 The news media is wrong all the time — though not exactly as its loudest critics claim. Reputable outlets get most of their facts right, and correct fast when they’re wrong. In fact, one way you can tell a reputable American news media outlet from an untrustworthy one is who admits they’re wrong, and corrects. Of course, when a big outlet makes a big error, it’s a news event, the subject of lawsuits, public embarrassment, and critical coverage from their competitors and in newsletters like this one. More often wrong are the assumptions we in the information and “content” business make. Lacking in all of the necessary information or a crystal ball, members of the media nonetheless post their takes on social media, pop off a little too much on a podcast, or let our biases seep into reporting and analysis, only to be surprised when life proves more interesting than we expected. At the end of 2023, we asked some of our most perceptive readers, up and down and across media, to share where they felt they missed the mark. That turned out to be one of your favorite editions, so we’re bringing it back in 2024, a year with some notable news events that yielded some major unexpected twists. While last year’s list varied, one of 2024’s most consequential news events, Joe Biden’s failure on the debate stage and subsequent decision to leave the presidential race, was clearly top of mind for many of our respondents this year. Semafor’s editorial style attempts to account for some of the biases that shape media coverage by separating the facts we know from what we feel we know, our analysis and perspective. But of course we were caught by surprise and flat out wrong in some of our predictions and assumptions, which we’ve included below. Yet despite the fact that we and others embarrassingly missed the mark on a few occasions, this remains one of my favorite newsletters of the year precisely because it also shows what is, at its best, the healthiest feature of a free media — the willingness to reflect on misconceptions, and to change course rather than digging in. With very few exceptions — and just occasional self-promotion — everyone we reached out to shared their honest opinions about what they got wrong this year, from Biden’s mental acuity to the influence of X on the election to highway traffic on the way to viewing the eclipse. (That was worse than the media advertised, as Pat Kiernan learned the hard way). |
