DL Open Thread: Saturday, October 15, 2022

‘How The Press SHOULD Cover Trump’…And MAGAt Rethugs.  Some of it may seem obvious.  So, why isn’t the press, with some noted exceptions, doing it?:

Now, six years later, we journalists know a lot more about covering Trump and his supporters. We’ve come a long way, but certainly made plenty of mistakes. Too many times, we acted as his stenographers or megaphones. Too often, we failed to refer to his many falsehoods as lies. It took too long to stop believing that, whenever he calmed down for a moment, he was becoming “presidential.” And it took too long to moderate our instinct to give equal weight to both sides, even when one side was using misinformation for political gain.

It’s been an education for all of us — a gradual realization that the instincts and conventions of traditional journalism weren’t good enough for this moment in our country’s history. As Trump prepares to run again in 2024, it’s worth reminding ourselves of the lessons we’ve learned — and committing to the principle that, when covering politicians who are essentially running against democracy, old-style journalism will no longer suffice.

For one thing, I’m convinced that journalists — specifically those who cover politics — must keep a sharp focus on truth-seeking, not old-style performative neutrality. Does that mean we throw objectivity out the window? Of course not. We should be resolutely objective in the sense of seeking evidence and approaching subjects with an open mind. We should not, however, resort to taking everything down the middle, no matter what. Rather than, for example, having equal numbers of Republicans and Democrats (or conservatives and progressives) on every talk show, or devoting equal numbers of words to each side of a political argument, we should be thinking about what coverage serves the public best.

Those who deny the outcome of the 2020 election certainly don’t deserve a media megaphone for that enduring lie, one that is likely to reemerge in the presidential campaign ahead. But the media should go one step further: When covering such a politician in other contexts — for example, about abortion rights or gun control — journalists should remind audiences that this public figure is an election denier.

Go ahead and read the entire thing.  If journalists and newsrooms aren’t discussing this now, it’s probably already too late.

Walker Flashes His Police Badge At Georgia Debate.  It, of course, isn’t real.  Which doesn’t stop him from waxing rhapsodic about his police exploits.  Hey we elected a Prevaricator President. What’s one more Prevaricator Senator, more or less?:

Walker has repeatedly said he worked in law enforcement. According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, he did so at least three times before entering politics.

Walker told an audience of U.S. servicemen and women, “I worked in law enforcement, so I had a gun.” In 2017, he claimed, “I work with the Cobb County Police Department.” In 2019, Walker also told listeners, “I spent time at Quantico at the FBI training school. Y’all didn’t know I was an agent?”

The Journal-Constitution called the Cobb County Police Department, which said it had no record of Walker being employed there. Walker’s campaign then told the paper he was “an honorary deputy,” which Cobb law enforcement officials also could not confirm.

Earlier this year, Walker did tweet a photo of what he said was his honorary sheriff’s card from Cobb County. But that’s far from “working in law enforcement.” Being an honorary deputy, a local prosecutor told the AJC, is like having “a junior ranger badge.” Just don’t tell Elvis that.

Here’s a more substantive report on the debate.

How One Company’s Algorithms Are Driving Rents Sky-High.  Just like the landlords ordered it up:

On a summer day last year, a group of real estate tech executives gathered at a conference hall in Nashville to boast about one of their company’s signature products: software that uses a mysterious algorithm to help landlords push the highest possible rents on tenants.

“Never before have we seen these numbers,” said Jay Parsons, a vice president of RealPage, as conventiongoers wandered by. Apartment rents had recently shot up by as much as 14.5%, he said in a video touting the company’s services.

RealPage became the nation’s dominant provider of such rent-setting software after federal regulators approved a controversial merger in 2017, a ProPublica investigation found, greatly expanding the company’s influence over apartment prices. The move helped the Texas-based company push the client base for its array of real estate tech services past 31,700 customers.

The impact is stark in some markets.

In one neighborhood in Seattle, ProPublica found, 70% of apartments were overseen by just 10 property managers, every single one of which used pricing software sold by RealPage.

For tenants, the system upends the practice of negotiating with apartment building staff. RealPage discourages bargaining with renters and has even recommended that landlords in some cases accept a lower occupancy rate in order to raise rents and make more money.

One of the algorithm’s developers told ProPublica that leasing agents had “too much empathy” compared to computer generated pricing.

Trying to control my anger…failing.  Does Buccini/Pollin use RealPages?  I’d like to know.

DeSantis Eases Voting Rules For Counties Hit By Hurricane–But Only For Republican Counties.  That’s a dog-bites-man story right there.  We, and the Supreme Court, have just accepted voter suppression in Florida as ‘the way they do things down there’:

Overall, registered Republicans outnumber Democrats in many, but not all, of the counties damaged by the hurricane. Orange County, where Hurricane Ian passed as a Category 1 storm and left historic flooding in Orlando and surrounding areas, has 360,389 registered Democrats and 217,061 registered Republicans. It was not granted any exceptions.

Burney-Clark, of Equal Ground, said by excluding the other counties affected by the storm, the order “will remain yet another example of Governor DeSantis disenfranchising voters.”