Reporters discuss covering complex political campaign
BY ADAM GORLICK
In a seemingly endless presidential campaign marked by dozens of debates, dizzying tallies of delegates and superdelegates and around-the-clock talk about race, gender and age, it's not easy for the average voter to make sense of it all.
It's even tricky for the experts whose job it is to keep score.
"This is the most complicated race I've ever covered," said Adam Nagourney, who has spent the last 12 years covering politics for the New York Times. "And it's by far the most interesting and the most important and compelling."
Nagourney and fellow Times reporter Elisabeth Bumiller joined Walter Shapiro of Salon.com and the Washington Post's Dan Balz and Anne Kornblut to discuss their campaign coverage Thursday at the 42nd Annual McClatchy Symposium. The event was moderated by Communication Department Chair James Fishkin.
With John McCain's early lock on the Republican nomination and Barack Obama eking out a lead over Hillary Clinton, the reporters reflected on a primary season that started with a crowded field of candidates. Their reflections included a big dose of self-critique and talk about the job media have done reporting on the buildup to the general election.
With Clinton and Obama vying to be either the first woman or black presidential contender in the general election, the press has had to "figure out how to cover everyone else" while focusing so much on the high-profile candidates, Nagourney said.
The second-tier Democratic candidates, such as former Sen. John Edwards and Sens. Chris Dodd and Joseph Biden, have a legitimate gripe about how they were—or were not—covered, Balz said.
"Our paper did not do justice to them," he said.
The reporters also are finding themselves with less time to thoroughly think through a single story as they are pushed to compete in a nonstop, 24-hour news environment. Along with their newspaper articles, more and more journalists are writing blogs, updating websites, doing podcasts and making television appearances.
"We're the dinosaurs of the media," Bumiller said, referring to traditional print reporters. "There's a lot of 'slap it on the web, let's get it up.' I find that superficial."
And the attention given to one national poll after another has been a distraction, Shapiro said.
"They've undermined the seriousness of the campaign," he said. "So much time has been devoted to predicting things that never happen."
Still, he and his colleagues have found ways to delve into some issues. While voters often complain that campaigns are short on substance, the reporters agreed that this political season has been filled with solid platforms on the Iraq war, foreign policy, climate change and health care.
Assuming Obama wins the Democratic nomination, "the issue of race is the biggest story we're going to have to grapple with," Balz said.
Bumiller, who has been shadowing McCain, said she has been watching the senator "make a tough transition from maverick to Republican standard-bearer." For a candidate who at first presented himself as something of a party renegade, McCain has become much more disciplined and less likely to veer from his well-scripted talking points, she said.
And Clinton, the former first-lady-turned-senator who took on a new life as a White House contender, will undoubtedly have another political incarnation, even if she is out of the presidential running.
"The story of Hillary Clinton isn't by any stretch of the imagination over," said Kornblut, who has been tailing the senator's campaign and compared the experience to "getting your PhD in the person."
And with five months until Election Day, there is plenty more to learn about the candidates.
"This is the best campaign we ever could have covered," Balz said. "This is as good as it gets for political journalism."
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