August 12, 2024 - 1:00pm

The central theme of Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign is “joy”, according to recent headlines from the New York Times, the Washington Post, MSNBC, the Los Angeles Times and others.

It’s the latest instance of the liberal media widely covering soft-hitting human interest stories about the Vice President — including an Atlantic essay on her fondness for food — in sharp contrast to the critical coverage of Joe Biden during the final weeks of his campaign. Other recent Harris news cycles have focused on the online pro-Harris meme culture and running-mate Tim Walz’sdad vibes”. A Monday Time article opened with a description of a Harris rally, reading, “The soundtrack suggested a Beyoncé concert. The light-up bracelets evoked the Eras Tour. And the exuberant crowd… resembled the early days of Barack Obama.”

The 27 June debate, in which Biden’s poor performance ultimately ended his candidacy, opened the floodgates to more hostile reporting from the mainstream press than he’d seen at any point in his presidency. The coverage was so uniformly negative that Biden began publicly picking fights with friendly journalists, asking “what have these people been right about lately? Seriously.”

The lack of critical reporting on Harris likely owes in part to the candidate’s distance from the media. In the three weeks since Biden exited the race, the 59-year-old has not taken an interview or held a press conference, and has answered only two media questions in an impromptu interaction lasting about one minute. It may also be related to Harris’ friendly relationship with certain journalists, who have reportedly been getting off-the-record face time with her despite the lack of interviews.

In the past three weeks, the NYT has published no fewer than five articles on Kamala Harris memes, along with countless other positive articles, and only one story on her media blackout. The same outlet published numerous op-eds calling for Biden to exit the race last month and directed nonstop negative news coverage toward the president, including a report on the White House feeding the media “softball” questions for Biden.

The press has also been slow to zero in on the substance of Harris’ nascent campaign, whose website still doesn’t have a policy section. The New Yorker stands out among the mainstream press for pointing out Harris’ lack of policy plans. “She has not explained what, exactly, happened in Washington after President Joe Biden’s disastrous debate”, the article read, ”or why she has changed her mind on fracking, which she once said should be banned, and has wobbled on Medicare for All, which she once supported.”

Biden’s debate performance — and the media’s reluctance to report on his age prior to that point — sparked a moment of self-reflection among journalists about the industry’s failure to apply harsh scrutiny to the Democratic president. Harris has said she’ll sit down for an interview by the end of August and, until then, the media’s coverage of her will provide some hints as to whether any lessons were learned.


is UnHerd’s US correspondent.

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