In one of the posts on Herman Cain’s candidacy discussed on Campaign Desk Tuesday, Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight calls for more discussion about the quadrennial issue of how much coverage the press should devote to different presidential candidates:
This is a question, however, that needs to be discussed more openly. What are the appropriate criteria by which the press should determine how much coverage — and what type of coverage — to give to each presidential candidate? Should it be based on polls? On who has taken the most concrete steps toward actually running? On the
credentials of the candidates? On elite sentiment? On site traffic and click-through rates? If you accept that some candidates should be given more coverage than others (and some people don’t accept that), what should the ratios be?
We agree! And we want to hear your thoughts. Which of these factors should drive allocation of the media’s attention? And are there others (depth of engagement with specific issues, perhaps?) that should be taken into account? Let us know in the comments section.
The Editors are the staffers of the Columbia Journalism Review.