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By Christopher Roberts
Global Publishing Editor
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History’s first airborne duel, so the apocryphal story goes, was fought for love. In Paris in 1808, two men besotted by the same dancer settled their dispute by climbing into hot air balloons, rising half a mile over the city and firing blunderbusses (short-barreled, muzzle-loaded firearms) at each other. One balloon burst. Its occupant did not survive the landing, being “dashed to pieces on a housetop,” as a breathless contemporary report claimed.
Newsweek doesn’t have any hot air balloons to offer our readers. Instead, we’ve found a 21st-century way to settle disagreements: We ask you to click a button.
Our Fairness Meter, which was relaunched this year, has now collected tens of thousands of votes from readers in 165 countries, rating our stories as fair, left-leaning or right-leaning. The headline number: 69 percent of all votes say we’re “fair.” Not bad for a newsroom that covers the endless hot air of politics for a living.
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But 69 isn’t 100, and we don’t always get it right—or rather, readers don’t always agree on what “right” looks like, which is why this column exists. No story last month proved that better than our map of President Donald Trump’s approval ratings, which drew heavy “leans left” and “leans right” votes simultaneously, from readers reading the exact same 50 numbers.
How could this be? It’s because both groups had a point. Maps like this suggest a precision the polling doesn’t have: June’s surveys ranged from net -6 to net -30 depending entirely on which pollster you trust. And even the worst reading in that range—30 percent approval, billed as Trump’s “worst poll yet”—isn’t even close to historically bad. Harry Truman hit 22 percent in 1952. George W. Bush hit 25 in 2008. The map was confident about how historically bad Trump is, but it doesn’t deserve that confidence.
Which brings us, gently, to Maine. Of every state casting a meaningful number of votes, Maine is in a league of its own: 58 percent of votes went for “leans left,” and just 30 percent called any of our coverage fair—making Mainers by far the least forgiving electorate in the country. Massachusetts, meanwhile, somehow leans the other way. Make of that what you will.
So: Maine, some perspective, please. Not every balloon deserves to be shot down.
Christopher Roberts is Newsweek*’s vice president, publishing & subscriber strategy.*
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
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