Where We Are

The political world seems to be traveling on three tracks, a metaphor that probably occurred to me because I was carried home by the Acela last night Immigration, Giuliani's ethics and Mike Huckabee's fabulousness. All three stories are losing their freshness.

All are, yes, about Republicans and Republican-things.

The Democrats, for once, have had a fairly quiet week, as Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton clashed mainly over the substance of their health care proposals. This weekend, with two Democratic debates, including Saturday night's first ever forum broadcast in high def, perhaps the attention will shift.

Can the press cover two campaigns at once? That is -- can it give due weight and attention to two campaigns at once? For most of the summer and fall, whenever both Democrats and Republicans had weeks, the Democratic contest always seemed to get higher billing on the network news rundowns.

This was really the first week in memory where Republicans won the battle for attention spans.

Comments

Marc, I've seen at least 2 debates in HD so far this season

Posted by GreenGuy | November 30, 2007 10:12 AM

Hey Marc,

I have a new theory about political reporting this week, related to this. I think come November, all the papers should do three things with their reporting staffs:

(1) Replace all their political reporters. We need people who still find the candidates interesting--flawed, confusing, but interesting--at the moment that citizens start paying attention. Keep the old folks around for a resource, but get rid of anyone who is already tired of the stories, because that tiredness communicates itself in the copy.

(2) Outsource more of the political reporting to reporters from other desks. Get the financial reporters to do a piece comparing the candidates on subprime; the environmental reporters to do a piece comparing them on the environment, the criminal reporters to do a piece on crime. The freshness, again, will come through, and it will provide all of us citizens more useful news than "joe changed strategy!" etc.

As to what to do with all of those who have gorged themselves past the point of being able to taste? Put them on the financial desk for a while, and have them do political stories on finance. Its like an internal sebbatical. And we'll all be happier.

Because actually, these candidates--their bios, their vote records, their sources of funding, their differences between eachother--are essentially and almost existentially interesting.

I think the republican race, on the whole, is more interesting than the democratic race because there are more differences in background and policy; the democratic race is overwhelmed with senators, and are trained in senator-speak. When Obama--my favorite--escapes the traps of the Senate's syntax, he sounds like a leader or a judge. But the default mode is still senatorial.

If you have three senators running in one race, and three executives in another, the trail on the latter three is likely to be more engaging; and, trained in talking constantly and always taking responsibility, they are likely to say more interesting things.

Posted by Zephyr Teachout | November 30, 2007 10:27 AM

I think this newsroom shakeup is a great idea and reflects my experience trying to pitch a political story for the last couple weeks. I've been working on an Inc. Magazine Zoomerang report on small businesses that recently found that small businesses, traditionally a Republican stronghold, favor Hillary Clinton in '08. The same constituency responsible for the demise of HillaryCare 1.0 in '93, now leans in her direction while considering healtchare to be their number one issue.

Our research shows that a huge party realignment is in the making for '08. Yet none of the political reporters we spoke with were interested in this story.

Ok. Maybe this story is a dud. Maybe it simply isn't interesting that the small business sector - a huge chunk of our electorate that generates over half our GDP - is up for grabs in '08.

Or maybe, political reporters are too narrow in the way they define their beat. Maybe integrating reporters from other departments - economic, health, science... would inject into news coverage a deeper analysis of candidate positions and a broader range of questions.

I agree that the media malaise is undermining quality reporting on '08 candidates. Based on my experience, their coverage of the electorate - us - could be more engaged as well.

Posted by Jo Lee | November 30, 2007 12:14 PM

Marc-- haven't the last few debates been in high def? Seriously-- the recent CNN youtube one was in high def on my TV. Am I missing something? Are you? Odd.

Posted by Betty in Baltimore | November 30, 2007 12:19 PM

“For a politician to complain about the press is like a ship's captain complaining about the sea”
---Enoch Powell

“For the people to try and express themselves without the media’s “perception” would be called glorious long gone freedom of speech”
---justmejules
'-)

Posted by justmejules | December 1, 2007 11:00 AM