Hello and Happy Thursday. We are 81 days away from the election. Today I want to talk about survival for the Harris campaign, the Trump campaign, and for us voters with more than 11 weeks left.

And for democracy. Don't forget democracy!

First of all, AI-generated video of Donald Trump and Elon Musk Dancing to “Staying Alive” by the Bee Gees. Trump also posted the video to his “Truth Social,” the place where truth goes to die.

This bromance is painful to watch. The power and privilege of masks It seems to redirect him. Howard Hughes – Strange Realms, His outlandish theories are only matched by his unique ability to impose them on all of us. And Trump will love anyone who loves him, or who has a lot of money. Sad.

Combine the two (as was the case in a two-plus hour conversation listened to by a million people this week on the platform formerly known as Twitter) and you get something more than unfortunate or odd.

Have something dangerous Two of the most powerful men in the world are undermining democracy with their lies.

It will have no impact on Musk and very little impact on Trump. Elections are broken information pipes filled with raw sewage Spewing in all directions, they're dancing down through the mud.

So I talk about the news media and Kamala Harris's efforts to avoid the question.

Elite debate

Apparently, The Bee Gees saw this coming.

The 1977 disco hit wasn't actually about dancing, but about surviving on America's rough streets, as the Gibbs sang, “You can try to understand what the New York Times does to a man,” a catchy indictment of society's soul-crushing forces.

Nowadays, society’s influence on the media is really profound.

We are driving the media crazy. The news organizations cannot understand why we stopped loving them.

A furor has erupted among the national political elite over whether Harris is shying away from the press and whether that's a good or bad move in winning the White House. The New York Times also ran an article on the matter. The same is true for this paper.

So columnists with more political experience than I have have offered plenty of sermons about whether it's wise for Harris to take her message directly to the public at rallies and on platforms like TikTok, or whether her eschewing traditional formal interviews with reporters is an affront to both voters and democracy.

Well, like Trump, Harris hasn't outlined any specific policies.

But Harris didn't need to. It's been less than a month since President Biden withdrew, and she's still floating on a tsunami of goodwill. Even if we don't know her specific plans, we do know some of her core positions: pro-abortion, pro-union, pro-democracy, anti-hate.

For now, that seems enough to win, if not to please the media.

Good strategy, bad precedent

So you can't blame Harris for adopting a press-avoidance strategy — it makes sense with 11-plus weeks of the campaign left, and at least the next two weeks packed with coverage from the convention, leaving Harris with nine weeks left.

It's certain that she will one day meet with a famous journalist, but what's the point in rushing it?

The news cycle after the major interview will no doubt thoroughly criticize her, MAGA will hang on to anything that comes out of it (“far-left” policies, incoherent answers) and Harris will have to rise above it.

Meanwhile, the topics that could keep her momentum going will likely be mostly buried after the big interview.

take Florida Amendment 4, Take, for example, the ballot measure aimed at overturning Rep. Ron DeSantis' six-week abortion ban, an amendment that could not only help Florida emerge as a winnable state for Democrats, but would also force President Trump to disclose how he voted (he is registered in Florida).

Harris, for example, is the president of Planned Parenthood, NextGen America — Is staying true to message on a friendly platform any different than Trump and Musk getting along?

If I were to advise Harris, I would say to postpone the major interview for at least a few more weeks — somewhere after the conventions and not too close to the election — which could calm some of the rumors of media outrage (because, in reality, it's the press, not voters, that are clamoring for the interview) while also leaving room for other news cycles.

It's ironic, but that's where we are.

but.

The Fourth Estate is not a division of Jersey

The media certainly matters; there's a reason it's the fourth estate. This fast-paced, twisty election may pose a challenge for the press, but in a functioning democracy, the press is a vital component of informed decision-making.

There are many external forces that have eroded it: social media and Google stripping news organizations of their ability to make profits; venture capitalists gobbling them up like vultures hunting road kill; subsequent cuts and closures leaving news organizations small and overworked.

But also, as someone who was just immersed in national political coverage about 32 seconds ago, I can say that the political media is insular and often oblivious to what the public cares about beyond topics like “the economy.”

The reality is that journalism is not an elite profession like surgery or atomic physicist: it is a vocation, a repetitive skill set that is best acquired on the job, passed down from generation to generation.

If this election really was like a broken sewer, spewing information garbage in every direction, would we call in a professor to fix it? Would we call in a doctor?

No. We need information plumbers. That's what good journalists do. We know what's in the pipes, and we know how to get it out, and how to clean it so that it doesn't sicken our democracy.

And that's where the media gets it wrong: we pretend to be in some posh Belle Epoque salon, but in reality we're laboriously trawling Crab Creek looking for some nugget of truth to bring to the public.

Because there is a difference between information and news.

Musk wants you to believe there is no difference, that anything someone posts online is news and deserves the same consideration — that his trip to the border or speaking with Trump is as completely true as anything a journalist might do.

And because we in the media have done a poor job of explaining the difference between information and news, people don’t understand the actual skill set that would stop shit logic from polluting our democracy.

Here's a non-political example: I've covered many police shootings, and the first was a black man shot by two police officers, and the official story was that the man had lunged at the officers with a knife, and the officers had no choice but to fire to protect their own lives.

I'm no genius or saint, but I do know how to use a tape measure, so I went to the street where the shooting happened and measured the distance between where the police officers were and where the man died.

It wasn't close, guys. It wasn't close, it wasn't close by any means.

Posting that information online all day would have had no effect other than stoking conspiracy theories.

But the news story I subsequently worked on, thanks to the wonderful machine of the newspaper, its editors, proofreaders, photographers and many others, ultimately uncovered the video the police had tried to cover up, leading to reforms, officers leaving the police force, and a new chief being installed.

That's plumber journalism: using mechanical know-how to discover “unknown unknowns” (to borrow a phrase from former Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld) and then pluck them out of the stool for all to see and judge.

You can’t find out the whole truth by digging up the internet, you have to talk to people, knock on doors, both physical and metaphorical, pull records, and beg editors to let you do the esoteric digging until it’s no longer esoteric—until amazing facts you didn’t even realize were hidden, unknown unknowns, are fully revealed.

So, in the end, political journalists are right, but they're bad at explaining why.

All politicians have to talk to the media, Harris and Tim Walz at the top of their game, not because we're the gatekeepers or smarter than anyone else.

We're just people trained to deal with information garbage so you don't have to.

What else to read

Must read: Biden Demands 'Immediate Release' of Austin Tice from Syria on 12th Anniversary of His Disappearance
Wow, that's tough: Florida vote puts President Trump in a tough spot on abortion
LA Times Special: Poll: Harris and Walz build big leads among California voters

P.S. This is The original video for “Stayin' Alive.” Whether it's your sibling or your mother, this song will always be enjoyable.

Was this newsletter forwarded to you? Sign up here to get it delivered to your inbox.