Time for reporters to drop out of 2008 campaign
Martin Schram of the Sacramento Bee hits the nail on the head:
The verdicts of Iowa and New Hampshire prompted a handful of the 2008 political players to depart from the presidential campaign trail.
But far too many remain for our own good.
Along with the handful of presidential candidates who dropped out so far, voters might be better served if a hundred or so of my political-reporter and pundit colleagues dropped out as well – and were replaced by journalists whose beats are about national security, economics, environment and health care.
For our coverage has not been serving the public interest by providing the sort of information voters really need to know – especially in the last weeks when many voters make their decisions.
Much of the blame goes to the editors who apparently are satisfied with the sort of poll-driven horse-race journalism that we have gotten in the final weeks.
Political journalists are a unique breed within our craft. Their job (as assigned by their editors) is to cover contests in which the contestants debate a wide range of vital issues – subjects about which the journalists who cover them have no expertise. So when the candidates are proposing their detailed plans for the economy or the war or health care or global warming, the journalists who cover the candidates rarely ask informed, penetrating follow-up questions. (Unless they are fed these questions by an opposing candidate’s issues specialists.)
Amen (and I’ll even overlook the praise for stooge Michael Gordon). Read the rest here. The simple fact is this: Our political system would not be as sick as it is, if it weren’t for the fact that our media was much more sick.
The government won’t get well until the media does first.
–WKW