Hyperbolic headlines are not exclusive to news about Donald Trump–even local elections get the clickbait treatment.
Over the years, I’ve written many, many articles about bias, sloppy reporting, and outright lies in the news media. Usually it comes from journalists with a left-wing bias, but this article in Newsweek is absurd in the opposite direction.
“Republicans Annihilate Democrats in Virginia Election Sweep,” it proclaims. “Republicans scored massive victories in elections held in Virginia on Tuesday, returning two GOP politicians to local legislature following the departure of the incumbents.”
Um, no, that’s not what happened.
Two Republicans won special elections in the Virginia 9th State Senate and 48th House districts, replacing two incumbent Republicans in districts that are already heavily Republican. They basically had zero chance of losing.
The article’s author, Kate Plummer, who is based in London but writes about U.S. politics for some reason, joined Newsweek in 2023.
She acknowledges towards the bottom of the article (of course) that this election changes nothing about the political environment in Virginia. The state legislature is still controlled by Democrats. All that happened was two Republicans replaced two Republicans.
So these weren’t “massive victories” by any stretch of the imagination. And what’s with the use of “annihilate” in the headline? It sounds like something you would write about a football game, not an election.
I suspect this article was written to draw clicks from Republicans desperate for some good news in Virginia. Republican voters were energized and optimistic about the 2023 state election, but were severely disappointed when Democrats flipped the legislature.
Newsweek has added a “fairness meter” to the bottom of its articles, which readers can use to rate an article from “Unfair left leaning” to “Unfair right leaning” and somewhere in-between. It’s a feature I appreciate, and I wish other outlets would incorporate it. However, “fair” or “unfair” doesn’t really capture the problem with this article. It should include an option for “truthful” or “fake”.
M.A. Kleen 