U.S.—With it looking more certain that Joe Biden has won the presidential election, journalists are now looking at a major shift in play, moving from their extremely aggressive offense against Donald Trump to focusing now on defense to protect Biden from a skeptical public.
“It’s going to be a change,” said journalism coach Homer Davis. “Journalists strive for offense — they love to tear down — so having to protect a gaffe-prone old coot is going to be vastly different.”
Davis mentioned that the best defense is a good offense, so much of the effort to protect Biden will be to find and dox any of his critics. “But journalists are going to have to fortify Biden as well,” Davis explained. “Try to make him look smart and competent and find any human angles to play up — not easy for someone who has been in government for nearly half a century and has barely anything human left in him at all.”
Journalists last played defense for eight years from 2008 to 2016 with mixed results, helping secure Barack Obama’s re-election, but also seeing Republicans make huge gains in the midterms. Additionally, they were unable to protect Obama’s legacy from the Hail Mary play that was Donald Trump.
“We just have to get in there and block, block, block,” said veteran defensive player Dave Weigel. “Biden and the Democrats are going to make mistakes every day, and the job of journalists is going to be to crush any of those stories before they get going. It’s a whole different ball game from round-the-clock coverage of every Trump tweet, but we’re ready.”
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