The Washington Post - USA (2020-07-27)

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monday, july 27 , 2020. washingtonpost.com/style eZ re c

How did the news

media mess up in

the 100 days

leading up to the

2016 presidential

election? Let me

count the ways.

Journalists

relied too much

on what opinion polls were

saying and often presented a

skewed interpretation of their

meaning. That fed the sense that

Hillary Clinton would be the

inevitable winner.

They vastly overplayed the

Clinton email story, particularly

the “reopened investigation”

aspect in october. Given Donald

Trump’s background and

behavior, the emphasis was

astonishingly out of whack with

reality.

news organizations failed to

understand the tear-it-all-down

mood of large segments of the

voting public, or the racism and

sexism that often fueled it.

They let Trump, the great

distractor, hijack news coverage

and play assignment editor. He

became the shiny new toy that

they couldn’t take their eyes off.

They glossed over, or didn’t

understand, Facebook’s

monumental influence on the

vote, and how what appeared on

social media was so deeply

affected by forces outside the

United states.

They did things the same old

way, when something quite

different was demanded.

As a result, much of the

mainstream press — and a good

sEE SullIVAN on C3

Five ways

the media

can avoid

2016 errors

Margaret

Sullivan

BY PETER MARKS

Career opportunity on Broad-
way doesn’t begin at the box
office, but in the front office. And
that’s where T. oliver Reid, War-
ren A dams a nd their fellow a dvo-
cates have set their sights in a
campaign to massively increase
black employment in the theater
business.
Their effort — under the ban-
ner of a new organization, the
Black Theatre Coalition — is
already making an impact: When
Broadway resumes, a revival of
the stephen sondheim-George
Furth musical “Company,” star-
ring Patti LuPone and Katrina
Lenk, has committed to hiring 10
young black men and women for
paid internships in every depart-
ment of the 80-person produc-
tion. That means people of color
will get practical training in

everything from stage manage-

ment to costume design.

It’s a first step in redressing an

imbalance in the performing

arts, and many regard it a s

urgently overdue. In their own

research, Reid, a Broadway actor

(“Hadestown,” “once on This Is-

land”) and choreographer Ad-

ams (“Motown the Musical”)

amassed statistics that place the

racial gap in stark relief. out of

3,0 02 musicals and 8,326 plays

since Broadway’s 1866 inception,

a mere 10 directors of musicals,

11 play directors and 17 choreog-

raphers have been black.

“We actually found there was a

detailed and terrifying disparity

offstage,” said Adams, who

founded the coalition with Reid

and philanthropist Reggie Van

Lee. “A nd if you add gender, it’s

even worse.”

sEE ThEATRE on C4

Theater effort addresses

racial disparities offstage

eMilio Madrid

With their new organization, the black Theatre Coalition, T. oliver Reid, left, and Warren Adams aim

to massively increase job opportunities for young black colleagues.

BY ANN HORNADAY

Avengers, assemble!

The campaign video released

by Joe Biden on Thursday, featur-

ing his 15-minute conversation

with former president Barack

obama, opens with the urgency

of self-appointed superheroes

joining forces to save the world.

With its sleek production values

and swift, assured editing, the

video’s initial shots — of the two

men disembarking from black

sUVs, then walking purposefully

down a featureless hallway — also

manages to evoke the stylish, we-

got-this cool of an “ocean’s Elev-

en” sequel. (You know, the one

where George Clooney and the

guys rip off a bland Washington

think tank while wearing strange-

ly sexy-looking masks.)

once the protagonists settle

into obama’s earth-toned office

— an American flag and Muham-

mad Ali’s signed pair of boxing

gloves providing symbolic pops of

color in the expanse between

them — the core agenda of “A

socially Distanced Conversation:

President Barack obama and

Vice President Joe Biden” comes

into focus. This will be an earnest,

talky two-hander: just a couple of

guys chopping it up about public

health crises, economic distress,

racism, policing and their efforts

sEE NoTEbook on C3

critic’s Notebook

Cinematic

savvy from

Biden and

Obama

BY JADA YUAN

NEW YORK — The city’s hottest primary election is the 12th

Congressional District.

In one corner, you have Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney, a pal of

House speaker nancy Pelosi’s who has been in Congress since

1993 and was recently elected chair of the House oversight

Committee. In t he other is suraj Patel, a former obama campaign

staffer and attorney who has never held public office and helped

run his family’s business constructing and franchising hotels in

the Midwest before moving to new York in 2006.

Their contest has everything. The Upper East side. The Lower

East side. A tenacious, white, wealthy 74-year-old Democratic

incumbent. A 36-year-old Indian American challenger who has

taught at new York University’s business school and aims to be

the state’s first south Asian representative in Congress. Just 648

in-person votes are separating them, with 65,000 mail-in ballots

still being counted. And an entire district of 718,000 people

across three boroughs has no idea who its next representative

will be — a full month after Election Day.

“It’s been dysfunctional to the extreme,” said Brian Van

nieuwenhoven, treasurer of the samuel J. Tilden Democratic

Club in the district.

A t the center of this mess is a massive influx of mail-in ballots

— 403,000 returned ballots in the city this cycle vs. 23,000 that

were returned and determined valid during the 2016 primary —

and a system wholly unprepared to process them. It’s not just

delayed results that are at issue: In the 12th District and in the

primaries across the country, t ens of thousands of mail-in ballots

sEE bAlloTS on C2

In N.Y., an ominous mail-in mess

Votes are still being counted in a close New York City primary. The reasons could matter this fall.

WilliaM Mebane for the Washington Post

Volunteers watch as a New York City board of Elections official holds up a mail-in ballot for review at a

canvassing site last week. “It’s been dysfunctional to the extreme,” said brian Van Nieuwenhoven,

treasurer of the Samuel J. Tilden Democratic Club, of the massive influx of mail-in ballots.

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