Linked List: November 7, 2020

Saturday, 7 November 2020

The Talk Show: Holiday Party 2020 ★

Another election. A different result. Let’s talk around it.

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Twitter and Facebook Assert Biden’s Victory ★

Mike Isaac, in the NYT’s live coverage:

Facebook put a notification atop its apps that said that Joe Biden was projected as the winner. It will appear for hundreds of millions of Americans on Facebook and Instagram.

Twitter has added an announcement in its “Explore” tab that Biden has been projected as the winner of the election, pointing to news outlets.

Twitter and Facebook are learning their role in how media both shapes and articulates reality, in an era when one side of our nation’s political divide has a real problem accepting what is real vs. what they want to be real. You can tweet and post what you want, but the reality is Biden beat Trump.

Biden Beats Trump ★

Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns, The New York Times:

Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. was elected the 46th president of the United States on Saturday, promising to restore political normalcy and a spirit of national unity to confront raging health and economic crises, and making Donald J. Trump a one-term president after four years of tumult in the White House. […]

The result also provided a history-making moment for Mr. Biden’s running mate, Senator Kamala Harris of California, who will become the first woman to serve as vice president.

What a day.

‘Rupert Murdoch-Owned US Outlets Turn on Trump, Urging Him to Act With “Grace”’ ★

Tom McCarthy, writing for The Guardian:

Multiple Rupert Murdoch-owned conservative media outlets in the United States have shifted their messaging in a seeming effort to warn readers and viewers that Donald Trump may well have lost the presidential election.

The new messaging appears to be closely coordinated, and it includes an appeal to Trump to preserve his “legacy” by showing grace in defeat. The message is being carried on Fox News and in the Wall Street Journal and the New York Post – all outlets avidly consumed by Trump himself, especially Fox.

George Washington, father of the nation. Abraham Lincoln, freed the slaves. Donald Trump, grace in defeat. Sure, sounds right.