Apple News’ 2020 election hub shows promise despite a few missteps

On Monday, the Apple News app launched its 2020 election hub to coincide with the start of primary voting. And while there’s a lot to love, there are some head-scratchers, as well. 

Overall, the hub feels aimed at the average American who’s kinda following the race more than your hardcore Bernie Bro or #YangGang member. And that’s perfectly fine. 

With live updates, important stories curated from a variety of sources, and profiles on candidates and issues central to the election, there’s a simplicity to the hub that could actually connect with millions of voters who might not otherwise be paying attention. It’s very reminiscent of Apple’s 2018 effort, too.

Given the huge readership that Apple News claims – pegged at around 100 million as of earlier this year –  there’s real potential here for Apple News to become a major player in how people learn about the election and educate themselves on the issues. 

That Apple will livestream Friday’s Democratic primary debate is another huge win for the company’s efforts to make it something of a one-stop news clearinghouse. 

That’s not to say the project is perfect. But in a time when social media platforms are twisting themselves into knots over what role they play in politics, there’s hope that Apple may pull this off. 

The Good

First, the layout is simple and easy to use with news at the top, candidate profiles in the middle, and election issues at the end. While some users may scoff at the giant icons used to differentiate the issues, I find the whole layout easy to understand and simple to navigate. 

The issue pages themselves are pretty informative even if it’s really hard to break down complex issues, like climate change or immigration, into shorter bites. 

Also helpful is the way the issue pages break down each candidate’s stance. Again, it’s not perfect — these issues and positions always contain more nuance than can be given here (more on that in a minute). But if you’re looking for a quick overview of a topic and a candidate’s take, this is, at least, a helpful start.  

As for the sources used to curate the news, Apple, thankfully, hasn’t repeated Facebook’s mistake by including extremist outlets like Breitbart in the mix. Instead, there’s a solid mix of network, digital, and print sources with long histories of accurate and thorough news reporting.

In its press release about the launch, Apple notes the outlets it’s using include “ABC News, CBS News, CNN, FiveThirtyEight, Fox News, NBC News, ProPublica, Reuters, The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, TIME, USA Today and others.”

That the hub includes a misinformation guide from the News Literacy Project is also quite helpful when taking in this extensive list of sources. 

Most of those outlets are great, legit news outlets that do outstanding reporting. Kudos to Apple, too, for including non-profit ProPublica in the mix. But, there’s one inclusion that is, to put it mildly, questionable.  

The Bad

We live in an incredibly politically charged time and we all carry with us some sort of inherent bias or subjectivity when it comes to the news outlets we read. And while the effort to be as objective as possible is a noble one, it’s hard for a project like this to keep from undermining its own efforts.

Case in point: the inclusion of Fox News. 

While it’s true that there are legitimate journalists working at Fox (Chris Wallace and John Roberts have both built reputable careers across multiple outlets), the fact that the network has become a platform from which President Trump can spew disinformation and outright lies via pundits who kowtow to his whims is inescapable. 

Whether it’s the racism of Tucker Carlson or Laura Ingraham, or the conspiracy theories of Sean Hannity, there are plenty of reasons to question Fox News’ authenticity as a citable source. This story from Vox on the many missteps the network had in one day should be enough reason to chuck them. 

An Apple spokesperson didn’t respond to a request for comment on Fox News’ inclusion here. 

Then there’s the complexity of the issues that are tackled in the hub. Again, I recognize it’s hard to boil these topics down to a single page, but it’s notable that, for instance, the immigration page makes only one reference to the Trump administration’s family separation policy. And even that downplays the images of children in cages that were plastered across newspapers and newscasts for weeks. 

Likewise, the gun policy issue page makes one passing reference to the growing number of mass shootings over the last decade. But it makes no specific mention of any mass shootings that occurred in 2019, including the racism-fueled El Paso, Texas Walmart shooting that killed 22 people or the that killed 9 less than 24 hours later. 

The exclusion of both of those incidents does a disservice to the less informed users who will come across these pages. 

The Weird

Look, there’s no escaping this one. Instead of using photos of each candidate for their landing page, Apple instead chose to illustrate each candidate and the results are not so much bad as they are unsettling. 

For instance, President Trump and Michael Bloomberg get a bizarre glow-up in smoothed, shiny representations that make them both appear younger and more virile than they actually are. Joe Biden’s, on the other hand, is simply unsettling. It’s all a little…disconcerting. 

And while Pete Buttigieg is the youngest candidate in the field at 38 years old, his portrait makes him look like a child; like he’s the kid mayor responsible for the Ice Town debacle. 

The candidate pages themselves are fine and pack a lot of helpful info, including figures from FiveThirtyEight and “notable supporters” that mix political endorsements with celebrities. Case in point, Bernie Sanders’ page mentions both Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s support and Cardi B’s. 

Just try not to focus too much on the portraits and you’ll be fine.