Letters to the Editor
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Campaign coverage sucks? So make it better!
If there's anything even less relevant than "horse race" political coverage, it's deep, pained analysis of why it's all the coverage we ever get. Amazingly, this article manages to be even more devoid of meaning than its subject.
Salon, here's a challenge: stop pretending you're not part of the media, and hand-wringing over how broken it is. Give us actual reportage and analysis of, say, Obama's positions on the issues vs. Clinton's.
Then maybe, just maybe, some of us would have a shot at being informed voters on Super Tuesday.
Time's running out.
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The Great Distraction
What Mr. Rosen says all seems true enough, but for my money the worst thing about horse-race campaign coverage is the distraction it provides from what the current administration has done and is doing.
We have an administration plagued with scandal, yet as soon as the presidential election hove into view, virtually all coverage (such as there was) of the troubles of Bush and company vanished.
While the current administration ruthlessly expands the powers of the executive branch, prosecutes one war of aggression and contemplates another, and (presumably) continues to spy on Americans and torture prisoners ("presumably" because nobody has seriously called it to book for the offenses we know about), the Guardians of our Liberties in the press are all cheering at the race track.
The evils of the imperial presidency do not depend on who is emperor. Simply waiting out the rest of Bush's term, and hoping for better from the new President, will cement the present administration's reconstruction of the federal executive as an absolute monarchy. A string of midnight pardons on Bush's last night in office will close the book on any effort to uncover the administration's misdeeds. The victor in November's horse race will inherit an office that is above the law and unaccountable to the people.
The American people is weary of Bush and his cronies, and reporting on their crimes will not sell a lot of ad space; but I wonder if what's left of our liberties can long survive if we rely on a mere change of personnel to fix systemic evils.
Jim Crutchfield
Long Island City, NY
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Our fault as much as media's
There is only so much actual information out there. Those who are after it, can find it, and then do something else. Also, they tend to look for primary sources - which rarely means the media.
Non-information, on the other hand, is infinite, and you can spend all day reading it.
Just as too many movies pander to the teenage moviegoing demographic, too much media coverage panders to the political junky. And that means keeping information to a trickle.
Why do you think I'm reading Salon, anyway?
The only solution is to keep track of who does a better or worse job. Which this article manifestly fails to do. We KNOW about horse race coverage - we KNOW that TPM and Politico and Drudge and, by the way, Salon are all knee deep. So point us to places like TheRealNews (video), which resist the temptation.