Journalists as Reluctant Political Prophets

This article examines the journalistic production of mediated political projections, defined as media narratives about uncertain futures in the political arena, such as anticipated outcomes and implications of elections. Despite the significance of prospective coverage in political journalism and its impact on political decision-making, there is limited understanding of journalists’ perceptions and textual expressions of political forecasting across various discursive forms, media types, and cultures. Drawing on interviews with Israeli journalists and a computational text analysis of election coverage in France, Israel, and the U.S., this study explores how journalists perceive, negotiate, and textually navigate political forecasting in their work. The findings reveal journalists’ deep ambivalence toward political forecasting and the resulting textual practices. We show how journalists attribute their engagement in forecasting to external pressures, while their reluctance stems from the inherent risks and challenges associated with political forecasting and its conflict with their journalistic identity. Journalists navigate this tension by incorporating projections into conventional factual reporting or using non-committal language. Except in data journalism, assessing the likelihood of political scenarios is uncommon. Although these patterns are observed across countries and media types, prospective coverage is more prevalent in interventionist and accommodative journalistic cultures, with the rhetoric of facticity and certitude more common in broadcast news. We argue that journalists’ reluctance to fully engage with the uncertainty of political futures limits their ability to effectively contribute to public decision-making processes in societies' navigation toward the future.