DEERFIELD — In the highly politicized environment of 2024, the role of the press is as heavily scrutinized as it has ever been, and in an effort to shed some light on the media’s role in covering politics, Deerfield Academy hosted a special fall edition of the annual Deerfield Forum.

With “How Does the Press Shape American Elections?” the private school welcomed Wall Street Journal White House reporter Annie Linskey, Politico national political correspondent Meridith McGraw, and New York University professor and press critic Jay Rosen on Wednesday for a discussion on journalistic bias, the pursuit for truth in the age of misinformation and the changing dynamics of the flow of information. The panel was moderated by Deerfield Academy’s Brian Hamilton, chair of the History and Social Science Department.

The Deerfield Forum is typically an annual spring event held by the school to promote civic engagement, but school leadership saw the upcoming presidential election as an opportunity to host a fall event for this school year.

One of the first topics covered was if there is bias in journalism, and if so, how does that relate to the goal of pursuing the truth. The answer from all three panelists was yes.

Each journalist, as McGraw put it, carries “our own life experiences with us,” but those implicit biases shouldn’t interfere with putting out a story. She also noted there are numerous guardrails in place at news organizations, such as rules against publishing single-source stories and articles being read by multiple editors to ensure bias is not present.

“I think the idea of being purely unbiased is sort of a challenging idea,” McGraw said, “and yet, I do think that as journalists we really try hard, as Annie was saying, to approach things with the idea that truth is the guiding light in all that you do.”

“There have always been magazines, newspapers, monthlies that have a distinct point of view. It is definitely possible to have a distinct point of view and be a good journalist who observes imperatives like accuracy and fairness and, frankly, intellectual honesty,” Rosen said. He and Linskey both noted the Wall Street Journal, for example, has a business and financial focus with a typically conservative-leaning audience. “Even the best journalists, or let’s say the most careful journalists, are still involved in some kind of bias, which includes things like judgment on what a good story is. … It’s an extremely complex subject and reducing it to, ‘You’re biased versus you’re not,’ really doesn’t help anybody understand journalism.”

The subject of social media algorithms, how people get their news and the proliferation of echo chambers — a social media phenomenon where people only see beliefs or conversations reinforcing their personal convictions — also came up, as Linskey and McGraw noted their observation that often, people only want to read articles reaffirming their world views.

“I think that is one of the biggest changes that I’ve seen in my 20 years in journalism, is this idea that readers and people who consume the news are becoming more and more interested in learning facts and narratives that support something they already believe and they’re becoming increasingly resistant to stories that challenge their existing beliefs,” Linskey said. “I do increasingly hear from people who, they just want to hear more about what they believe in and they’re upset when they read a story that somehow challenges the world as they want it to be. And that can be counter-productive to their partisan views.”

The two reporters also shared their experience of working on the campaign trail, which went through a particularly turbulent time this summer when President Joe Biden stepped away from his reelection bid and Vice President Kamala Harris suddenly became the presumptive — and eventually confirmed — nominee for the Democratic Party.

“Part of the challenge is there was a switcheroo at the top of one of the two tickets, so that creates a little unsteadiness,” Linskey said. “The dynamics shifted so intensely and I think the Trump campaign, which Meridith could speak more to, had to go through a phase of retooling for a new candidate, but honestly, the press corps did, too. … Vice President Harris is a completely different person and there was a sudden thirst for stories about her, about her biography, who she was, how’d she be different from Biden.”

In closing the discussion, the panelists were asked to reflect on the current landscape of political journalism, as well as its future, with artificial intelligence and the dystopian concept of deepfakes beginning to make their way into the political realm. While some of the potential issues are chilling, Linskey and McGraw said there is plenty of opportunity for the media and the next generation to prepare.

“It starts in the classroom, from being educated, from your history class to your science class, to being well-informed about the world and have a really good foundation, so that when you do go out, you are able to discern what is a fact,” McGraw said. “I think just being a really good reader is so essential. Reading from different news outlets, being informed about the world, all of that is so important.”

“Right now, disinformation, misinformation and factlessness are winning,” Rosen added in closing. “They are winning and we will see if we can come back and reverse that. I don’t know the answer for that.”

Chris Larabee can be reached at clarabee@recorder.com.