More than one election night scenario has Donald Trump coming out trying to undermine the results of the election. Maybe he’ll try to stop mail votes from being counted if the Election Day votes in key states make the results temporarily appear in his favor. Maybe he’ll declare a victory he hasn’t won. Maybe he’ll see that he’s well and truly behind and try to foment violence.
The certainty is that Trump will be irresponsible and self-serving. The question is what the media will do about it.
The answer appears to be: Punt. Dodge responsibility. Screw up.
Or, as CNN Business puts it, “Though network executives are reluctant to talk publicly about such a hypothetical and disturbing scenario, five people at various networks said on condition of anonymity that they fully expect the President's Election Night remarks to be shown live virtually wall to wall.”
The plan is to air Trump’s remarks live, whatever they may be, and then fact check them. After the damage is done.
”We are prepared to aggressively fact-check any effort by anyone to mischaracterize the status of the race or the results of the race prematurely,” NBC News president Noah Oppenheim has said.
Okay, but how about not airing that mischaracterization? How about a five- or 10-minute delay on whatever Trump has to say to determine if it meets the lowest possible bar of responsibility?
”One industry source, on condition of anonymity, did sketch out a possible scenario in which networks opt out of carrying Trump live: If there is widespread violence and newsroom leaders have reason to believe that Trump will pour gasoline on the proverbial fire,” CNN Business continues.
But ... you guys know that Trump will always pour gasoline on the fire, right? Always.
And context is not enough if you give Trump an uninterrupted platform to spread lies.
Twitter will label tweets that falsely declare victory, and Facebook may also apply warning labels to misinformation and disinformation. But YouTube doesn't have a policy for dealing with this certainty, as American Interregnum’s helpful chart of social media platform election night policies shows.
Democracy is at stake here. The media needs to serve as a guardian of that democracy, not a platform for efforts to sabotage it.