It’s going to be ugly, that much is already clear.

In the few days since Kamala Harris began her 2024 campaign for president, the media has shown us where some of their coverage is headed: no place good.

Both the rightwing and traditional media are making some predictable blunders. Add in the swill that circulates endlessly on the social media platforms, and you’ve got a mess.

Take, for example, the recent coverage of a Republican congressman’s smear of Harris.

“One hundred percent she is a DEI hire,” Tim Burchett of Tennessee said on CNN, using the acronym for “diversity, equity and inclusion” to claim that she is ascending because of her race, not on merit. “Her record is abysmal at best.”

An NBC headline was one of many to hand a giant megaphone to this racist trope: “GOP Rep Tim Burchett calls Kamala Harris a ‘DEI vice-president’.” Plenty of others did the same – parroting and thus amplifying the slur.

Some news organizations added a fig leaf to their coverage, like the Tampa TV station whose headline read: “GOP representative called Harris a ‘DEI hire’: what does this mean?”

There was a more responsible way to go. USA Today, for one, brought helpful context in a piece headlined: “DEI candidate: what’s........

© The Guardian