Jay Rosen wrote a good article about the way the MSM deal with elections.
It’s nice to know that Mitt Romney has pulled ahead in New Hampshire, seven months before the primary voting. Thanks, Bill Schneider! Let me ask you something: Who’s ahead in addressing a broken health care system?
It’s fascinating to realize that Hillary Clinton, a woman, is ahead among women. Thanks, Washington Post. In the race to protect the people against terrorism and maintain a free and open society, would the Post know who’s ahead? Could it possibly find out and tell us, then check back in a month or so and tell us again?
He is, of course, quite right. The media constantly focus on who is leading in the polls, but there is seldom something interesting to read about one of the proposals of the different candidates on, say, health care or education. Of course, it are not just the established, old media who do this, we bloggers do it as well.
Jay proposes the following way to end the horse race reporting:
Cut down on who’s ahead in the horse race—at the time there were 133 candidates—and tell us who’s ahead in the ideas-for-California race. Since there are lots of problems facing the people of California lots of ideas will have to be floated before the final test of strength at the polls. The candidates will either participate well, participate weakly or opt out; their choice.
This was my stab at a workable compromise with “who’s ahead?†The Idea Race— but with live rankings. Today ingenuity, leg work and good judgment are required to say who’s doing the best in meeting the test of presidential seriousness around the health care mess. (And who’s in second place.) Persistence is required to maintain and revise the grid as new information comes in.
Such reporting does exist. See most recently The Poverty Platform (June 10). It’s Matt Bai of the New York Times magazine covering the clear frontrunner in the speaking to poverty race, John Edwards. Of course it would be good to know who’s in last place, too, or deaf to the issue. Or saying stuff that’s not true. (As we know: “Sometimes, they’re just plain wrong.â€)
This way, Jay reasons, The Legacy Media (as he calls the MSM) can still do what they do best (reporting about horse races), but then about horse races that are actually interesting to voters (namely ‘issues’ horse races).
Sounds good in theory, but sadly it is not going to happen.
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