2024 Election Recap: What the Media Told Us
By Delphine Gardiner, David M. Rothschild
It was an incredibly event-filled election season. Biden and Trump’s first debate led to calls for him to bow out. Then there was an assassination attempt on Trump that led into the Republican National Convention. Then Biden dropped out the following weekend, and Harris quickly consolidated support. Harris picked Walz as her running mate, Harris and Trump debated, and the key storyline from the debate was Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric. And, that only brings us to mid-September.
The timeline below is a visual representation of the top news story each day following the first 2024 Presidential Debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden up until Election Day 2024, showing what the media paid most of their attention to, even as other events unfolded on the same day. We think this is important, because casual news consumers are much more likely to pick up on the top storyline each day as it trickles into the public zeitgeist.
Starting at a higher level, following the 2024 Election, the second and third most covered categories in the last few months were the Middle Eastern Crisis and Natural Disasters. Though not directly related to the Election, the events that fell under these categories were influential in shaping policy focus, as the Israel-Gaza War divided Americans on foreign policy (with lots of concern over Biden’s ability to direct the nature of the war) and Hurricane Milton prompted discussions about climate change.
After Election Day, many Americans said they voted for Trump over their dissatisfaction with the economy, but this doesn’t translate into higher amounts of coverage on the economy throughout Trump’s or Harris’s election campaigns. As seen in the timeline, only one economy-related event dominated headlines for a day, which was Kamala Harris Unveils Economic Proposals for Housing and Tax Relief on August 17, 2024. Even then, this event received little coverage compared to the rest of the events in the 2024 Election category.
Of the events related to the 2024 election what sticks out is how few things garnered 3+ days of dominant coverage: “Biden’s debate disaster” was the top for 9 days, “Trump rally assassination attempt” 5 days, “Biden Exists, Harris Leads” for 3 days, “Harris Picks Waltz” for 3 days, and “Harris vs. Trump Debate” for 3 days (just one day on Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric at the debate). News was very fleeting in the final month of the campaign.
The corporate media chooses what is on the top of the news, and how long it will stay there. These choices impact what people know, and the decisions people make. And, in this election cycle of big events, the media really slowed down just twice, once to drive Biden out of the race and once for the assassination attempt on Trump. That is what they really wanted to make sure you heard.