Why to avoid MSNBC and CNN “chartthrobs” during the 2024 election

I don't have much success in terms of viral fame. On my social media you will find no thirst traps, no meme-inspired Halloween costumes, vanishingly few “dunks,” “prompts,” or other signs of broad audience appeal; Aside from the occasional full-length takedown (Ellen DeGeneres, “Bros”), online I tend to “live-tweet my latest 'Love Is Blind' binge.” But I had a shining moment on Twitter when the platform still had that name.

The day I popularized the term “chartthrobs.”

I was lying in a freezing cold LA apartment with bad bronchitis, glued to the cable news from sunrise to midnight. Before, during, and after Election Day 2020, I spent countless hours watching pranksters like MSNBC's Steve Kornacki and CNN's John King and Phil Mattingly analyze voter turnout: early and in the day, in person and by mail, not just in the mail swing States That determined the result, but also the momentum districtsthe swing districts. By the time I fired up my suitcase replacement for the uninspired “Card Kings,” I had a detailed understanding of voting, batch by batch, that surpassed even my fanatical attention to the 2000 election in eighth grade.

Reader, I'm not going back. And neither should you.

I don't say this because I distrust the analysis on offer or don't like the personalities on screen. In fact it is Because I know how easily I could be lulled into another glassy-eyed week of worrying about outstanding ballots in Philadelphia or Phoenix that I declare office early and publicly. I've just come to the conclusion that there's too much information at your fingertips – or at least too much to see the forest for the trees.

Because what I remember most from election week 2020 isn't the knowledge I gathered about the partisan value of certain forms of voting or the suburban districts that represented the divide in the electorate, knowledge that would already seem outdated just one cycle later appears. It's the feeling of fear fueled by the constant accusations against Kornacki or King with each subsequent earnings release, similar to the compulsive updating of social media during a mass shooting or natural disaster. Which overall would have been a way to follow the story, stay abreast of events, and do my part as a well-informed citizen who fell into addictive, unhealthy behavior. It might even have been counterproductive: As an editor, I regularly warn writers about the pitfalls of over-reporting, where the proliferation of details can cloud understanding rather than create it.

That's not the fault of the chartthrobs themselves, though. They're tasked with reporting and analyzing the data as it becomes available to them, and I have no doubt they'll do so with the same aplomb this cycle in the last. The problem is the incentive mechanism that results in media platforms, whether Instagram, Netflix or CNN, giving users only what they are algorithmically likely to want, in quantities far in excess of what is necessary to entertain or educate . This time around, networks are actively tapping into the Chartthrobs phenomenon to entice, or perhaps trap, audiences: MSNBC's “Kornacki Cam” will have its own Election Night livestream as part of the platform's Olympics-inspired “Multiview.” Set up on Peacock. programming, while John King's “magic wall” will be available to users of CNN's news app.

Most viewers of real-time election coverage are probably of legal age and can make their own decisions both in prime time and at the ballot box. If the hyperpolarization of American politics and the growing discourse about the habit-forming tendencies of social media are any indication, the reality is that we political nerds are no more willing to set boundaries without structural support than the teenagers glued to their smartphones in recent documentaries shackled are “social studies.” The Chartthrob fixation in 2020 and now only TikTok is for people on the cusp of a midlife crisis: an obsession that seems harmless until you find yourself at the bottom of the rabbit hole sometime around 3 a.m

If we, the media, want to abandon our own preference for horse racing narratives over political analysis to predict the outcome rather than report on what it will mean for our communities, we must first stop the gamification of elections we have set out to do . We have taught media consumers what to expect. And while it may not be traumatic like the New York Times needle or misleading like election betting markets, the increasing prominence of chartthrobs in election coverage nonetheless reflects similar tendencies. That's why I'm considering my counterprogramming options this election week — with regular check-ins with Kornacki, King and others to see where the count stands.

It may be a customs race, but it's still a horse race.