On today’s Kicker, what the media got right and wrong in the 2022 midterm election. Ross Barkan, a politics reporter for New York magazine, The Nation, and other outlets, talks with CJR’s editor and publisher, Kyle Pope, about the media’s penchant for speculation in divisive elections.
Also in the discussion: how the media grapples with writing about a democracy in peril. “Is this the election that will determine the future of democracy?” Barkan asks. “Maybe, maybe not. But I have my own reservations about that kind of grandiose rhetoric.”
Read Ross Barkan’s reporting for the Columbia Journalism Review here.
Emily Russell was a CJR fellow, and is now an editor at The Week.