Take a memo…
In other words, political reporters are a bunch of mindless stenographers, re: this from Campaign Desk about the millionaire meme:
What’s most revealing about the coverage are the instances in which Bush or Cheney are described as millionaires. With few exceptions, readers are treated to this characterization only in direct comparison to Kerry and Edwards…
It’s not hard to understand why this is: The Kerry campaign simply hasn’t been as aggressive about pushing the “Bush and Cheney are rich” argument as the Bush campaign has been about portraying the Democrats that way. And, as we at Campaign Desk have already seen, the more relentlessly one of the candidates can repeat their chosen talking point, the more likely the press is to sneak it into their coverage.
If, however, reporters acted as custodians of fact–questioning everything out of candidates’ mouths and testing all of it against the public record–they might rise above the secretarial level to something more befitting a profession that touts itself as essential to democracy.
