournal) #Cruz gains ground: #Takes Kansas, Maine : NEW ORLEANS — Republican presidential candidate.. https://t.co/f1Iz1CZj7Z
— StoriesFlow.com (@storiesflowcom) March 6, 2016
This was an accurate headline in the paper edition, but if you click through to the story, you will find that the headline has been altered in the online edition and no longer reflects reality as a result.
Why does this matter? Because rounding results up to the state level creates a series of false impressions in the minds of readers whenever the race for delegates is not (yet) functioning as winner-take-all at the state level. Such misinformation should be especially worrisome given the special role that Thomas Jefferson envisioned for newspapers (and journalists in general) to play in preserving our democratic form of government.
