As the US election unfolds, all eyes are on American media

With the outcome of the US presidential election potentially days or weeks away, there is more pressure on news outlets than ever to get their coverage of the most divisive election in US history right.

Despite the popularity of social media, news outlets remain a go-to source of information for many people in the US, according to survey data from the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism. News consumers are also more likely to trust the media they seek out than what they see on social platforms. If journalists don’t exhibit the patience that they are cautioning their readers to have, both risk jumping to conclusions and spreading misinformation.

“Newsrooms now face some hard choices in how they do their job in the hours, days, and perhaps weeks ahead,” Rasmus Nielsen, the director of the institute, wrote in an email. “We already know from research that news media have been harnessed by Trump and the Republican party in their sustained attempts to question the integrity of mail-in ballots. [They] now risk amplifying false and premature claims of victory and allegations that the election has been ‘stolen’ if they do not handle such claims very carefully.”

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