The Media's Trump Reckoning: 'Everyone Was Wrong'

From the New Yorker to FiveThirtyEight, outlets across the spectrum failed to grasp the Trump phenomenon.

By Hadas Gold
03/01/16 04:58 PM EST
Updated 03/01/16 05:28 PM EST

David Remnick, editor of the New Yorker, told his readers last summer that Donald Trump was running for president to promote his own brand and that the "whole con might end well before the first snows in Sioux City and Manchester."

That was quite measured compared to James Fallows, the national correspondent of more than three decades for the Atlantic, who wrote confidently — and with his own bold for emphasis — “Donald Trump will not be the 45th president of the United States. Nor the 46th, nor any other number you might name. The chance of his winning the nomination and election is exactly zero."

Those two mandarins weren't alone in dismissing Trump's chances. Washington Post blogger Chris Cillizza wrote in July that "Donald Trump is not going to be the Republican presidential nominee in 2016." And numbers guru Nate Silver told readers as recently as November to "stop freaking out" about Trump's poll numbers.

Now all these journalists, and more, are coming to grips with their mistaken assessments. And some, too, are freaking out.

In an interview this week, Remnick sounded both shocked and sad at Trump's success, saying it was “beyond belief” and reflects an "ugliness" that appeals to “every worst instinct” in America.


Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2016/03/donald-trump-media-response-220033#ixzz41hBac4yl