Is Democracy’s Fate the Media’s Fault?

With the midterms just months away and the 2024 presidential race around the corner, the press is gearing up to cover more deeply polarizing election cycles.

And how it should do that is an equally polarizing question. The media’s role in preserving — and reporting on — our democratic institutions is up for discussion.

Last week, the New York Times Opinion columnist Ross Douthat pushed back on media critics like the N.Y.U. associate professor Jay Rosen. Jay asserts that the press should strive to be “pro-truth, pro-voting, anti-racist, and aggressively pro-democracy.”

Ross disagrees, claiming that such a stance could feed more polarization.

[You can listen to this episode of “The Argument” on Apple, Spotify or Google or wherever you get your podcasts.]

So, this week Jane Coaston invited Ross and Jay to the show for a lively debate over how the press should cover politics in a democratic society.

Mentioned in this episode:

• “Can the Press Prevent a Trump Restoration?” by Ross Douthat, published last week

• “You Cannot Keep From Getting Swept up in Trump’s Agenda Without a Firm Grasp on Your Own” and “Two Paths Forward for the American Press,” by Jay Rosen, published in PressThink in May 2020 and November 2020, respectively.

(A full transcript of the episode will be available midday on the Times website.)

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“The Argument” is produced by Phoebe Lett, Elisa Gutierrez and Vishakha Darbha and edited by Anabel Bacon and Alison Bruzek; fact-checking by Kate Sinclair and Andrea López-Cruzado; music and sound design by Isaac Jones; engineering by Carole Sabouraud ; audience strategy by Shannon Busta. Special thanks to Kristin Lin.