News Meeting — September 14, 2010 10:08 AM

Primary Grades

How can the midterm coverage improve between now and November?

By The Editors

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I'd like to see less inside-baseball, Beltway-to-Boston navel-gazing. More use of actual numbers, from polling, from 2008 election results. Less 'ideological' analysis - most voters vote their self-interest, left or right. But some acknowledgment - this will be tough, I know - of the legitimacy of complaints against liberal policies and liberal tactics by generally centrist and non-partisan voters and citizens. After all, a quick smackdown by voters of newly-elected Democratic presidents is not exactly new - it has happened within two to four years of every election of a Democrat to the White House since 1964. More interviews with voters rather than interviews with journalists or politicos. The story-du-annee has been the 'Tea Partiers', but I seldom see them actually interviewed in a non-confrontational way, the way liberal activists are interviewed.

This sounds partisan, but the political press really does suffer from a deficiency of people who are not urban and not culturally liberal, and this kind of skews their ability to not only predict outcomes, but to explain them in a predictive manner. I don't mind the GOP getting tough coverage, as in the current rush to nail John Boehner. What is missing is tough coverage of the Democrats by the same standards, as in the lack of press which would explain the GOP's success in campaigning against Nancy Pelosi, the voice of the rich, but stagnating Bay Area. You would never know that most of the affluent Congressional districts in this country are liberal Democratic districts. Political reporting is still stuck in the 1960s.

#1 Posted by Mark Richard, CJR on Sun 19 Sep 2010 at 09:38 AM

Cover more voters who voted for Obama, are somewhat concerned by what he's done or not done, but would tie themselves to a railroad track rather than vote for the GOP, let alone Tea Party. Instead of making it all about the horserace, really look at the merits of the different parties/candidates.

#2 Posted by Elizabeth, CJR on Wed 22 Sep 2010 at 04:53 PM

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