Tag: Amy Klobuchar

Illinois seeks to bolster community journalism. Plus, a local news round-up.

The Illinois Statehouse. Photo (cc) 2023 by Warren LeMay.

Illinois lawmakers this week unveiled a massive package aimed at bolstering local news. According to Mark Caro of the Local News Initiative, based at Northwestern University in Chicago, the package comprises two separate bills:

The Journalism Preservation Act would require Big Tech companies such as Google and Facebook to compensate news organizations for the content that they share, display or link to on their platforms. The Strengthening Community Media Act offers a broad array of incentives, tax breaks and scholarships intended to repopulate local newsrooms. Included in that bill is a provision that calls for 120 days’ written notice before a local news organization may be sold to an out-of-state company.

As I’ve said before, I’m less than enthusiastic about going after the tech platforms, which presupposes that they are somehow stealing journalistic content without paying for it. Facebook executives have made it clear that they can live quite nicely without news. With respect to Google, media outlets find themselves in the awkward situation of demanding compensation while at the same time depending on the search giant to drive traffic to their websites. Indeed, any one of them could insert a simple line of code in their sites that would make them invisible to Google. None of them does. I would like to see Google and Facebook do more for local news, and maybe it ought to be mandated. But this bill seems like too much of a blunt instrument, as does similar legislation being pushed by Sen. Amy Klobuchar at the federal level.

The second Illinois bill includes a number of different ideas. I particularly like the proposed requirement for a 120-day notification period. As Steven Waldman, the president of Rebuild Local News, said recently on the podcast “E&P Reports,” a mandatory delay can give communities time to rally and prevent their local newspaper from falling into the hands of chain ownership.

Other provisions of the Strengthening Community Media Act would mandate that state agencies advertise with local news outlets, provide tax credits to publishers for hiring and retaining journalists, enact additional tax credits for small businesses that advertise with local outlets, and create scholarships for students who agree to work at a local Illinois news organization for two years or more.

It’s good to see action taking place at the state level given that several federal proposals in recent years have gone nowhere despite bipartisan support. It’s also notable that the proposals were drafted by Illinois’ Local Journalism Task Force, which was created in August 2021. Here in Massachusetts, legislation was signed by then-Gov. Charlie Baker way back in January 2021 to create a commission that would study local news. I had a hand in drafting that legislation and would be one of its members, but the commission has yet to get off the ground.

There are several other developments in local news that are worth taking note of.

• Gannett is making a $2 million investment in its Indianapolis Star aimed at bolstering the newsroom and the advertising sales staff. Two top Gannett executives recently appeared on “E&P Reports” about Gannett’s plans to reinvest in its properties. Unfortunately, Holly V. Hayes of the Indy Star writes, “This is the only site in the USA TODAY Network, which includes more than 200 local publications across the country, where such an investment is being made.” My hope is that if the investment leads to a boost in circulation and revenues, then it will serve as a model for what Gannett might do elsewhere.

• A new hyperlocal news project has made its debut in Boston. The Seaport Journal, a digital news outlet, covers the city’s newest neighborhood. Meanwhile, the Marblehead Beacon, one of three independent projects covering that town, has announced that it’s ending regular coverage but will continue to “pursue periodic and unique pieces, and shift away from daily, weekly, or otherwise regular articles.” A reminder: We track independent local news organizations in Massachusetts, and you can find a link to our list in the upper right corner of this website. Just look for “Mass. Indy News.”

• Local access cable television plays an important role in community journalism by carrying public meetings, providing a platform for residents to make their own media, and, in some cases, by covering the news directly. Unfortunately, cord-cutting has placed access television at risk since stations’ income is based on a fee assessed to cable providers for each subscriber. In CommonWealth Beacon, Caleb Tobin, a production technician at Holbrook Community Access and media and a junior at Stonehill College, argues in favor of Massachusetts legislation that would impose a 5% fee on streaming services. “While often viewed as a relic of the past,” Tobin writes, “the services that cable access stations provide are more important now than they’ve ever been.”

• Many thanks to Tara Henley, host of the Canadian podcast “Lean Out,” who interviewed Ellen Clegg and me about our book, “What Works in Community News.” You can listen here.

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A new study argues that Google and Facebook should be paying billions for news

Photo (cc) 2013 by Robbie Shade

A new study argues that Google and Facebook should be paying U.S. news publishers between $11.9 billion and $13.9 billion a year for the use of their journalism. Of that total, Facebook owes $1.9 billion and Google between $10 billion and $12 billion. That’s a lot of money. By way of comparison, the recently announced Press Forward philanthropic initiative seeks to raise $500 million to support nonprofit local news over the next five years.

An overview of the study, conducted by researchers at the University of Houston, Columbia University and the Brattle Group, an international consulting firm, was published Monday in The Conversation. “Digital platforms benefit from having varied, credible and timely news content provided by publishers,” write two of the four reseachers, Anya Schiffrin and Haaris Mateen. “This enhances user engagement and makes their platform more attractive to advertisers. News publishers benefit by finding an avenue through which they can distribute their content, thereby reaching more readers.”

The study itself, which is based on “game theoretical insights into cooperative bargaining in cases where value is jointly created,” argues that the platforms and news publishers should split the revenue generated by that mutually beneficial relationship on a 50-50 basis rather than allowing the platforms to keep virtually all of it, as is now the case. “We document that Google and Facebook are making payments to publishers around the world that are vastly below our estimates of a ‘fair payment,’” they write.

The study looks at an Australian law passed several years ago that mandated such revenue sharing. The authors also note that the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act, whose principal sponsor is U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., would establish similar payments by forcing the giant platforms to negotiate with publishers for a share of their revenue.

Ben Smith, writing in Semafor, observes that attempts to extract money from the platforms came about because efforts to support news with digital advertising hit a dead end. “The drive to force digital platforms to pay news publishers came after a decade in which publishers chased online ad revenue generated by traffic from social and search platforms — only to find that clicks simply couldn’t underwrite the cost of quality journalism,” according to Smith, who adds: “The new study will be a cudgel for regulators looking to squeeze Meta and (especially) Google.”

The question is whether anything is likely to happen and, more important, if the push for platform revenues is coming too late. The platforms don’t look quite as powerful today as they did a few years ago. Google is currently on trial in a massive antitrust case over its ubiquitous search engine. Moreover, after Canada passed a revenue-sharing law, Facebook simply withdrew all news content, and Google has threatened to do the same.

I’ve long argued that lawsuits filed by news publishers over Google’s ad tech are a more promising route to getting some money out of the platforms. About 200 newspapers are suing Google, claiming that the platform’s control of all aspects of the digital advertising market has driven ad prices through the floor to Google’s benefit. The publishers are also suing Facebook, claiming that Google and Facebook colluded illegally. Separately, Gannett is suing Google, but not Facebook.

The new study takes an interesting look at the extent of the damage that Google and Facebook have caused the news business, but I don’t see how that translates into actual revenues for news — especially with Facebook and Google signaling that they’re willing to walk away from news altogether rather than pay.

The ad-tech cases, on the other hand, are grounded in well-established law banning monopolistic practices that cause harm. Google and Facebook have made it impossible for anyone to extract more than a pittance from digital advertising. That’s fine with the platforms because of their massive scale — but it doesn’t work for news outlets, especially small, local enterprises, because they need more than pennies to pay for quality journalism in their communities.

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Catching up on some stories about local news that you might have missed

I don’t do this very often, but there are a number of important stories in local journalism that are flying by, and I want to put down a marker. No need to go into detail — just click on the links to find out more.

  • California sets aside $25 million in government money to support local journalism.
    • The move follows the creation of the New Jersey Civic Information Consortium, which this year will distribute $3 million for specific projects such as a plan to expand news coverage across Jersey City; an online radio program in Creole for the Haitian community; and an oral history on efforts to clean up drinking water in Newark.
    • Unlike New Jersey, the California initiative will be used to pay reporting fellows from the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism to cover under-represented communities.
  • The Journalism Competition and Preservation Act, which would set aside antitrust law to allow news organizations to bargain collectively with Google and Facebook for compensation, was dealt a huge setback.
    • U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, succeeded in adding an amendment that would make it more difficult for news organizations to moderate comments. The lead sponsor of the bill, Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., responded by withdrawing the legislation but said she’ll be back.
    • LION (Local Independent Online News) Publishers and a number of organizations came out in opposition to the proposal, calling it “ill-advised” and “enormously problematic.” A similar law in Australia has been criticized for lining the pockets of large publishers — mainly Rupert Murdoch — while doing little for smaller players.
  • Google News Showcase, touted as a source of revenue for news outlets whose content would be featured, has been stalled because the giant platform has been unable to reach agreements with several key publishers.
    • Gannett, the country’s largest newspaper chain, was offered $6 million a year to feature journalism from its flagship USA Today  as well as its local papers, according to The Wall Street Journal. Gannett’s reported counter-demand: $300 million.
  • Speaking of Gannett, a nauseating development has surfaced in a sexual-abuse lawsuit against the company’s Democrat & Chronicle newspaper in Rochester, New York.
    • According to the independent Rochester Beacon, the company is arguing that seven former newspaper carriers who say they were molested by a supervisor should have filed for workers’ compensation at the time the alleged abuse took place.
    • The carriers were 11 and 12 years old at the time of the alleged incidents.

Congress is talking once again about making Google and Facebook pay for news

Sen. Amy Klobuchar is a lead sponsor of the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act. Photo (cc) 2019 by Gage Skidmore.

A bill that could force Google and Facebook to fork over billions of dollars to local news outlets has lurched back to life. The Journalism Competition and Preservation Act, or JCPA, would allow publishers to negotiate as a bloc with the two giant tech platforms, something that would normally be prohibited because of antitrust concerns. The proposal would exclude the largest publishers and, as Rick Edmonds notes at Poynter Online, would lead to binding arbitration if the two sides can’t reach an agreement.

The legislation’s cosponsors in the Senate are Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., and John Kennedy, R-La.; the House cosponsors are David Cicilline, D-R.I., and Ken Buck, R-Colo. That bipartisan support means the bill might actually be enacted. But is it a good idea?

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The premise on which the legislation is built is that Google and Facebook should pay fair compensation for repurposing the news content that they use. This strikes me as being much more straightforward with Google than with Facebook. Google’s mission is to index all the world’s knowledge, including journalism; Facebook is a social network, many of whose users post links to news stories. Facebook isn’t nearly as dependent on journalism as Google is and, in fact, has down-ranked it on several occasions over the years.

Google’s responsibility isn’t entirely clear, either. Yes, it links to news stories and publishes brief snippets. But it’s not a zero-sum situation — there’s no reason to believe that Google is depriving news publishers of traffic. It’s more likely that Google is pushing users to news sites and, with the rise of paywalls, may even be boosting subscriptions for local news outlets. Still, you could make a philosophical argument that Google ought to pay something because it benefits from having access to journalism, regardless of whether that deprives news outlets of any revenues.

A similar law in Australia has brought in $140 million, Edmonds reports. But critics have complained that the law’s main effect has been to further enrich Rupert Murdoch, still the leading press baron in his native country.

The JCPA should not be confused with the Local Journalism Sustainability Act, or LJSA, which would provide three tax credits for local news outlets — one for subscribers, who would get to write off news subscriptions on their taxes; one for advertisers; and one for publishers for hiring and retaining journalists. As Steve Waldman, chair of the Rebuild Local News Coalition, recently told us on the “What Works” podcast, this last provision is especially powerful because it would provide an incentive to do the right thing even at bottom-feeding chains owned by Alden Global Capital and Gannett.

Despite bipartisan support, the LJSA ran aground last year when President Biden split off the publishers’ credit and added it to the doomed Build Back Better bill. Perhaps it will be revived.

Is either measure needed in order to revive local news? What Ellen Clegg and I have found in the course of reporting for our book-in-progress, also called “What Works,” is that many independent local and regional news organizations across the country, nonprofit and for-profit alike, are doing reasonably well without government assistance. Since both the JCPA and the LJSA would be time-limited, maybe it’s worth giving them a try to see what the effects will ultimately be. But neither one of them will save local news — nor is it clear that local news needs saving once you remove the dead hand of corporate chain ownership.

Government ideas to help ease the local news crisis may be fizzling out

Photo (cc) 2007 by weirdisnothing

Less than a year ago, it looked like the federal government might be ready to pass legislation aimed at addressing the local news crisis. The ideas in play were far from perfect, but they might have provided some needed assistance, at least for the short term. Now those proposals appear to be all but dead.

Rick Edmonds, who analyzes the news business for Poynter, wrote recently that the Local Journalism Sustainability Act, or LJSA, seems likely to fall victim to Washington’s dysfunctional political environment.

The LJSA would create three tax credits for a period of five years. One would allow news consumers to write off the cost of subscriptions on their taxes. Another would be aimed at businesses that advertise in local news outlets, and a third would subsidize publishers who hire or retain journalists.

Late last year, though, the credit for publishers was broken off and added to the Build Back Better bill, which died because of intransigence on the part of all 50 Republicans plus Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin. As Edmonds observes, the LJSA could be revived and considered as a discrete piece of legislation. But, he writes, “separate breakout legislation would need to go through committees and get 60 votes. A subsidy for journalism is probably not so popular as to command those 10 added votes.”

Meanwhile, another Democratic senator, Amy Klobuchar, is pushing a bill that would allow the news business to bargain with Facebook and Google to share some of their ad revenues. That bill, dubbed the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act, or JCPA, is modeled after a law adopted in Australia. But the JCPA may also be dead on arrival, Edmonds reports, as Republican Sen. Mike Lee has trashed it by saying that “the last thing we should do is to accept a cartel — or create one — colluding against a business partner.”

Yet a third bill sponsored by Democratic Rep. Mark DeSaulnier may prove less controversial. The DeSaulnier legislation would make it easier for a for-profit news organization to convert to nonprofit status, something that is currently not covered by the IRS code. But given that the IRS has shown quite a bit of willingness to approve such conversions in recent years, the effect of that particular proposal may be minimal. (Disclosure: I had a hand in drafting the DeSaulnier legislation.)

As I said, these proposals are problematic. The LJSA would reward corporate chain owners along with independent operators, thus subsidizing a model that has failed to provide communities with news and information they need. In Australia, the revenue-sharing scheme with Google and Facebook has mainly served to further enrich Rupert Murdoch.

There is no substitute for innovation and passion at the local level. Still, given the dire straits in which local news finds itself, a helping hand from the government would be welcome. Sadly, it doesn’t look like it’s going to happen.

Help local news? Sure. Force Google and Facebook to pay? Probably not.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar meets a fan in Iowa. Photo (cc) 2019 by Gage Skidmore.

For years now, news executives have been complaining bitterly that Google and Facebook repurpose their journalism without paying for it. Now it looks like they might have an opportunity to do something about it.

Earlier this week a Senate subcommittee chaired by Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., heard testimony about the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act (JCPA), sponsored by her and Sen. John Kennedy, R-La. The bill would allow representatives of the news business to bargain collectively over a compensation package with Google and Facebook without running afoul of antitrust laws. If they fall short, an arbitrator would impose a settlement.

“These big tech companies are not friends to journalism,” said Klobuchar, according to an account of the hearing by Gretchen Peck of the trade magazine Editor & Publisher. “They are raking in ad dollars while taking news content, feeding it to their users, and refusing to offer fair compensation.”

There’s no question that the local news ecosystem has fallen apart, and that technology has a lot to do with it. (So do the pernicious effects of corporate and hedge-fund ownership, which has imposed cost-cutting that goes far beyond what’s necessary to run a sustainable business.) But is the JCPA the best way to go about it?

The tech giants themselves have been claiming for years that they provide value to news organizations by sending traffic their way. True, except that the revenues brought in by digital advertising have plummeted over the past two decades. A lawsuit brought by newspaper publishers argues that the reason is Google’s illegal monopoly over digital advertising, cemented by a secret deal with Facebook not to compete.

Though Google and Facebook deny any wrongdoing, the lawsuit strikes me as a more promising strategy than the JCPA, which raises some serious questions about who would benefit. A similar law in Australia has mainly served to further enrich Rupert Murdoch.

Writing at Nieman Lab, Joshua Benton argues, among other things, that simply taxing the technology companies and using the money to fund tax subsidies for local news would be a better solution. Benton cites one provision of the Build Back Better legislation — a payroll tax deduction for hiring and retaining journalists.

In fact, though, the payroll provision is just one of three tax credits included in the Local Journalism Sustainability Act; the others would reward subscribers and advertisers. I have some reservations about using tax credits in a way that would indiscriminately reward hedge-fund owners along with independent operators. But I do think it’s worth a try.

Even though local news needs a lot of help, probably in the form of some public assistance, it strikes me that the Klobuchar-Kennedy proposal is the least attractive of the options now on the table.

Kathleen Kingsbury: Endorsing two candidates confused Times readers

Kathleen Kingsbury. Photo via The New York Times.

The Nieman Journalism Lab’s Sarah Scire last week spoke with The New York Times’ recently named opinion editor, Kathleen Kingsbury. It’s an interesting conversation that defies easy summary, but I was struck that Kingsbury now says she and the Times “ended up confusing people” when they endorsed two presidential candidates, Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar, in last year’s Democratic primaries.

More than anything, I think Kingsbury represents steady leadership after the tumultuous James Bennet era, often caricatured as coming to an abrupt end over the infamous op-ed by Sen. Tom Cotton but that was in fact — as Scire points out — punctuated by numerous lapses in judgment. Kingsbury demonstrated that steadiness last week when she killed a piece by columnist Bret Stephens. If the commentary, an n-word-filled defense of Don McNeil, had run, critics would be wondering if Kingsbury were up to the position. (Stephens’ point, such as it was, is that it ought to be considered acceptable to quote others using the n-word as long as there was no racist intent.)

I was also interested to see that Kingsbury and publisher A.G. Sulzberger “tend to talk daily.” The rule of thumb for good publishers is that they should stay out of the newsroom but that involvement in the opinion section is appropriate. John and Linda Henry are certainly involved in The Boston Globe’s opinion operation. On the other hand, Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos is known to be as hands-off with opinion as he is with news coverage. Sulzberger is entitled to have his say, but maybe he ought to back off and let Kingsbury do her job.

I had a long interview with Kingsbury several years ago, when she was the Globe’s managing editor for digital. She struck me then as capable and creative. The Times’ gain was definitely the Globe’s loss.

Correction: Kingsbury objected to my original characterization that she had said the Times made a mistake by not endorsing just one of the Democratic candidates. “I still believe choosing the two candidates was the right thing to do,” she says. I’ve updated this post to reflect that.

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My half-hearted argument in favor of The New York Times’ double endorsement

I’m not going to try to defend The New York Times’ decision to punt and endorse two Democratic candidates for president.

In watching the endorsement process play out Sunday night on “The Weekly,” it seemed to me that the editorial board members’ main goal was to stop the frontrunner, Joe Biden, whom they see as too old and too vague. By endorsing both Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar, the Times diluted the boost it might have given to Warren, who is — along with Bernie Sanders — the strongest challenger to Biden.

But if you read the entire 3,400-word editorial, you’ll find a semi-respectable argument for the double endorsement at the very end:

There will be those dissatisfied that this page is not throwing its weight behind a single candidate, favoring centrists or progressives. But it’s a fight the party itself has been itching to have since Mrs. Clinton’s defeat in 2016, and one that should be played out in the public arena and in the privacy of the voting booth. That’s the very purpose of primaries, to test-market strategies and ideas that can galvanize and inspire the country.

Essentially the Times sees itself as endorsing candidates in two separate Democratic primaries — the progressive primary and the moderate primary. Seen in this light, the Times is hoping ahead of the Feb. 3 Iowa caucuses to give a boost to Warren against Sanders and to Klobuchar against Biden and Pete Buttigieg. That makes some sense, though I still think a single endorsement would have been better. Still, if the two-primaries argument had been stated more explicitly, in the lead, the Times could have spared itself some of the head-scratching and mockery it’s being subjected to today.

As for “The Weekly,” I found the hour fascinating, with the participants — led by deputy editorial-page editor Katie Kingsbury, subbing for James Bennet, whose brother Michael is (believe it or not) a presidential candidate — coming across as thoughtful and serious. I saw some Twitter chatter suggesting that the participants seemed elitist and out of touch, but that strikes me as an inevitable consequence of the the setting and the process. How could it be otherwise?

And let’s give the Times credit for dragging the traditionally secretive endorsement process out into the open, including transcripts of the interviews with each of the candidates.

Let’s just hope the Times restricts itself to one endorsement this fall.

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Cable pundits agree: Tuesday was a big night for Klobuchar and Buttigieg. Will it matter?

Amy Klobuchar earlier this year. Photo (cc) by Gage Skidmore.

Previously published at WGBHNews.org.

Amy Klobuchar was having her moment. The Minnesota senator, an also-ran since entering the presidential race in the middle of a snowstorm last February, turned in her strongest debate performance Tuesday night. And now she was pressing her advantage, appearing on all three cable news outlets to repeat her message that Elizabeth Warren isn’t the only candidate with big ideas. Moderates can have them, too.

“There’s not just one idea out there. There are many,” she said on CNN. Klobuchar offered some pointed criticism of Warren as the night wore on, telling MSNBC’s Chris Hayes, “Her way or no way is how it feels every single time,” and Fox News’ Shannon Bream, “Your idea is not the only idea.”

Following Tuesday’s marathon Democratic debate, I spent an hour — 20 minutes each — with CNN, MSNBC and Fox News to get a feel for the instant take on what had just transpired. What I heard may or may not shape the conversation about the campaign in the days ahead. But the consensus was that Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg had a good night — and that, given Joe Biden’s continued inability to take charge of the race, one of them may emerge as the moderate challenger to Warren and Bernie Sanders, the leading progressives.

“To the extent that they gain, it could be at Biden’s expense,” Democratic analyst David Axelrod said on CNN. Added his nonpartisan colleague Gloria Borger: “In some ways Buttigieg explains Biden better than Biden explains Biden.”

On MSNBC, the message was the same, with Washington Post political reporter Robert Costa saying there was “a real impression tonight about Mayor Buttigieg trying to compete for that Biden vote.”

On Fox News, Bret Baier showed some clips of Biden’s “word salad” performance and said, “Joe Biden did not have a good night.” If Biden continues to fade, Baier added, Democrats will want to have the option of a moderate like Klobuchar or Buttigieg to go up against Warren or Sanders — who, Baier said (this was Fox, after all), are part of “the progressive far left.”

The big question is whether these predictions of a Klobuchar and/or Buttigieg breakout will become reality, or if they’re wishful thinking. Klobuchar may not even qualify for the next debate. The media thrive on conflict and a simple story line. In the most recent polls, Warren and Biden have established themselves as the front-runners, with Sanders not too far behind. A Biden-versus-Warren race satisfies the media’s desire for a clash between an establishment moderate trying to hang on against an insurgent progressive — but not if Biden can’t hold up his end.

Thus, Tuesday was the best opportunity for the second-tier candidates to emerge, with Klobuchar and Buttigieg making the most of it.

Buttigieg, oddly enough, had his best moment during the debate by going after Beto O’Rourke, who has been a non-factor in the campaign. O’Rourke is pushing a mandatory gun buyback plan that Buttigieg has called unworkable as well as a distraction from more modest measures that might actually get passed.

“Let’s … lead and not be limited by the polls and consultants and focus groups,” O’Rourke told Buttigieg during the debate — which brought a withering retort from Buttigieg.

“I don’t need lessons from you on courage, political or personal,” Buttigieg said, a response that, among other things, was a not-so-subtle reminder of his military service.

During a post-debate appearance on CNN, Chris Cuomo tried to get Buttigieg to expand on his criticism of O’Rourke, but Buttigieg wasn’t going there. Instead, he stuck with his talking points that he is “the best positioned to beat Donald Trump,” and that Democrats win when they embrace generational change.

Klobuchar, on the other hand, was only too happy in her post-debate interviews to keep bashing Warren, for whom she has “a lot of respect.” (But of course!) In her interview with Chris Hayes, Klobuchar cast her own proposals to add a public option to the Affordable Care Act and rein in the pharmaceutical industry as ideas as worthy of discussion as Warren’s embrace of Medicare For All — and, ultimately, more practical. Of Warren’s oft-repeated contention that the moderates aren’t willing to fight, Klobuchar added, “I’ve really had it with that.”

Next it was on to Fox News, where Klobuchar repeated her criticisms in an interview with Shannon Bream. Klobuchar also made a pitch for right-leaning Fox News viewers who would presumably be out of reach for her more progressive adversary.

“There are a lot of moderate Republicans who agree with me,” she said, “and a lot of independents, and even some conservative Republicans.”

Thankfully, Klobuchar left out the right-wing conspiracy theorists who watch Fox’s prime-time lineup every night.

My own take? Warren was not perfect, but she was basically OK. The media are throwing a fit, not because she won’t answer their question about the tax increases that would be needed to pay for Medicare For All, but because she refuses to accept their framing. She’s answered the question: Medicare For All would result in lower overall costs for the middle class. She might be wrong, but you can’t call that an evasion.

Biden was so-so, showing some emotion over the false smears the Trump camp has directed at him and his son Hunter over Hunter’s business interests in Ukraine and China. Biden’s yelling at Warren and waving his hand in her face was, uh, interesting.

And Sanders, two weeks after suffering a heart attack, turned in maybe his best debate performance — making his points with his usual gusto, but also showing a warm and funny side, especially when Cory Booker noted that Sanders is in favor of medical marijuana.

“I’m not on it tonight,” Sanders responded.

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