When Barack Obama and his editors at Crown picked this week to publish the first volume of his memoirs, they hoped that the election results would be clear, that Biden would be busy with transition work, and that there wouldn't be any widespread unrest. Correct on all 3 counts...
Tuesday is a wide-open launchpad for "A Promised Land," which is expected to be the best-selling book of 2020, just as Michelle Obama's "Becoming" was in 2018. The book tour is doubling as a warning about a "deeply divided" media landscape. Short #thread

cnn.com/2020/11/16/med…
In every interview, Obama is talking about media. When @GayleKing asked about the 72 million people who voted for Trump, he said, "The power of that alternative worldview that's presented in the media that those voters consume, it carries a lot of weight." cbsnews.com/news/barack-ob…
Obama to @ScottPelley on "60:"

"The media landscape has changed. And as a consequence, voters' perceptions have changed. So that I think Democratic and Republican voters have become much more partisan."

>> @JeffreyGoldberg: "Is this new malevolent information architecture bending the moral arc away from justice?"

>> Obama: "I think it is the single biggest threat to our democracy... I am deeply troubled by how we address it."

theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…
Obama talked with Goldberg about the "common narrative" provided by anchors like Walter Cronkite, back when broadcast towers and printing presses limited who could be heard and when. "Without this common narrative," he said, "democracy becomes very tough."
But Obama knows "you can't put the genie back in the bottle." He's familiar with nightmares like QAnon. He's aware of what RAND calls "truth decay." But without that common narrative, "it becomes very difficult for us to tackle big things." Read on 👇

theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…
Per @PostKranish's recap, "Obama's grievances with the media are a constant theme" of "A Promised Land:"

"He portrays himself as a victim of unfair reportage and political commentary from every corner, including from liberals..."

washingtonpost.com/politics/obama…
I think Obama's most interesting comments are about the present and future. In this interview with @NPRMichel, he brought up "information silos" and "rabbit holes" and QAnon. He asked: "What role can we play in rebuilding social trust?" npr.org/2020/11/16/934…

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More from @brianstelter

12 Nov
Trump just retweeted a dozen Twitter users who are trashing Fox News and promoting Newsmax. Here's my new story about Newsmax + a thread about what is going on...

cnn.com/2020/11/12/med…
On Newsmax, voter fraud innuendo is everywhere. Conspiracy theory chatter is constant. And perhaps most importantly, Joe Biden is NOT president-elect. They say they haven't called the race. (They don't have a decision desk.) They're tapping into a real vein of rage on the right.
Before election day, Newsmax and OAN were just annoying flies on the Fox elephant's back. But something dramatic has happened: Newsmax's audience has BALLOONED. Final week of October, the channel averaged 65,000 viewers. Election week: 182,000. Monday: 347,000. Tuesday: 437,000.
Read 6 tweets
10 Nov
Thread of @jaketapper's reporting: "I spent some time today talking to Republican officials on both ends of Pennsylvania Ave, and what they say is, no one out there should worry that our democracy is in actual jeopardy..."
"They say this is all part of walking President Trump through this process emotionally and that they assume that while he may never concede, he will leave. There will be, they say, a peaceful transition of power to the Biden-Harris administration on January 20. They say that."
"But they say it on background," @jaketapper added, "because they don't want to upset President Trump and they don't want to get death threats from his supporters. You may or may not find that reassuring."
Read 4 tweets
6 Nov
While we wait, let's take a look at some of Friday's front pages from newspapers across the country and around the world...
In the UK, the Daily Star tabloid says "GRUMPY TRUMPY SET TO LOSE BIGLY." Metro: "BIDEN HIS TIME."
Via the Newseum website, here are battleground state front pages – the @AJC's headline about Biden "nearly" pulling even with Trump in Georgia is already out of date
Read 5 tweets
2 Nov
The main reason 2020's election night is going to be different "is because it takes longer to count those mail-in ballots." Here's a thread with what CNN DC bureau chief @SamFeistCNN told me...
Could the networks project a winner on Tuesday night? If "we know the results and there is a clear winner in FL and NC and AZ – these are all states that are likely to finish their count on Election Night – we could very well know a winner." But if it comes down to PA, then no.
Feist noted that we'll know the results of mail-in and early votes in FL and NC early on Election Night. But in other key states -- like PA and WI -- "it's going to take them a while." There could be red shifts in some states, blue shifts in others. Watch: cnn.it/3mLrSGP
Read 5 tweets
2 Nov
Thread: Right now Fox News viewers are being misled about Trump's chances of winning the election in the following ways...

cnn.com/2020/11/02/med…
Fox is so chock full of pro-Trump commentary and rally coverage that viewers come away with the impression that this race is a whole heck of a lot closer to 50/50 than it actually is. The prime time narrative: "BIG ENTHUSIASM FOR TRUMP." "MASSIVE." "TRUMP CLOSING THE GAP..."
The network's talk shows are constantly suggesting that a minority of people are actually the "silent majority." Example: Voters-in-diners segments. Sunday's AM show featured Trump voter after Trump voter at a diner in Asbury Park, NJ. Not at all representative of a blue state.
Read 7 tweets
30 Oct
No matter what happens in the 2020 election, this chapter of American history could well be called the "fake news age." So I went back to the beginning... to the "fake" origins... cnn.com/2020/10/30/med…
All the anti-media attacks and Covid denialism, all the pro-Trump propaganda and all the assertions that you shouldn't believe your own eyes and ears — I argue that it's all rooted in Trump's insistence that news is "fake." He made the claim for the first time on Jan. 11, 2017...
On that day, @CraigSilverman couldn't believe HIS ears. He had been studying and exposing truly "fake" news, made-up stories, for years. Suddenly Trump has hijacked the term. The two of us took a trip down memory lane for this week's RS podcast cnn.com/audio/podcasts…
Read 7 tweets

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