Weekend Report: What's happening?

MAGA fuel conspiracies about the crash at the border. Media researchers who studied 2016 election coverage conclude election coverage, at least judging by the 2022 mid-terms, is still a disaster.

I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving. I was stuck home with a bad cold—though thankfully not COVID—so there was no family gathering for me. But the leftovers were great!

It’s been days since the FBI concluded there was no evidence of a terror attack on the Rainbow Bridge, connecting New York State and Canada, after a couple headed to a concert in Toronto tragically died as their Bentley accelerated and flew in the air, hitting a checkpoint booth. But the far-right conspiracies that it was a terror attack—which they jumped on within minutes of the news breaking, without any facts—linger and are a warning for any future events.

Similarly, the events in Dublin, Ireland over the weekend, where right-wing extremists rioted after rumors snowballed on social media—again based on few facts— are an example of how dangerous social media, coupled with the extremist mindset, can be.

And journalism scholars who studied the massive problems with coverage of the 2016 presidential election by major newspapers like The Washington Post and The New York Times went back to look at coverage of the 2022 election. They found the same problems haunt our media and threaten coverage in 2024.