Asking the experts: How has the press covered the election so far?

Today’s start of the Democratic National Convention marks the beginning of the end for this year’s presidential contest – the first dip in a roller coaster ride that will gather speed through next week’s Republican convention, October’s debates and the election itself.

So what better time to ask a who’s who of news notables about how media coverage of the election has gone so far, and what we can expect in weeks to come?

First question: When one poll indicates that a sizable number of people think they’ve heard too much about Barack Obama, does that mean we’ve covered the election too much?

Jim Lehrer, host, PBS’ Newshour: “Nobody is sick of hearing about the next President of the United States. In this case, you’ve got John McCain or Barack Obama, and either one of them is going to be the next President. And the American public cares deeply who that person is going to be. Because their home mortgage, their jobs, whether their kids or themselves is going to be sent into harm’s way, is riding on who that person is going to be. Somebody says ‘Oh, I’m tired of hearing about fill-in-the-blank’ – that’s ridiculous. There’s no evidence that I’m aware of that people are tired of this at all. They may be tired of hearing trivial matters about these people. But they want to hear everything substantive about them.”

Dan Rather, anchor, HDNet’s Dan Rather Reports: “In terms of television coverage, it’s been a year of dominance by openly opinionated people who acknowledge that they are for one candidate or another or for one party or another. There’s been a diminution of the honest broker and an increase in  opinionated coverage. I don’t think much of anybody is getting fooled. My impression is that the audience considers a lot of the hour after hour coverage to be frankly just blather – wind festivals. That’s rooted in my confidence in the audience.

Michel Martin, host, National Public Radio’s Tell Me More: “You look at the White House correspondents and (they are) no more diverse than when I was a White House correspondent. After I left, Gwen (Ifill) was there and it was pretty much it. I think it’s disturbing and it shows in the coverage – ricocheting from being obsessed with race in coverage and ignoring it….(Reporters’) worldview plays a role and we should own that and stop pretending that it doesn’t.”

David Bohrman, senior vice president, CNN: “Conventions are all about hope. This is really the moment in both parties where there is the most hope. And it’s sort of like the crest of the wave for hope for both of these parties. It’s an interesting moment for people to take a look and see where these parties want to take the country. So it makes sense that we would be there.”

John King, senior national correspondent, CNN: “Obama has been more of a ratings draw, or more of an attention grabber, (but) we run a huge risk if we let that be our sole business. We are conscious of trying to spread the coverage out. You can’t always do it in the same day or the same hour, but we are very careful and cognizant of our responsibility. John McCain is more established brand – If there is more interest in Obama, part of it is because of the newness and the celebrity – but also because the interest is not all awe. People have these legitimate questions about ‘Who is this guy?’ We also need to take a breath and say, as we are being responsible, we cannot do it at the expense of ignoring the other guy. We have a documentary series coming up,we’re spending 90 minutes on each one of them – I think that’s a sign of our commitment to try to be fair in what we do and to be creative.”

  Martin on why coverage is trivialized: “I’m always torn by the kind of things people focus on versus the things people say they want to focus on. How many pieces do you have to do on economic policy and then hear somebody (ask) ‘Does he wear a flag lapel pin?. The difference is people for whom specific policies are very important – like pro-life voters, or African Americans, who may be focused on stuff like economic policy from that perspective.”

Rather on the trivialization of election news coverage: “There’s been a trivialization of the news and that has bled over into coverage of campaign news. We’ve had constant and ever-increasing rapidity of trivialization of campaign coverage. I think candidates should be put through the wringer, but put through on substance. What should you do about China’s drive to become a military and economic superpower? What will you do on Darfur? Let’s talk about specifics…And every time you spend 10 minutes talking about the significance of a fist bump, you spend less time talking about things that really matter.”

Lehrer on competing with the cable newschannels's continuous coverage: “I happen to believe that most people don’t watch cable TV all day. A lot of them go to work. We do not produce our program with the idea that people have been watching cable TV all day, because we know for a fact they have not been. I’m not knocking cable television. What cable TV does -- and does very well -- is they’ve replaced the wire machines – but that’s it. In newsrooms all over this country, everybody’s watching cable TV news. But in churches all over this country, in offices all over this country in schools all over this country, they’re not. There’s all this stuff coming to people all the time, they need some place to go where somebody has gone through it for them – professionals they trust – who say here’s what you need to pay attention to over the last 24 hours of news. That’s what we do.”

CNN's Bohrman on the coming tide of presidential election coverage: “This hurtling train is about the leave the station. We’re going to fall down this three or four week hole (during the two conventions) and we come out, and we’ve got the debates and then we’re a few weeks from the election. All of this is happening simultaneously. I’m producing it all from New York. It’s like I’m in a remote truck (control room), but it’s parked 2,000 miles away and it’s a really good control room.”

Rather on the tone of the election: “Let no one be mistaken, no later than shortly after Labor Day, this campaign will get ugly enough to choke a buzzard. We’ve already seen the first signs of negative advertising, tear down attacks, everything from partisan political tracts as books down to campaign ads and things surrogates for the candidates say. I had hoped…that given the records of McCain and Obama we might see a slight improvement in the level of the discourse of the campaign. But I think it will get very ugly before it gets better.”

Comments

[Pete]

Deggans,

Thanks for your blog. I enjoy reading it. Just wondering what your thoughts were on Jon Stewart's comments about the 24-hour news cycle? I actually couldn't agree more and wish those so-called sources for journalism would actually grow a pair and acknowledge that they were criticized ... again.

[Robin 'Roblimo' Miller]

The coverage doesn't matter. All patriotic Americans *must* vote for John McCain! http://www.roblimo.com/node/362

[Eric Deggans]

My point was simply that journalists are talking so much about the anger of Clintno supporters because the polls are indicating that women who say they are Democrats are thinking about voting for McCain -- which is a lot different than Republicans who considered crossing party lines to vote for Cinton going back to the fold.

It's a tough trend to outline, because ou have to basically trust that people are being honest with pollsters about their party affiliation.

But the bottom line for any party is that your campaign is only as good as your candidate. George Bush really shouldn't have won a second term, but John Kerry was such an awful presidential candidate, the election went Bush's way narrowly -- at a time when Republicans had far more control of Congress than they do now.

I just think the pace of electoral change is slower than people want, and still depends a lot on individual candidates. Obama has built an impressive organization which has made the right moves on every big decision. So we'll see how things go when we get down to brass tacks.

[beltwaybandit]

Your last paragraph is interesting, but probably reflective of many liberals and Democrats.

The answer rests with the underlying assumption upon which you base your thinking.

If you believe that all women who supported Hillary were Democrats, then your comments make sense.

If you believe that a large portion of women supported Hillary because she is female and that those women supporters were Republicans as well as Democrats (or neither), then the phenomenon makes more sense.

I think it is somewhat naive to believe that all Clinton supporters are funadmentally Democrat and believed in Democratic party principles. But that has not stopped Democrats and in particular, liberals, from thinking that way.

That explains the two terms of George W. Bush, and probably is part of the explanation for the surprisingly tight race this year despite the Republicans basically setting the table for the Democrats to run over them.

It is profundly frustrating for some Democrat and independent voters to watch as the Republicans repeatedly hand the Dems a situation to capitalize on, only to have the Dems get caught up in their high-minded ideals, highly charged emotions and irrelevent issues (free healthcare for all and saying "the Republicans are wrong on Iraq" in a time when most people are far more worried about their jobs, their homes and national security matters.

If you want to change the party in power, rule one is to focus on winning the election. THEN you can work on all the other things important to you.

In 2000, espcially 2004 and I am afraid possibly in 2008 (judging by last night's convention) the Democrats fell into the trap of being mad but not being organized and focused.

[Eric Deggans]

The Gallup organization says their March poll, which indicated 28 percent of Clinton supporters would vote for McCain, was based on a sample of Democratic voters. I'm assuming these arepeople who at least tolsd the pollsters they were registered Democrats.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/105691/McCain-vs-Obama-28-Clinton-Backers-McCain.aspx

I think one reason so many in the press are talking about this is because it is a real division. I don't understand how a woman who supports Hillary clintron can turn away from a demcratic candidate to vote for a Republican opposed to all their core policies, either. But voters have let emotional issues push them into voting against their true political interests fro a long time....

[Ron]

"There’s been a diminution of the honest broker and an increase in opinionated coverage."

Given Dan Rather's history, I can only chuckle when I read this coming from him.

[Ron]

"My colleagues in the national media are absolutely biased, in the tank supporting the Obama candidacy while claiming the mantle of objectivity." - Lou Dobbs

[Lin Young]

There has been a trivialization of the news, especially news coverage of this presidential race.

I am so sick of hearing CNN commentators, and other media people, trying to vilify and marginalize Hillary Clinton supporters, and Clinton herself, by harping on how some of the Republican women who would have voted for a female Democrat won't vote for Barack Obama and how that somehow threatens to derail his chances to win. Only they don't identify the women who say they won't vote for Obama as Republicans. They make it sound like some sort of sour grapes, bitchy woman thing. I especially love how journalists refer to all these women without identifying them by name. And if they ever interview one, (better to interview 100 for all the noise the media is making over this) who says she won't vote for Obama, do they ask the woman if she has voted for Democrats or voted for Republicans in the past? Heck no.

Had Hillary won the nomination, no one would have dared vilify and marginalize Obama's black Republican supporters for not being willing to cross party lines and vote for a white female Democrat.

This whole vein of media coverage is trivial.

I rarely see any serious reporting comparing and contrasting the details of how Obama and McCain differ on important issues. Just all this trivial, endless bashing of women, including Democratic women, because a bunch of Republican women Hillary supporters - who were so excited about the prospect of electing the nation's first woman president that they were willing to cross party lines to do so - won't cross party lines to elect a male Democrat. Well,...Duh!

So far, the only women I have spoken to who were supporting Hillary who aren't planning to vote for Obama are Republicans. Most Hillary supporters are like me, they are going to vote for the candidate at the top of their ticket. For me, the candidate at the top of my party ticket is Obama. I wish the news media would stop treating all Hillary supporters as if we had come from the same party to begin with.

If anything is killing journalism, it might be the plethora of journalists that ignore reporting or commenting on real news to make a Mt. Everest out of a molehill.

News coverage of this election is bordering on becoming a soap opera. You can tune it out for a while, then start listening and reading again a few weeks later and the coverage is still the same insipid drama.