Thread by @tzimmer_history

On a rainy Sunday afternoon, a somewhat gloomy thought on January 6 and the mainstream media: This past week, every major outlet published pieces emphasizing the acute threat to democracy. Good! But that was the easy part. The tough part: What happens during the rest of the year?

I’ll mention this intervention by the @nytimes editorial board as representative of the many such pieces that have come out: I agree with every word in it. But the question is: Is the NYT willing to make sure that the paper’s political coverage actually reflects these warnings?

https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/1477379123941154819

I think the @nytimes, as an institution, would have to make some serious changes if it really took the idea that “Every Day Is Jan. 6 Now” to heart and made it the paper’s operating principle going forward.

https://twitter.com/tzimmer_history/status/1478563055613186050

As a matter of fact, on January 6, the NYT reverted right back to suggesting “fracture” and division as the real threats to American democracy – which is a very different tale than the one that focuses on the accelerating anti-democratic radicalization of the Republican Party.

https://twitter.com/profkmcnamara/status/1479162291367075842

I don’t want to make this solely about the NYT – other mainstream outlets have been way worse at undercutting their own “Democracy in Danger” pieces by unabashed #BothSides takes that always (and I must assume: purposefully) obscure more than they illuminate.

https://twitter.com/mattkbh/status/1479054189590372355

It isn’t all bad, of course. I wholeheartedly agree with @perrybaconjr: The political media is doing a better job than it’s ever done at focusing on the radicalization of the Republican Party and presenting it as what it actually is: An acute threat to American democracy.

https://twitter.com/perrybaconjr/status/1479465209374855171

And it is heartening to see that, over the past week, basically every major outlet did provide a platform for people who presented a clear analysis of the state of democracy – unperturbed by the all-too-predictable backlash from the rightwing machine against such “hysteria.”

But again, condemning the authoritarian onslaught on democracy on the first anniversary of an attempted coup – that’s the easy part. What happens between now and the second anniversary of January 6? Will everyone take a long hard look in the mirror and make some adjustments?

Anniversaries do not necessarily provide an honest assessment of the state of the political discourse. Let’s keep reminding these mainstream outlets about how, to start the year, they all proclaimed that “Every Day is January 6 now” – and insist they act accordingly.