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Samantha Laine Perfas: Welcome to 鈥淲hy We Wrote This.鈥� I鈥檓 your host, Samantha Laine Perfas.听

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With the upcoming 2022 midterm elections, we thought it would be a great opportunity to look at how the Monitor approaches its political coverage with fairness and respect.听

Today, I鈥檓 joined by Liz Marlantes, the Monitor鈥檚 politics editor, who talks about some of the challenges that arise when reporting on big issues. Here鈥檚 our conversation.听

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Laine Perfas: Liz, we鈥檙e getting close to the midterms. I鈥檓 curious if the climate we鈥檙e seeing now is typical for this season.听

Liz Marlantes: You know, it鈥檚 one of those things where you never really know until after the fact. I think you see a lot of discussion about how this is the most consequential election of our lifetimes, or things are as heated and toxic as they鈥檝e ever been. And I would just say in a lot of ways, this election cycle is feeling 鈥� typical or normal.听

Laine Perfas: That鈥檚 really interesting to hear. I want to talk specifically about the Monitor and how we cover politics. We鈥檙e typically known for having nonpartisan, fair reporting. How does our approach achieve that?

Marlantes: One of the expressions that you hear at the Monitor a lot is 鈥渓ight, not heat.鈥� And I think that can be a particularly beneficial approach in the realm of politics, where certainly, you know, the political parties on both sides have every incentive in the world to be bringing heat. They [each] want to rile up their base. For obvious reasons, you have both parties saying, you know, if the other side wins, then it will be 鈥渢he end of democracy.鈥� But the Monitor takes a deliberately, kind of calm, non-sensationalist approach to, frankly, all of our reporting. We鈥檙e trying to bring an objective and helpful perspective to various themes and issues and races in a way that will be a service to readers.听

Laine Perfas: I think sometimes you see a pushback against what is considered fair; a lot of people are questioning whether the media is even capable of being neutral. Could you talk about that a little bit?听

Marlantes: I think there have been a couple of trends that have happened in recent years that have brought a lot of that to the forefront. You kind of have these two arguments, one of which is this idea that nobody鈥檚 neutral, nobody鈥檚 objective, every reporter has their own biases. And given that, it would be better to just be transparent about it and then let the reader decide whether they agree with that reporter鈥檚 position or not. And then the other thing that鈥檚 really happened in recent years is this critique of 鈥渂oth-sides-ism,鈥� as it鈥檚 called, which is essentially an argument that if you try to portray both sides as having valid and equal points of view, then sometimes you鈥檙e elevating one side onto equal footing with the other side, when clearly one side is wrong or inferior or completely misleading everybody. And those have been powerful critiques. And there are aspects to that that I think are sometimes true. But I think it鈥檚 also made it even more clear to me, at least, that it is just still so important to try to approach every situation with an honest and open mind. My goal often is to point out to readers that there is complexity to everything. I think a far better approach is to just acknowledge that there鈥檚 tremendous complexity and many shades of gray and try to show as many of those as possible and then let the readers draw their own conclusions.听

Laine Perfas: So what are some of the challenges our politics team faces in trying to do this?听

Marlantes: Our national campaign reporter, Story Hinckley, just wrote about this. It鈥檚 gotten harder to get access to campaigns and candidates really on both sides of the aisle, but particularly the Republican side, since Donald Trump overtly started criticizing and attacking the media. And of course, he didn鈥檛 start doing that out of nowhere. Republicans have had in some ways legitimate complaints for many decades even that the media is more often on the side of Democrats on a number of issues and hasn鈥檛 treated Republicans fairly. But Trump really brought that argument to the forefront. And as a result of that, a lot of Republican campaigns now don鈥檛 really want to interact with the mainstream media, and a lot of Republican voters don鈥檛 want to interact with the mainstream media. And that has made our job harder in a lot of ways, because if you don鈥檛 get access, you can鈥檛 cover things well or accurately. And, you know, I will say increasingly, I think, you also see players on the left feeling like they can criticize reporters when reporters don鈥檛 present a totally friendly or totally positive portrayal. You know, both sides now have sort of access to a partisan echo chamber. Many voters now pretty much bypass what we would call the mainstream media and just consume, often through social media, a very partisan diet of information. And so that鈥檚 created a challenge. It鈥檚 really harder to get campaign coverage. It takes a lot more ingenuity and sometimes working around the campaign instead of with the campaign.听

Laine Perfas: I鈥檓 thinking about one particular example of partisanship, and that鈥檚 around the 2020 election. How do you balance showing all perspectives of an issue while also adhering to the facts?听

Marlantes: That has definitely been a challenge. We definitely try to make sure that our stories reflect the facts as we know them now about what happened in the 2020 election. We frequently will remind readers that the Trump campaign brought many lawsuits to court and lost nearly all of them. Even Trump officials, like former Attorney General Bill Barr, have admitted that the election was fair and secure. But we also need to cover the fact that many, many voters don鈥檛 think that鈥檚 true. And I think it鈥檚 important to show that point of view and try to understand that point of view, even if we are also in our story providing the context that shows why that point of view might be misinformed.听

Laine Perfas: What do you do when you get pushback from readers? How do our reporters handle that?听

Marlantes: It depends on the reporter. I know Linda Feldmann, who is our White House correspondent and our Washington bureau chief, responds to literally every email she gets unless, it鈥檚 just obscene or clearly not wanting a response. But I think the goal is to try to help our readers understand what we have learned through our reporting and the work that we鈥檝e done. And if people want to reach out with questions or criticisms or pushback, most of our reporters welcome that because sometimes we learn something new that we didn鈥檛 know about, and at other times it鈥檚 just a chance to have a dialogue.听

Laine Perfas: Listening to you talk, it sounds like it鈥檚 pretty challenging and can be pretty exhausting working in politics.听

Marlantes: So yes. I mean, this is the busy time, of course. So most political reporters gear up for this and expect that the run up to an election is going to be, you know, more hectic and a lot more work than typical. But it鈥檚 also really fun and it鈥檚 really exciting to cover campaigns and to cover the issues that are so consequential to all Americans and for our reporters who get out and travel the country and, you know, get to see different places and talk to different voters and really spend time understanding what it is that this country is wrestling with at any given time and how people are feeling. I think there鈥檚 no better job, really.听听

Laine Perfas: Well, thank you so much, Liz, for sharing a little bit about what our politics team does.听

Marlantes: It鈥檚 my pleasure.听

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Laine Perfas: Thanks for listening. To find a transcript of this episode and the show notes visit csmonitor.com/whywewrotethis. You鈥檒l also find links to some of our politics coverage. And, just a heads up, we will not be producing an episode next week, as we鈥檒l be observing Veterans Day.听

This episode was hosted and produced by me, Samantha Laine Perfas and edited by Clay Collins. Our sound engineers were Tim Malone, Jeff Turton and Alyssa Britton, with original music by Noel Flatt. Produced by the 海角大神 Science Monitor. Copyright 2022.

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