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Michael Lyle, a reporter in Nevada, knew before the election started that it would be anxiety-inducing, both for the communities he serves and for the nation at large. Since 2010, Lyle has reported in the south of the state, first at the Las Vegas Review-Journal, then, for the past six and a half years, at the Nevada Current, a part of the national States Newsroom network, where he covers politics, homelessness, and housing security. In a 2022 interview on the show Nevada Week in Person, on the PBS station in Las Vegas, he spoke about his reporting on sex trafficking and sex workers in the city, emphasizing a need for more nuance in covering difficult topics and the ability to change one’s mind through reporting. He added, of his approach to journalism, “I think we are so concerned about the illusion of bias that we are sitting on the sidelines.”
Nevada has been name-checked as one of the key battleground states this election. In the past few presidential cycles, the state has gone blue; in 2020, Joe Biden carried it by a margin of thirty-three thousand votes. This year, the polls have flip-flopped as to which party leads the way, with a third of the electorate considering itself independent; the New York Times currently shows it as a tie. Nevada has the second-highest rate of unemployment in the country, at 5.6 percent, and inflation and high housing costs have hit a frustrated population that specifically moved to the state for a better quality of life. Both the Harris and Trump campaigns have found it to be a confounding place to model and predict.
This will be the second presidential election that Lyle has covered as a political reporter, and he credits his on-the-ground experience in the community for his ability to see beyond polls and political posturing. Earlier this week, I spoke with Lyle to gain an insight into what it’s like to report on the presidential election in a swing state, amid a noisy national atmosphere. Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
LW: This is your second presidential election as a political reporter. How do the two compare so far?
ML: The first presidential election that I really covered was during the 2020 pandemic. It was just a whole different beast. We cover more than just campaign season; we cover state and local government, the legislature and city council. There was so much happening on those levels, administratively, to make sure people were surviving the pandemic and staying in their homes. So it was covering campaign season plus covering all these other things.
Outside of the pandemic, is there anything in particular that you’ve noticed has changed in the communities you’re covering?
When I’m not covering politics, I cover housing stability and homelessness, a lot of vulnerable populations. So I really see the by-product of the candidates’ decisions: what [choices] they’re making, what they’re campaigning for, and how that is actually manifesting on the ground for those populations. I know we have these conversations, especially with politicians, who talk about “the missing middle class,” and it’s important, but a lot of the people that are missed are the most vulnerable populations: those that are housing-insecure and at risk of eviction or going through eviction. They’re tuned in, too, but at the same time, the last few years have been so hectic for them, just trying to physically survive. They understand the basics of policies that are making housing a lot more unattainable or making grocery bills a lot higher; they know it very, very intimately at that level. But they may not be catching up on the headlines, like, “What’s happening with inflation?”
One of your recent stories had a headline about Donald Trump making inflated claims about his lead in Nevada. Even in the headline you have a fact-check. In so many ways, as a reporter, you’re caught between these political statements that are being made about the polling data and what you’re seeing on the ground. How do you weigh the statements and the data in your reporting? How do you decide what to prioritize or how to lay it out?
First and foremost, I’m thankful to be part of a staff and part of a news network where we don’t want to “sanewash” the misinformation that’s going out there. [Jon Allsop recently wrote about “sanewashing” for CJR.] We want to be very direct and confront that information. We know that sometimes [candidates] say incorrect information on purpose because the media will latch onto it, then use those headlines to stir up a little bit more disinformation; so Trump says “we’re leading in the polls” and then they get a headline, but that’s not what the polls are really saying. That’s why it’s important to put [the facts] directly in the headline: “This is what he’s saying, but this is the truth.” That way we’re not giving them a talking point.
When comparing your reporting observations with what the polls are saying, are you seeing any differences in the communities you’re talking to?
As a reporter, I do have to talk about some of the polls, but on a personal level I’m so poll-hesitant because it excludes a lot. Here in Nevada, we have a significantly high nonpartisan population. I think a lot of the headlines right now are talking about early voting and how Republicans are turning out stronger in an already neck-and-neck race. It’s giving the appearance of Republicans leading. But there are so many nonpartisan voters that are very, very nuanced in their opinions, and so we could never truly know the way they’re going to vote. After November 5, that’s when we will know the nature of the beast. I’m seeing neck-and-neck polls in my community, but I don’t really trust polling. [It] has been so inaccurate, and it’s been notoriously hard to predict in Nevada.
The more I cover the election, [polls are] taking a backseat to a lot of the other discussions that are happening. It’s more anecdotal than anything, but a lot of people have gotten text messages and phone calls about polls and just straight up ignored them, and a lot of them are Democratic-leaning; they say, I don’t have time for this. It goes back to that first point of people literally just trying to survive in this moment; a lot of them don’t have time to take a poll, even via text message. The people that might have the time and energy might have other privileges that [make them] lean a certain way, and that shows up in polling sometimes.
How do you feel about your own capacity and limits in collecting a decent understanding of the views of the community?
I—we—try our best to get a good picture of the community. Our outlet is only five people; we’re part of a national network, but there are only five staff in Nevada. So a lot of the [reporting that we do] is like drinking from a waterhose. We try our best to listen to community voices, and put that first and foremost and hear what they’re saying, but there definitely are gaps. There are people that don’t talk with us, especially a lot of Republicans that don’t talk to us because they have a view of the media—and they have a view of our publication in particular—that hinders us getting the full picture of everything happening in southern Nevada. But we do try our best to break through. When they do talk to us, we absolutely give them a fair shot.
Is there anything in particular you’re thinking about when you’re approaching a story right now? Is there anything you’re telling yourself, to make sure you hold true to the approach you want to take?
I guess I have two answers to that question. Whenever I listen to any speech or am interviewing candidates, it’s about just making sure I know the facts. When I’m laying out a story, I make sure that I am challenging misinformation. This goes back to the Trump speech and covering some of that misinformation, or even adding context, maybe, to a Harris speech. I am focused on laying it out in a way where I don’t repeat false information.
Second, I’m a housing-stability and homelessness reporter. I hold that in my mind when I’m hearing candidates talk about housing. For the first time in a really long time it has become an issue on the campaign trail, and people are talking about how they want to address this crisis. It has taken decades to get here; it has not just happened overnight, even though people want to manifest that we just mysteriously arrived at a housing crisis. So I stay focused on the gaps in policies and approaches to housing, because what [the candidates] are saying does affect the most vulnerable people that I interview on a regular basis. I am trying to look more at policy. But, in general, it’s hard, because policy is not something that a lot of candidates lead with, unfortunately.
Is there anything I haven’t asked that I should be asking right now?
One thing I wish reporters would know is to ask the question “What do I wish that I knew as a voter?” In [a recent story about J.D. Vance blaming the housing crisis on immigrants], I try to answer that question, because I’ve heard this come up with voters a lot: “Why isn’t Vice President Harris passing these policies?” And there are very logistical reasons why. One answer that I put in the story was that she’s a sitting vice president, which means she does not pass policy. But sometimes it’s important to share an actual breakdown of Congress…there are actual barriers, all these nuances, and I see a lot of voters that aren’t as aware of that breakdown. I think if I were a voter, I would want to know the context of what someone is saying on the campaign trail about why certain policies are and are not being passed.
What else do you think swing-state journalists should focus on in the days ahead, especially when reporting forecasts?
“Do no harm.” I think there’s a natural anxiety among voters. [It’s about] finding the balance between reporting, making people aware of what could be happening in the next week, and the political ramifications of what happens to that coverage over the following months, but also not contributing to people’s anxiety or worsening it. I think the polls were contributing to a lot of anxiety and hand-wringing, just by saying this poll moved, like, half a point for this candidate and half a point for that candidate. The polls don’t really mean anything right now, I don’t think.
I also think we need a measure of grace for ourselves. We are human, and we’re covering a very anxious moment. I’m trying to have more grace for myself, too, because I have been anxiety-prone going into this season and trying to find those moments to take a deep breath and disconnect. That’s what I recommend to other reporters: take a deep breath, step away when you get a second and, while you’re reporting this, don’t fall into the void of anxiety, because we’re needed right now more than ever. Our calling, our profession, is needed right now to shine light. We can’t do that if we’re in a hole. We can’t do that if we fall down this anxious hole and we can’t get back up.
Other notable stories:
- During a meeting yesterday, Matt Murray, the executive editor of the Washington Post, told staff that he doesn’t know how many subscribers have canceled since Jeff Bezos, the paper’s owner, vetoed its endorsement of Harris last week, and that even if he did know, he’d be reluctant to say more for fear of leaks; later, Elahe Izadi, who covers the media for the Post, reported that the figure is at least two hundred and fifty thousand. Elsewhere, Gannett, the biggest newspaper chain in the US, said that its titles, including USA Today, won’t be endorsing in the presidential race either. And the San Francisco Press Club said that it would give its first ever Integrity in Journalism Award to Mariel Garza, who quit as editorials editor at the LA Times after that paper’s owner, Patrick Soon-Shiong, likewise scrapped a planned Harris endorsement. (Garza spoke with CJR last week.)
- For CJR, Jeff Jarvis explores why so many “once-devoted liberal readers as well as experienced journalists” are frustrated with mainstream political coverage. “The critiques follow common themes,” Jarvis writes, including “false equivalence” and “sanewashing.” Jarvis doesn’t believe that “journalists at the Times, the Post, CNN, or NPR are in the tank for Trump” and “will not cancel my subscriptions, for I both want to support the good and necessary journalism still produced there and to stay on the case of these institutions,” he writes. “But I am disappointed in them, and often angry, particularly at editors, whose job it is to write headlines, decide which stories get promoted, and provide a sense of context and urgency. I wonder what is happening inside.”
- In other news about the media business, the union representing staffers at the Baltimore Sun said that the paper has axed its entire features section, reassigning its staff to news roles, a move that the union described as “draconian” and “demoralizing.” Elsewhere, Andrea Mitchell, NBC’s long-serving chief foreign affairs correspondent and chief Washington correspondent, will give up her daytime show on MSNBC early next year to devote more time to on-the-ground reporting. And Meta joined the ranks of companies doing AI-related deals with news organizations, reaching an agreement to use Reuters’s news content to help answer user queries via its AI chatbot; Axios has more details.
- In yesterday’s newsletter, we wrote about a journalistic controversy in Canada, where the Globe and Mail newspaper recently took the unusual step of naming two senior officials who shared sensitive intelligence related to India with the Washington Post while not directly sharing it with the Canadian public. Later yesterday, one of the officials in question confirmed to Parliament that she had spoken with the Post, describing the briefing as part of a strategy to ensure that a major US publication heard Canada’s side of a dispute with India. She insisted that she had not leaked any classified information.
- And for the New York Times, Marie Solis explored how feminist blogs and other women-centric websites might have covered this presidential election—if they were still around. Since Hillary Clinton ran in 2016, several such sites have folded while others focus less on politics or are under new ownership, Solis writes. “Some journalists and readers are bemoaning the lack of online spaces devoted to feminist discussion” given Harris’s embrace of abortion rights and Trump’s appeals to young male voters.
