Examining Alternative Media Coverage of The US Presidential Election
How UK-based alternative media have reacted to events across the pond
By Richard Thomas and Declan McDowell-Naylor
As the US presidential election count continues into its third day, as part of our research project we have been monitoring the reaction to events by alternative media outlets in the UK. Our previous analysis of over 3,400 articles alternative media articles shows that these outlets typically focus their coverage on UK party politics and the media, with much less attention paid to foreign affairs.
However, you may reasonably expect that the extensive coverage of UK party political coverage would extend to that most seismic of political events – a US presidential election. Yet, in contrast to the mainstream media’s wide, rolling coverage and commentary, our ongoing analysis of coverage reveals that the battle for the White House drew a varied response from the UK’s alternative media. In general, the election was made to fit within their usual media practices. In this blog, we pick out some the detail.
Election Night
Election night is a time in which professional journalism turns to special reporting, including the familiar all-night-long election programme. How did the alternative media outlets in the UK cover events?
Among the left leaning alt media sites, Novara Media were by far the most engaged, but generally looked at the election though a “slow”, long-form journalistic approach not necessitating any real time updates. Their posts comprised of some think pieces such as What Will the Outcome of the US Election Mean for the American Left?, Why Do Americans Put up With Their Wildly Undemocratic Political System? and With Joe Biden, There’s Still a Case for Climate Optimism. A fourth story reflected on how events stateside mapped to political landscape in the UK.
On election night, between 7pm and 8.30pm (UK time) The Canary held a live panel discussion on YouTube to explore the implications the US presidential election held for Julian Assange. The Canary did provide one piece of election day analysis suggesting that Donald Trump is reportedly planning to steal the election as soon as the polls close. So, while the US election provided the initial news hook, it was a more marginal part of a different story.
Neither Another Angry Voice, The Skwawkbox, nor Evolve Politics published any significant coverage about the US election. On election night The Skwawkbox, for example, lead with ‘Utter disgrace’: verdict of 3 senior Mandela allies as they launch petition demanding Corbyn’s reinstatement.
Similarly, among the right-wing sites, Westmonster’s front page didn’t mention the election either, focusing instead – as it usually does - on Brexit, and the ongoing negotiations for the UK to leave Europe. The Conservative Woman took a longer form think-piece approach rather than attempting to provide up to date coverage. Its election day offerings on its “Stateside” section included US election: Trump wants to win but Biden needs to, Will Trump burst the pollsters’ bubble? and China is lying in wait for the next US President.
Breitbart, of course, is a brand with a much wider reach but again, as the results began to come in at around midnight, the ongoing events were not featured. Instead, its UK page featured a story about how an Anonymous British Banker Places $5 Million Bet on Donald Trump to Win. Its other US election story on the day itself was Brexit campaigner and Trump ally Nigel Farage toured Washington D.C. showing businesses boarding up in fear of “real violence” if the President is re-elected. While this did give some coverage of the day’s events, as suggested by the title, it was mainly a wider reflection by the former leader of UKIP. Breitbart is different positioned to the other sites in our sample, and unsurprisingly, its US page featured wall-to-wall, real time coverage of the increasingly tight contest between Trump and Biden.
Guido Fawkes, however, took a different approach, and stayed true to its mission statement to provide “tomorrow’s news today”. Guido often provided results ahead of the BBC’s updates of the election results and forecasts. Of the alternative media sites we examine in our project, only Guido Fawkes attempted to make any real time interventions into the breaking news landscape and did so in a way that demonstrated the triumph of social media logics over broadcast logics when it comes to breaking news. The quest to be first of course, does sometimes result in a misstep here and there, but any premature announcements gleaned from network coverage were corrected via tweets.
Post-election Night Coverage
As the election wore into its second day, there was an uptick in alternative media coverage.
Novara Media added to its commentary on its regular broadcast show #TyskySour, on which Michael Walker and Aaron Bastani interviewed Nomiki Konst and Sarah Jaffe (the latter from Pennsylvania) for analysis on the race. The show included clips from Joe Biden and Donald Trump, projections of the election map, and voter breakdowns, all used as the basis for analysis. In addition to election night output, the US presidential election did not cause Novara Media to deviate from its usual routines, but instead incorporate the election into them.
Similarly, The Canary inserted more US coverage into its usual range of UK party political coverage. Throughout the 4th, The Canary published seven US election articles, including an article that reported and challenged Trump’s claims about election fraud and updated readers on the race. Examination of the articles suggests that the US election serves as an initial news hook for the outlet’s left-wing range of coverage.
On social media, both Another Angry Voice and Evolve Politics were much more active, publishing their running commentary of events. The Skwawkbox maintained its firm focus on domestic UK party politics, and the machinations within the Labour party in particular, as supporters of Jeremy Corbyn express outage at his recent suspension and a general dissatisfaction with Kier Starmer. Its sole link to the election was a critical report on Lisa Nandy for her support of Biden.
Westmonster published two significant interventions on the 4th, in which Michael Heaver (the sites editor) announced “Trump Declares Victory, Polls Wrong AGAIN, Establishment Rocked!” in one of his usual YouTube posts. Later in the day, another video, titled “Trump Campaign Predict Win, Attention Turns To Arizona In Tight Race”.
Thus, with time, alternative media outlets have attempted to intervene in the coverage further than they did on election night itself.
Conclusions
So, what can we conclude regarding the alt-media's coverage of the US election? The story itself of course, will take days and perhaps weeks to unfold, given the suggestions of legal challenges.
But one easy takeaway before even all the vote counting was completed is the confirmation that alternative media are far more varied than their mainstream counterparts in how they provide coverage. In general alternative media have not routinely made any significant interventions into the US election, and when they have, the process and outcome is invariably viewed through a UK prism. Once again, there is little evidence that the US presidential election causes these outlets to alter their usual routines. Overall, what appears to have happened is that the election has been suited to their usual coverage and agendas.
Some of that of course, can be explained simply by resources available. While The Canary for example, have a wider roster of contributors, others like Another Angry Voice rely on a much narrower range of people providing their content. Breaking news, especially international news, requires resources that are simply beyond some of the outlets in our sample. They are, after all, alternative media sites, not established legacy news brands.
But perhaps a more pertinent question is, why should they provide such interventions? Though, as we have suggested, they are a heterogenous group, one thing they have in common is that they are upfront and transparent about their partisanship and their news focus. None of them (part from Breitbart) claims to be a provider of international news, even with the biggest of stories - a US presidential election. The left-wing sites are currently preoccupied with the Corbyn/Starmer story, and therefore make no bones about such a tight focus. That story is reaching a crescendo, and so it seems logical that it should continue to dominate their news agendas. In that respect, all these sites could be perceived as being true to their clearly stated intentions; they are seeking to provide alternative coverage of UK politics.
