Letters to the Editor
-
Partisanship!
The problem is exactly that we don't have what the right wing says we do: a partisan press. In an effort to be neutral, the only thing the press can cover is the horse race, the techniques and insider stuff, and god forbid that anyone should look at the content.
The best journalism in America is, and has been for a long time, sports journalism. Read a local paper for its coverage of the local NFL or MLB or whatever franchise: it is clearly partisan in that it wants the home to team to win, but it is critical, incisive, questioning, and even from time to time poetic. Except when it covers intra-city sports, then it has to get all neutral and hence boring and superficial.
Phooey on being neutral, I say. I'd far rather read a reporter who wore their Democratic or Republican sentiments on their sleeve, and then went into the race on that basis, even if I disagreed with it. It would help me more as a voter too; nonsense about campaign tactics and pre-news news help me not at all, what I need to understand is what is being proposed and how it would cash out in my life rather than in the campaign, and I feel rather let down by the 4th estate.