Not our fault we suck

From an interesting Media Matters piece on responsibility and campaign coverage.

Of course character is important in choosing a president; of course personality will always play a role. The problem isn't that journalists think character and personality matter, it is that they are spectacularly bad at assessing these traits, and even worse at predicting how the candidates will govern as a result.

Remember: During the 2000 campaign, the journalists and pundits told us that George W. Bush was the honest one. The straight-talking Texan. They told us this over and over and over again, until many Americans believed it. They told us that George W. Bush could unite the country, unlike the divisive Al Gore.

The argument that journalists should focus on things like facts and policy isn't based on the premise that character and personality don't matter. It's based on the simple fact that the American people are far better at assessing character and personality than Chris Matthews and Maureen Dowd and Matt Drudge and Mark Halperin. And it's based on the fact that NBC and The New York Times have the time and resources to determine if the candidates' statements are true and consistent and logical — but voters don't.

That's where we need journalists: to help us sort out what the candidates have done, what they say they'll do, how likely it is to work, and who will benefit. We don't need them to speculate about why they chose to wear brown shoes or three-button suits or what the music on their iPods says about their character. We can figure that out on our own. And we don't need them to tell us who is likely to win; we need them to tell us information that will help us decide who should win.

In addition blaming other reporters or the entire industry — anyone but themselves — there’s also the institutionalized notion among journalists that they are smarter than news consumers. So reporters writing about John Edwards’ haircut or Hillary’s tits are just giving the public what it wants.

But what they are really doing is giving their corporate ownership what it wants: a distracted and ignorant electorate. Focus on bullshit like hair and wardrobe long enough, and We The People will vote against someone who provide their children with free access to health care in favor of someone who says, “Free-market principles are the only things that reduce cost and improve quality (of health care).”

And just look how well the free market is controlling costs and improving quality.

Newspapers aren’t written on a junior high school level because editors think readers are smart. And jokes like “To comment on editorials, call the Inquirer editorial office. Editorial Board members will roll their eyes and chuckle at your remarks” wouldn’t be funny if they weren’t an honest look into the smug, condescending minds in so many American newsrooms.