How the media helped shape the 2017 midterm election — and how it could help Democrats win in 2018

In this Oct. 1, 2017, file photo, Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) delivers remarks during a news conference in New York.

Booker has been a major political force in the Senate.

(AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File)  The media has a major role to play in influencing the outcome of midterm elections, according to a new book.

In “How the Media Changed the 2018 Midterm Elections: The Story Behind the Biggest Political Moment in U.S. History,” a New York Times best-selling author and former political reporter, New York University political scientist Robert Greenwald said that during the midterm elections of 2017, journalists played a critical role.

The media’s role, Greenwald wrote in his book, is to shape the outcome in order to influence the future of American politics.

In the book, Greenwald said the media “played a key role” in shaping the 2018 midterm elections because the “media environment and its relationship to Congress, state legislatures and other elected officials had radically changed in the year before the election.”

Greenwald said he was able to “provide a snapshot of what the media did and didn’t do in 2018” because he interviewed a large number of former and current journalists.

He said that he was “astonished” by how much the media contributed to the 2018 elections.

He called on Congress to investigate the media’s impact on the election, and for the Trump administration to “reconsider the impact of the media on the outcome.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.