Have you heard anyone say recently “I can’t wait for this election to be over?” Have you said it?
The feeling is understandable. The nonstop, mean-spirited social media posts, advertisements and political commentary can be exhausting.
Aside from the vitriol, there are at least two reasons for the exhaustion. First, it is increasingly challenging to determine what information is trustworthy. Second, media coverage of elections too often focuses on who’s ahead in polls rather than how candidates stand on policy issues.
As we head into the final weeks before Election Day, I wanted to share some tips to help you be a more responsible political news consumer.
First, think before you share information about elections and politics. The perils of sharing misinformation are well-documented. In one recent example, a woman’s inaccurate post about Haitian immigrants eating pets in Springfield, Ohio, was amplified by former President Donald Trump, which led to bomb threats and school closures.
A good clue that what you’re reading or hearing isn’t true is when it makes you feel something – most likely anxious, angry, sad or head-shaking disbelief.
If that happens, stop. Take your finger off the social media share button. Take a moment to investigate. Open a new web browser tab and search for the story or claim being made. If it’s true you’ll see reputable sources also reporting on it. Also, look for links within the story you’re reading. Click on them and again look for reputable sources.
That leads us to a second tip: figuring out if a source is reputable.
One of my go-to’s is the Ad Fontes Media Bias Chart, which uses “a team of human analysts with political views from across the spectrum” to look at news stories from hundreds of sources and rate them on political bias and reliability.
Sources like The Associated Press and ABC News rank high in reliability and somewhat down the middle on the bias scale. Meanwhile, sources on the extreme outer edges of the chart, such as noted conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ podcast, scrape the bottom of the reliability scale and lean heavily to the right politically.
The chart is searchable, which makes it a handy tool to learn about the reputation of an unfamiliar news source you run across on the internet.
I will note that Ad Fontes Media and other groups that produce charts like these draw criticisms for being biased in the way they rate news content. While I think Ad Fontes’ motivations are pure, that’s a valid concern. So, if you want a more complete picture of a source’s reputation, consult a few sources to get a broader view.
I’ll also note here it’s not wrong to produce and consume biased content. As a journalist, I’m a big proponent of the First Amendment. But if you only consume news content you agree with, consider breaking out of your media silo every once in a while to see what the other side is saying. That could mean a Fox News fan occasionally flips over to MSNBC and vice versa. Understanding why people on the other side of the political spectrum think differently than you can help make our political discourse less toxic.
Finally, I wanted to mention political polls since they’re in the news daily. With the polls in this year’s presidential race so close, national media are playing up almost microscopic percentage changes. If your favorite candidate looks better or worse in a specific poll, tempering your feelings is essential.
A poll is merely a snapshot of how a relatively small group of respondents feel. Many factors – a new round of political ads, a speech, a debate, an assassination attempt – can change polling data daily or even hourly.
Plus, be wary of the type of poll being reported. If it’s a national poll – a survey that doesn’t consider what state respondents live in – remember that’s not how we select a president. Instead, we use the Electoral College, which focuses on state-by-state results.
And even if you’re looking at so-called battleground state polls, note the surveys’ margins of error. In this presidential race, the polling differences between Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris are often within the margin of error, making it futile to get overly excited or frustrated over a result.
Jason Piscia is an assistant professor and director of the Public Affairs Reporting program at the University of Illinois Springfield. He’s also a former managing editor, digital editor and reporter for The State Journal-Register.
This article appears in Citizens want a voice in CWLP.
