Media figures address the industry's flaws at Chicago conference: There is 'a perception of condescension'

As the 2024 presidential campaign begins to ramp up, several high-profile media figures gathered last week for the 2024 Campaign Journalism Conference at the University of Chicago's Institute of Politics. 

The conference, which was co-hosted by Harvard University's Nieman Foundation for Journalism, was essentially a retreat for journalists hoping to prepare themselves for how to best cover the grueling election cycle and the candidates running in the coming year. Sprinkled within the couple hundred attendees were students from the University of Chicago but the majority were fellow journalists from across the country, many of whom from local outlets as well as national news organizations. 

The event spanned two days and featured heavy hitters in both media and politics who offered advice for up-and-coming journalists who may have never covered a presidential campaign. Former RNC chair Reince Priebus and former DNC chair Tom Perez spoke alongside each other about their respective party's broad election strategy while Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger touted his state's election integrity. 

There were also panels featuring expert pollsters and campaign strategists from both sides of the aisle previewing what to expect in 2024 as well as a spirited exchange about election laws between Democrat lawyer Marc Elias and Republican lawyer Benjamin Ginsberg.

But perhaps the biggest draw of the conference were the big names that came to town from CNN, The New York Times, The Atlantic, CBS News, NBC News and more. Here are some highlights:

What the media has done 'incorrectly'

CNN correspondent Jeff Zeleny offered back-to-back criticisms of the media pertaining to its coverage of Trump voters as well as its coverage of the horse race going into 2024.

Zeleny recalled his recent visit to Iowa where he was "stunned" to not just find Trump supporters but those who voted for the former president but have "exhaustion" from his ongoing presence in GOP politics. 

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"So one thing I think the media has done incorrectly in terms of describing Trump voters as interviewing people only after Trump rallies," Zeleny said. "The vast majority of Trump voters have never gone to a Trump rally, have never, you know, stood in line for hours and hours and hours. And for those of you who've covered Trump rallies, you've seen some of the same people at rally, after rally, after rally. These are groupies. These are people who are going for the show, for the rock concert, if you will. So I think talking to voters who are interested enough and following things along, but not as obsessed with, you know, the candidate on either side that it sort of tends the view."

He also took a swipe at the current media narrative that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is already "collapsing" in the presidential race based on early polls despite not having officially announced his candidacy

"I think we should embrace the uncertainty of this," Zeleny said. "What a great story- you all are covering stories that we don't know the ending to, so we shouldn't get ahead of ourselves. We should not allow our assignment editors, the producers and others to get ahead of things by saying, you know, by acting like you know more than you know."

'Perception of condescension'

While moderating a panel discussion in inclusiveness in election reporting, The Atlantic staff writer Tim Alberta acknowledged the "distrust" Americans across the country have towards the media.

"There is going to be a perception, and that perception is rooted in something real- we all need to acknowledge, a perception of condescension, of looking down your nose at these people, of wanting to come there and caricature them and sort of judge them," Alberta said. 

When asked how to address such an obstacle, Politico correspondent David Siders responded by saying he asks for help within the community he's reporting on, telling Alberta that in most cases, "people do want to chat."

However, later on in the discussion, Siders pushed back about people having "complaints" about the media.

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"I agree with them about some of the broader issues going on. But it always struck me when I was serving as a reporter- I was 22 years old, sitting at a very small newspaper and people would call and say the media, this and that," Siders said. "And I know it was a different time, but I would say 'My name is David. I'm 22. I just moved here from Minnesota… For your purposes today, I am the media.' We don't have a conversation with anybody telling me what to do. And I still use that today. I have complaints about the media, too. But… I'm your person right now, right?… I am engaged with you. And I think trying to personalize that for people is so important."

A Florida reporter's perspective on DeSantis' media war

During a panel discussion titled "Covering Candidates Who Don’t Want to be Covered," the focus was largely focused on Republicans like DeSantis, former Arizona Senate candidate Kari Lake and former President Trump. Notably, there wasn't any mention of President Biden, who has broken norms by the lack of interviews and press conferences he has granted since taking office.

Ana Ceballos, a state government reporter for The Miami Herald, spoke about the obstacles she has faced covering the governor and working with his press team, who have gone to all-out war with her paper as the editorial regularly expresses animus towards the prominent Republican and likely 2024 presidential hopeful. 

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She began by prefacing that DeSantis never made "small talk" with reporters like his predecessors have normally done in years past but that his relationship with the media became more "contentious" during the pandemic. She then drew attention to the "strategy" his communications team developed in taking screenshots of emails sent to them by reporters and mocking them on social media, a tactic other Republicans have since embraced. 

"We just have to live with it," Ceballos said. "I mean, they either attack you personally and a swarm of trolls on Twitter emerge, and they attack you with the same stuff like ‘Cry harder.’"

"I don't know, it just sort of gets predictable, so maybe you build a thick skin and you kind of get used to it. I'm almost desensitized to it at this point, but it is ongoing, and it's part of a reality that we're dealing with Republican politics," she later added.

When asked if she finds herself "self-editing" her emails to DeSantis' staff at the risk of them being publicized on Twitter, Ceballos replied "Oh, absolutely."

"I used to be a little bit more casual, if you will, with past political staffers and comms directors because when you humanize yourself, they're more likely to talk to you, and maybe they would come to me with tips and having that relationship, right, as we build sources with anyone else. But I started changing my strategy when, you know, even a text message with a joke or just an offhand comment can be used against you without you even realizing," Ceballos said. "And a moment that I realized that had changed was when one of DeSantis' communications people started tweeting out an off-the-record conversation that she had with a reporter. And this reporter was trying to be candid, and the situation was to build trust. But we were dealing with a different, you know, animal in terms of what the strategy was nowadays. So I definitely started being more careful with how I communicate with them. They don't often get on the phone either because they want everything in writing just in case they can attack you for it. So it's really difficult to even have candid conversations with them and just an on-background, off-the-record conversation."

#Resistance ‘folk heroes’ in the media

During the same panel discussion, CNN political director David Chalian was asked how reporters can refrain from "accidentally becoming characters in a campaign narrative" when covering combative candidates. He responded by saying journalists must remain "dogged and respectful" when it comes to those who want to ice out legacy media outlets. 

But regarding candidates who see the media as "the enemy," Chalian insisted journalists don't have a "desire" to become an actor in their "political play" and urged reporters to remain "calm, professional, respectful" to those who want to "bait" them into being combative.

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That comment got pushback from the panel's moderator, The Atlantic staff writer McKay Coppins.

"You just said something really important that I'm not sure is the consensus view in our industry anymore, or it's at risk which is that we are not supposed to be actors in these political dramas," Coppins said. "I guess I wonder, do you worry at all that the incentives of the last few years have started to flow the other way in our industry?… There is a tendency when you find yourself in an adversarial position with a campaign to kind of inadvertently become like a folk hero to some segment of the voters or constituents who don't like that politician, and they end up, you know, singing your praise on Twitter, and they read your stories… I'm not going to name any names, have turned that into their entire brand, right? They become kind of resistance heroes in the Trump era."

While Coppins didn't name any names, one obvious example is Chalian's own CNN colleague Jim Acosta, who became a household name for his combative exchanges with Trump and the White House, giving him celebrity status on the late-night circuit a book deal and ultimately being promoted to a weekend anchor. 

Chalian responded that "no doubt" it's a concern for newsrooms but told Coppins "no reporter that I know of would want what you're saying, to become a folk hero is the political calculus of a certain segment of the voting and political populations." 

"So yes, I'm not blind to the incentives that you're talking about, about brand development. But I think the moment you're in like individual brand development that is separate and apart from your work product… you're in the wrong place," Chalian added. 

‘A really stupid and inadvisable thing’

Democratic strategist and former advisor to the Pete Buttigieg 2020 presidential campaign Lis Smith spoke on panel focusing on "rookie mistakes" that journalists make on the campaign trail offering the perspective from the politics side of the relationship between candidates and the press.

But she took a moment to call out Democrats on the subject of reporters being "cut off" from a campaign. 

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"Sometimes you'll have a disagreement, whatever, but I actually think that's a pretty counterproductive thing because…it's a two-way street. And if you cut off a reporter, then that means you're poisoning a relationship and them, potentially poisoning a relationship with that outlet. And, you know, you're gonna need that reporter one day," Smith said. 

"I know people on my side of the aisle do that. And I think it's a really stupid and inadvisable thing to do," she added.