Axios and the Fall of Journalism in America
The news website Axios apparently longs for the days when Donald Trump was president and chaos reigned across the land.
Why else would they publish this story on their front page: “Scoop: Biden team's don't-let-him-trip mission.”
That headline doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue. The story doesn’t exactly qualify as a “scoop” either.
In journalism parlance, a “scoop” is a story that is exclusive to the publication publishing it. Normally gotten through good reporting or haranguing sources to the point where they give the reporter what he wants just to get rid of him, a scoop is something to be proud of. And it usually gets reporters at other publications in trouble with their editors. “Why the hell does [insert publication with scoop’s name here] have this story and not us?” he would yell from his office so everyone in the newsroom could hear.
According to the Axios story: “Driving the news: As voters express deep concerns about the 80-year-old president's age and fitness for office, Biden's team is taking extra steps to prevent him from stumbling in public — as he did in June when he tripped over a sandbag at the Air Force Academy.”
In case you’ve never read Axios (and boy do I envy you) it is their style to write short, to-the-point stories that allegedly give just the facts in bullet points, using paragraph headers such as “Driving the News,” “Why it Matters” and “Between the Lines.”
It’s the USA Today-ization of news. Or, more appropriately in Axios’s case, the BuzzFeed-ification of news.
USA Today pioneered the use of short, to-the-point news stories. BuzzFeed pioneered the use of short and pointless “listicles,” with catchy headlines, short sentences and useless content, like this one from 2021.
Apparently, Axios has now melded the two into pointless “scoops.”
And what is Pres. Biden’s crack “don’t let him fall on camera” team doing to prevent such a tragedy? Well, Pres. Biden is exercising every morning to stay limber and (gasp!) wearing sneakers whenever he can so he has better traction.
That’s it. That’s Axios’s “scoop”. President Biden is wearing sneakers.
“Since his stumble in June, he has been wearing tennis shoes more often to avoid slipping — and using the short stairs on Air Force One, entering the plane on a lower deck than before,” Axios notes in one of its ubiquitous bullet points.
Let’s be clear. This is not a scoop. And it certainly is not journalism.
The only reason Axios has this “story” exclusively is because no other press outlet thinks it’s worthy of an entire story on its own. If they write about it at all, it’s more likely two or three sentences at the bottom of a larger, more important, story.
Axios is doing a disservice to its readers and to American journalism by pushing the Right’s narrative that Pres. Biden is too old to run for another term as president. And that’s exactly what this is. It also plays right into the Republicans’ hands by furthering the narrative that Pres. Biden is too old, but Donald Trump (who, by the way, is only three years younger and in far worse shape) is not.
Pres. Biden didn’t try to overturn an election. Pres. Biden didn’t try to overthrow the U.S. Government. Pres. Biden isn’t facing four criminal indictments. Pres. Biden didn’t call for the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to be killed.
But Pres. Biden does wear sneakers though.
According to Judd Legum, founder of the Popular Information website, “This isn’t a scoop. And it isn’t news. Biden wears shoes and is exercising. This piece was produced because you know it will be circulated on the right to advance its preferred narrative.”
White House spokesperson Andrew Bates responded to the Axios story, “This article fits an unfortunate pattern of media attempting to sensationalize something that has long been public, rather than covering the president’s very real achievements for hardworking Americans.”
Bates noted that Pres. Biden suffers from “significant spinal arthritis and mild post-fracture foot arthritis,” conditions which were disclosed in both the president’s 2021 physical and again in his latest one this year.
While this type of coverage is frustrating for the White House, they are not without a sense of humor (something that was sourly lacking in Trump’s White House).
Bates tweeted (X-ed?) above a photo of White House press staffers showing off their sneakers: “The entire press office is incredibly old. How did we get so old. Matlock is streaming on a loop. What have we done.”