FLORIDA — One of the shameful things about Florida’s US Senate race is that the two candidates, Democratic incumbent Bill Nelson and Republican challenger, Congressman Connie Mack, agreed to meet in just one debate.
That statewide television debate was Wednesday night. And while it was extensively covered by the media, I was amazed that some of the state’s newspapers did not put their stories on the front page Thursday morning.
My view is that in making that choice, they did a serious disservice to Florida voters. This is an important race not only for Floridians but for the nation, as the contest could help determine which political party will control the US Senate.
It’s true that the content of the hour-long debate left much to be desired (the candidates argued at length about a tax credit for cows on Nelson’s property, and whether Mack was claiming more than one homestead exemption), but as an editor I would have done what most Florida newspapers did—played the debate story prominently on A1.
Editors at The Palm Beach Post, The Miami Herald, and the Tallahassee Democrat took a different route, pushing their stories to the inside pages. The clear signal to readers was that these newspapers did not deem the debate—and by extension, the Senate race—important, and perhaps neither should the readers.
Sergio Bustos, the Herald’s state/political editor, disagrees. In an emailed explanation of the Herald’s decision, Bustos wrote:
The fact that a story doesn’t appear on the front page of the print edition doesn’t mean Herald readers are any less informed. That assumes they don’t read beyond the front page. Also, the debate was televised live throughout Florida on 11 television stations, including our South Florida market. Any voter could have watched the debate, which we publicized with an advance story that ran in print and online.
And the newspaper is only one avenue for our stories. We featured it on our homepage—our website’s front page, if you will—throughout the night and into the early morning. In fact, it’s still on our homepage and has drawn about 183 comments. And our public radio news partners at WLRN featured the story on the WLRN/Miami Herald news on Thursday morning.
Besides, the debate didn’t break any new ground. Some of the accusations made about Mack’s past were first reported by The Miami Herald, and our partners at the Tampa Bay Times wrote extensively about Nelson’s farm tax loophole for his property. We ran that story on the front page.
Bottom line is that this Mack/Nelson race has been a low-key campaign. The two candidates have mostly battled over the airwaves with television ads. It is also competing for attention with an intense presidential contest.
First, let me make clear that the Herald has done an excellent job covering the 2012 election, often setting the pace for the rest of the Florida media. And the Herald did a good job with its debate night story.
But not putting their coverage on the front page was a mistake. What the Herald told readers was that the debate was not important as this (admittedly fun) front-page headline: “Florida man busted in dinosaur smuggling caper.”
Nick Moschella, content editor at The Palm Beach Post (where I worked for 28 years), explained in an email that there had been “a spirited debate among editors about how we should play Nelson-Mack.”
Moschella continued:
In the end, we liked our mix of stories on the front, including three political pieces that, we believe, have more impact on our readers.
Two involve potential issues for Florida’s voters—flawed absentee ballots in Palm Beach County and the criminal investigation into suspect registration documents.
The other was a follow-up on Tuesday night’s bare-knuckles presidential debate as Palm Beach County prepares to host the finale.
We did have a staff writer at the Senate debate, and we used mug shots of both candidates to create a more significant front-page tease to what turned out to be a contentious, if not entertaining, face-off.
"That assumes they don’t read beyond the front page."
An editor wrote this? I have to assume he was making a 'King's X' behind his back, or having trouble stifling irrepressible laughter when he did. Either that or the basic idea motivating editors has changed a great deal over the years. Actually, strike that - it's easily explained if you assume that editors now figure that people get bored if exposed to political news, and that the front page should be reserved for the sort of story that really draws readers - what you might call the National Enquirer model. He might be correct.
#1 Posted by JohnR, CJR on Fri 19 Oct 2012 at 12:58 PM
Another child was recently killed because reporters think they are too important to communicate like a teacher. Her name was Tamryn Klapheke and she was killed because her mother neglected to take care of her. According to the Associated Press article, Tamryn had chemical burns on her body because her diaper was presumable not changed. The accumulation of bowel movements caused the chemical burn because of an acid or base chemical interaction with her skin tissue. Tamryn's mother had been under the supervision of the state's Child Protective Services. But they obviously did a lousy job. The case worker even terminated the supervision six days before Tamryn died "without a final inspection" to confirm that conditions had improved. However, this shouldn't be a surprise because the local office was severely understaffed. There was only six case workers when they needed sixteen. And statewide, there was approximately 1,500 caseworkers when they needed 1,900. Now, I am sure that most people are going to blame the Governor of state legislature of Texas for not spending enough money to prevent Tamryn's death. But this is a childish understand of how politicians work. They must support both tax cuts and subsidies for the most powerful special interest groups of they will be replaced in the next election by smarter politicians. Anyone who reads or writes horserace journalism will understand this darwinian approach to politics. Children are just too weak of a special interest group to deserve a tax increase. As for for voters, one man, one vote is a wonderful principle and a lousy incentive for become an informed voter. Especially when reporters are only interested in writing about something when there is a dead body to lead and bleed on a newspaper's front page. Writing stories to prevent a disaster is boring. In my informal surveys of friends and drinking buddies, I have never met anyone who knew anything about our programs for vulnerable children before a disaster happened. So how can voters protect at risk children when they don't know anything about a shortage in case workers. But this problem could be partially overcome if reporters were willing to publish an annual one week review of events and conditions in our country. Such a review would work like the report cards than teachers and parents use for rewarding and punishing students. And I think that voters would enjoy using a report card to reward or punish their politicians. And the report cards could include statistics every year on how many case workers are needed for adequate care. But reporters will never do this because they care more about themselves than their country. And the people who work at CJR, they probably think that Tamryn's death was just an improvement in the gene pool. While an article about two newspapers not puting information about a debate on their front pages, that is the kind of story that gives CJR people goosebumps.
#2 Posted by Stanley Krauter, CJR on Mon 22 Oct 2012 at 02:32 PM