This week’s Women in Business column features Heather Long, Economics Correspondent at the Washington Post. Heather graduated from Wellesley College with a B.A. in economics and English. After Wellesley, Heather earned her master’s degrees in medieval literature and financial economics at the University of Oxford as a Rhodes scholar. She first took her business acumen to Cambridge Associates in London, serving in this role for two years until she decided to take her passion for storytelling into journalism. She began her journalism career at The Patriot-News. Wearing many hats as an Editorial and opinions editor, Heather was part of a Pulitzer prize-winning team after only three years. Since then, Heather has taken the journalism industry by storm, appearing frequently on TV and radio programs including MSNBC, CNN, BBC, CBSN, PBS, C-SPAN, and more. As an Economics Correspondent for the Washington Post, she writes news and analysis stories about the U.S. economy.
Read our conversation on the economics of political polarization in the U.S., conflicting perspectives of the Biden economy, and the future of journalism.
February 1, 2021 at 11 am EDT
Written by Sarah Chu
Political Polarization
SC: How has political polarization affected the U.S. economy?
HL: Consumer sentiment is linked to partisan leanings. The University of Michigan has done a great job of chronicling this trend, and we’ve seen that now that Biden is elected President, several Republicans are stating the economy is at a downturn, while Democrats are more positive in their views of the economy. In reality, not much has changed in recent months since the start of the pandemic.
SC: And what are some of the big takeaways you’ve gathered during the Trump presidency, in regards to political polarization?
HL: Partisan politics is a class debate. As I’ve mentioned in this article, people who earn above $100,000 a year have very similar experiences compared to people who earn below $40,000 a year. People who have similar earnings may not vote the same, but in terms of how they view the economy and their opportunities [like education or job prospects], views are more aligned by socioeconomic status.
SC: This directly ties into another piece you co-wrote with Andrew V. Dam: the K-shaped recovery is getting worse. That is, the pandemic is worsening existing trends of income inequality, making white-collar workers with stocks better off and those who are unemployed worse off.
HL: Yes, we in the media have really focused on the K-shaped recovery in recent months — and rightfully so. I speak to unemployed workers almost every day to try to better understand what is going on. But few reporters (myself included) have worked in warehouses or factories or been servers or cleaners. I think we need more people from working class backgrounds in media, and reporters need to spend a lot more time understanding the bottom half of the K.
Various Perspectives of the Biden Economy
SC: The future of the economy depends on three key concepts: the state of the virus, economic stimulus, and consumer sentiment (the confidence level for Americans to spend money.) Earlier you mentioned the polarizing views of consumer sentiment: under a Biden administration, Democrats tend to have a more positive view of the economy. On the other hand, Republicans view the opposite. What explains this behavior?
HL: Many working-class Republicans feel like they are being left out of a Biden economy. Biden’s vision to eliminate oil, factory, and drilling jobs concerns them – and frankly, he does not address what will happen to those displaced workers. In addition to discussing how a green economy will be fueled by new technology, he needs to effectively communicate his vision to the American people.
The Future of Journalism
SC: The journalism industry is certainly in challenging times. Can you talk about what the industry is facing, and thus, what the future of the industry might look like?
HL: There are three big crises: first is the funding crisis. Local media is hemorrhaging from the loss of revenue generation to social media platforms. The pandemic has only heightened these concerns. The biggest priority is to stabilize local news outlets. I am hopeful for the future of journalism because of non-profit organizations like Report for America, an initiative that is devoted to saving local newsrooms. They are doing great work to address this issue, but the industry does not yet have a sustainable business model to save journalism.
SC: What is the second crisis that journalism is facing?
HL: As we’ve discussed, polarization is a growing concern. Viewer demographics on different news outlets are skewed toward party leanings. In a time where outlets rely on paywalls as their main form of revenue, this barrier prevents people from staying informed.
The third crisis is that misinformation is exploding across social media platforms. Videos and pictures are becoming more difficult to differentiate fact from fiction. The Post created a Fact Checker to address this issue, and other organizations have created similar ones. My hope is that there will be a modern-day Wikipedia where people can visit the site to check pictures or videos as a form of communal policing.
SC: How do you think social media has changed journalism?
HL: Social media has made publishing much faster – 5 minutes later than another publication is like 5 years too late! People also don’t recognize that every platform is curated based on your interests. The people, content, and photos you interact with the most are within your ‘bubble.’ Sometimes we’re too focused on the discussion on Twitter as opposed to stepping back and analyzing the big picture.
SC: That’s an interesting point – everything on social media feels reactionary instead of critically analyzing an issue.
HL: My hope is that journalism will bring more people together. The Washington Post has a TikTok - very playful! It allows more people into policy discussions. These kinds of platforms excite me for the future!