The news media is in full dead-president-in-state mode until Friday, and President Bush and John Kerry have stopped campaigning for the week. So for a few days reporters can no longer rely on the candidates’ choreographed campaign stops to provide their story of the day. The first impulse of most major outlets has been to deal with this problem by looking at how Reagan’s death will affect the campaign (see, for instance, the New York Times, Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times).
But that’ll only get you through one day at most. So here’s a suggestion from Campaign Desk: Why not use the time to take a step back and focus on some of the potential stories that seem to get overlooked because of the daily imperative to file at all costs?
Reporters might, for instance, finally set the record straight on some of the more outlandish charges that the campaigns insist on throwing around — like the claim that John Kerry voted 350 times for higher taxes, or that President Bush supports sending jobs overseas. As we’ve noted elsewhere, the whole subject cries out for a comprehensive treatment to separate fact from fiction.
Or how about an in-depth look at the state of the campaigns’ field operations in battleground states? Many analysts credit the fact that Al Gore won the popular vote in 2000, despite being slightly behind in most of the final polls, to the Democrats’ superior field operation at that time. So far this year we’ve had stories that focus on the campaigns’ respective prospects in individual states like Ohio and Florida, but precious few that provide an across-the-board assessment.
And finally, how about the issues? We hate to sound like a broken record here (much less like “journo-scolds“) but this strikes us as the perfect time to lay out, or reiterate, for readers exactly what the candidates have and have not proposed on issues that matter, like health care, or education, or national security.
So whaddaya say, ladies and gentlemen of the press? At the very least, it might get you off Reagan duty for the week.
–Zachary Roth
Zachary Roth is a contributing editor to The Washington Monthly. He also has written for The Los Angeles Times, The New Republic, Slate, Salon, The Daily Beast, and Talking Points Memo, among other outlets.