How to cover a presidential campaign, part 1…
How should the press cover a presidential campaign? For one answer to this question, you might read about how I think the press should cover the pre-primary period.
I’m going to spend some time over the next couple of weeks dealing with this question. To kick off that effort, let me list the important article types that I think should be the foundation of politically useful coverage:
- History and analysis of past performance in governance.
- Explanation of governance from the citizens’ points of view.
- Issues of character springing from past performance in governance.
- Analysis of campaign promises as they correspond with the political process.
- Fact-checking of all propositions of fact in all public statements.
- Analysis of proposed policy from policy experts and performance auditors.
- Issues of influence on the political process.
If these seven article types are adequately covered, then there is room for horse-race and “inside baseball” type coverage, which would add ornament to a solid and useful foundation. At no time should editors allow an article to be published that relies solely on he-said, she-said reporting. Such articles should be spiked until further reporting moves them into category #5.
The challenges to the model I’m proposing are many. For example, such reporting is difficult and expensive work made all the more difficult by the demands of the 24-hour news cycle.
And made all the more difficult by the fact that you’re basically swimming upstream against the established way of doing things. It’s like “The Matrix” for political reporting.
Some things go without saying
I guess I’ve been operating under the assumption that the media mogels have been attempting to dismantle your model for the better part of the last century.
Possible corollary to #2 - but anytime the press can buttress the “This does matter to you, so you’d better vote” point with examples from past analagous situations where citizens did or didn’t decide wisely (or paid no attention) and look what happened as a result, I think this would help to interest and energize their less avid readers.
Jonathan… True–there’s really nothing new about what I’m proposing.
OK, I’ll bite. Why do you think media moguls would want to dismantle that model? Also, given that there’s nothing really new, here, do you think that actual coverage ever closely approximated this model?
And finally, do you think people want to read this sort of thing, or is it a take-your-medicine task? By people, I don’t mean people who visit Rhetorica, of course, who are likely to eat that stuff up with a spoon, but Joe Voter, who currently spends less than ten minutes a day on the election news currently available (which is all horse-race and inside stuff)?
Ok, and really finally, and really just as a distraction, how many of the seven could really be well done by blog artists, working in their spare time as volunteers, without a common code of ethics or a J-school education but with a passion for party politics?
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-V.
I like Vardibidian’s response. Dialectic is yummy. Any takers?
V… I don’t necessarily think media moguls want to dismantle anything unless it doesn’t make money.
Over the past 25 years, American newspapers have tried just about everything to stop the big leak–loss of readers and advertisers (although some newspapers have successfully embraced a smaller, more affluent audience for businesses purposes, i.e. the people advertisers want to reach). The one thing American journalism hasn’t tried: take readers seriously, i.e. approach the news as if the public is made up of competent, thinking people who are capable of understanding issues and acting upon their political, social, and economic needs.
We see some of the article types I’m talking about even today. We just see more of the politically-useless stuff for a number of “good” reasons. I do not suppose that we can look back to some golden past for an example. No such time exists.
Spoon feeding? Maybe. But, then, I don’t think American newspapers (yes, there are many exceptions) have taken readers seriously in a very long time. My contention is this: taking them seriously by focusing political coverage on citizens’ needs will be interesting to citizens. The needs of politicians are boring. The needs of the people, for the people, are interesting. I could be spectacularly wrong.
It certainly does not take a j-degree to do the kind of journalism I’m talking about. And bloggers are doing some of this now. And, if they keep it up, and keep doing a good job of it (some of them, anyway), then American newspapers may have a mighty challenge ahead. I would rather see journalists do this work in a proper editorial environment.
Well, I’m less sanguine about it being done without, as you say, a proper editorial environment. But I feel myself in a minority in Ye Olde Blogoshere for thinking that way. I would really be curious to know what, specifically, the influence of that environment is (or the lack thereof) on those seven stories, and on the other ones as well. You know, when you have time. Next year, maybe.
As for the main question, I guess I’m wondering what made the moguls choose the paths they did. Are they really going broke through underestimating the American public? Was it the resources (and the seven articles are at least prima facie cheaper in the Internet Age than they were before)? Or are we just a less serious people than we want to be?
,
-V.
My major objection to Andrew’s guidlines is that they ignore the primary concrete function of the media, which is mass entertainment. Even the civic-minded editor will find it difficult to discount the need to maximise viewership/readership, to ignore the spectacular and easily digested in favour of the thoughtfully engaged.
I agree with the thrust of your proposal, which is to require political reporting to usefully informing voting and foster political participation. As a citizen, what can I do in practice to poster this more responsible political culture? Lobby the media? Start kitchen discussion circles?
Apologies for the two errors in my last post. I blame the busted Preview function on this site (er, and my own sloppiness).
Well, one problem is that the public has been steadily fed a diet of cynicism for the last thirty five years to the point where most just throw up their hands in disgust. I think there was a time (probably before Viet Nam) where people had some respect for public officials and believed that they actually had a civic duty to make informed voting decisions. Look at the Nixon-Kennedy debates, which were actual debates that people watched. (I’m not naive enough to think that they actually made informed decisions but I think there was more of an effort than today.) In the last thirty five years, a combination of factors have made people less interested in politics: (1) growing affluence (even if not equally shared) that made that results of elections less important; (2) a counterculture/market driven ennui and ironic sensibility that places more importance on entertainment and leisure than on public affairs (which aren’t cool) and, with this, more options (e.g., growth of sports on TV), which made it easier for citizens (and I am guilty of this myself) to escape from public affairs; (3)the growth of cynicism encouraged to some extent by the media that made it seem futile to engage in politics except for the most rabid partisans; and (4) concomitant with number 3, is media coverage that creates simplistic yes/no, up/down issues and creates the idea that any policy that there are simple solutions if only the corrupt politicans would pay attention.