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A service of the News & Record, Greensboro, North Carolina
Please note the new weekly feature, Washington Watch, that debuted today by Mark "Energizer Bunny" Binker.
Seemed as if Kay Hagan joining the Senate as the first or not first from GSO is as good a reason as any. (I'm repressing the thought that Binker proposed it to be able to write off future trips to our nation's capital.)
I'm delighted that Richard Prince at Journal-isms featured Ben Villarreal's inauguration front page on his front page.
Update: And a mention here, too.
If you want to buy a framed copy of the page, you can here.
Here's the pdf unhindered by press reproduction.
Some people believe -- and I'm one of them -- that those political prognosticators will say pretty much anything if it gets them more notoriety or, better yet, more airtime. So, who can resist when their comments coming back to haunt them? Andrew Sullivan reminds us of some of the best ones about President-elect Obama.
My favorite: "Barack Obama is on his way to a McGovern candidacy," -- Victor Davis Hanson, National Review, March 29, 2008.
(Via E&P.)
Just in case you thought that things couldn't get much sillier on the relations between the president elect and the news media, you will be happy to know that some people are watching everything very closely.
The headline says it all: "Obama ignores TV networks at presser."
Six reporters called on, all from print. Media conspiracy?
(Via E&P.)
Wednesday update: And he takes no questions from Fox News.
Over at Capital Beat, Binker collects information about Prez-elect Obama's citizenship. Who knew it was even an issue? (Well, we did, as evidenced by this comment.)
Still, the idea that Obama is not a citizen of the United States is pretty much debunked. Not that that will stop true disbelievers. Political partisanship is a powerful thing.
Ratings for cable TV news and the number of visits to news Web sites built for weeks and then peaked on Election Day, giving the electronic media some of their biggest audiences in years. But since then, TV ratings and online traffic have fallen -- in many cases precipitously -- indicating that viewers and visitors have largely quenched their thirst for political news.
-- The Washington Post
My sense is that this holds true here, too. I have not checked our Web site data -- as a local news site we didn't do much with the presidential story online unless the candidates were here. Still, since election week, we have published virtually all presidential transition stories inside the paper. The suspense and excitement of the horse race is gone, and now people are waiting to see how their decision plays out. But Obama's not in office yet so it's premature to dissect his performance much.
And no one is talking about President Bush. Has there been a lamer duck in recent presidencies?
Things will gear up again in early January.
My newspaper column
As many of you know, our Wednesday, Nov. 5, front page featured a full-page photo of President-elect Barack Obama under the headline "Obama Triumphs."
That issue sold flat, plumb out. The last time we had a sellout was Sept. 12, 2001.
Because of the demand, we put the front section back on our presses that evening and ran off another 12,000 copies. Some people came by and bought copies fresh off the press. On Thursday morning, our lobby was packed with people buying copies. One man bought 200. We sold out of those, too.
On Saturday morning, we distributed a full-page commemorative poster of Obama in the paper. That edition sold well.
A letter to the editor today takes us to task for not reporting on then gubernatorial candidate Bev Perdue's campaign speech at the Depot.
Your newspaper did a very bad job covering her campaign.
Early on, there was an important rally at the Depot, only about 200 yards from the News & Record building; no reporter covered it, and I do not recall any reference to it in your paper. No reporter came to the celebration in Raleigh when she won the primary. (I was at both events.) Most coverage of her campaign used AP stories.
It's not unusual for supporters of political candidates to tell us that we haven't done their candidates justice.
But it is true we didn't cover that rally. It wasn't personal or political. It was in keeping with a decision we made early on that, outside of the presidential race, we weren't going to do much with campaign rallies. Candidates use those occasions to give stump speeches; little news occurs. Reporters can spend their time better. We also didn't cover many of the local candidate forums for the same reason.
For the big state races, we did use AP stories often. That's one of the reasons we buy the wire service.
I have fielded calls, blog comments and now a letter to the editor wondering what our Wednesday front page would have looked like if Sen. McCain had won the election.
A McCain photo would have taken up about two-thirds of the page, not the entire page. At the bottom of the page, a story about his victory and a box with promos to other stories elsewhere in the paper.
Why the difference in treatment?
All news is not created equally. An Obama victory is one for the ages. Fifty years ago, a black person could not eat lunch at Woolworth's. Today, an African American is poised to become president of the United States. Obama will be our first black president. McCain would have been our 44th white president. Our coverage wouldn't have diminished McCain's importance, but the historical significance of Obama's victory elevated it.
On a related issue, Saturday we will include a poster of President-Elect Obama in the newspaper.
Our librarian, Diane Lamb, sends along these tips for preserving newspapers:
* Do not put the paper in a plastic bag for storage in an attic or basement where it will decay.
* Lay the newspaper flat -- do not store with paper folded along the middle. The fold is the first place a newspaper will decay and discolor.
* Store in an acid-free paper folder available at most art and office stores.
* Keep paper away from extremes in temperature or humidity.
* If framing, use an acid free matte and UV-3 Plexiglas, which protect paper from most of ultraviolet rays and prevents discoloring and fading.
* Finally be advised that nothing can really eliminate newsprint deterioration over time; after all, this media format is not designed for archival storage. All we can do is be careful about controlling the environmental threats to newsprint deterioration.
Source: Special Libraries Association
That said, I have pages from Greensboro newspapers from the 19th century. They are easily readable, but they crumble at anything more than the slightest touch.
Guilford County goes 60-39 for Obama.
Around us, Randolph goes 71-28 for McCain; Alamance, 54-45 for McCain; Rockingham, 62-37 for McCain; Davidson, 66-33 for McCain.
The political division between the urban county and the surrounding counties continues. For years, Guilford County has been blue while its neighbors have been red. For several years, while bemoaning our political coverage, people have insisted to me that the N&R is out of touch, that the sentiment of the Triad is conservative and Republican. Obviously, it is in some places.
And not others.
Our election coverage here.
Our first edition front page
Update: Proud to be part of this collection of best front pages.
Update II: A friend writes that our front was flashed on CNBC.
Self-fulfilling prophecy? Naysayers? Oh ye of little faith?
The N&R editorial pages are already getting letters to the editor from McCain supporters bemoaning the Obama victory. Say what? It's not even 9 p.m.? Only a few states have been called.
Maybe Doonesbury is their barometer.
You might think the election is important, but what do you know?
The most visited story of the day? This one.
We love us some Friendly Center.
If you believe that much of national political campaigns is about marketing, then Seth Godin has an incisive evaluation of the presidential campaign.
There's a reason most product marketers don't use attack ads. All they do is suppress sales of your opponent, they don't help you. Since TV ads began, voter turnout has progressively decreased. That's because the goal of attack ads is to keep your opponent's voters from showing up. Both sides work to whittle down the other. In a winner-take-all game like a political election, this strategy is fine if it works.
So why didn't the ads work this time?
The tribe that Obama built identified with him. Attacking him was like attacking them. They took it personally, and their outrage led to more donations and bigger turnout.
When tonight is over and the pundits start picking over the remains, more of the inside story will come out. Still, I think he's right about the tribe.
I can't think of 10 things that I'm going to miss as America's endless treadmill of a presidential campaign is coming to an end.
But the fine folks at the Fort Worth paper have compiled such a list for me. (Via Twitter from Howard Weaver.)
I can think of many more things that I won't miss, but I have come up a few things I'll be sorry to see go.
1. Sarah Palin. OK. She may not go. She could be VP. But even if she is, it won't be the same. I don't think she's ready to be president, but she invigorated both the McCain candidacy and the whole race. Whether she winked or attacked or couldn't answer a question about what she reads or what the VP does, she was exciting to watch in the same way it is exciting to watch Dick Cheney hunt.
2. North Carolina mattered. For the first time, I think, in my lifetime, candidates not only cared about winning N.C., they had to care. I can't remember how many times McCain, Obama, Palin and Biden visited the state. After tomorrow, I expect we'll go back to being just another Southern state, but for four months, we were somebody.
3. People cared. 80% of Guilford County's registered voters might vote! People waited in line to vote early as long they waited on Election Day four years ago. Excitement about the electoral process. Who knew?
4. Change happens. When there's peace and prosperity, who needs change? OK, that one's off the table. These days, everyone campaigns on platform of change, but this time, I don't know, call me, naive, I think that with either candidate change will happen. Conversely, who else is sick of the word "maverick?"
5. Wonk heaven. Yeah, government policy stuff doesn't sell newspapers. Offshore drilling? Earmarks? Tax policy? No, no and no. Still, for people who watch C-Span or City Council on public access -- me -- this election has been as heavenly as waving a Saks credit card in front of Sarah Palin or posing an open-ended question to Joe Biden.
6. Lunacy run amok. Obama's a Muslim? Obama supports terrorists? Neither is a native American? Flag pins? Saluting the flag? Palin in a bikini? What? At first, I was unsettled by the amount of bogus information circulated as fact -- and that some people bought it -- then I just gave in and laughed. That so many people would consider their fellow Americans as dupes and tools had to be laughed at. By the way, I disowned the people who sent me those e-mails.
7. The amazing disappearance of Congress and President Bush. Of course, they didn't disappear, except that, where have they been? The election sucked all the air out of DC and Americans discovered they hadn't missed anything. Yeah, for a brief few days when the economy tanked, Washington politicians got the cameras back and see how that has worked out. Mr. President, let's make Congress more like the N.C. legislature -- a part-time job.
Update:
8. How could I forget free election stuff.
9. Impassioned election letters. Now we're back to complaints about parking and drivers.
Seven. Nine. That's more than a few. (Just call me Joe Biden.)
Feel free to add your own.
Probably like every newspaper in America, we aren't banking on an Obama victory. We know that the polls have all the value of a hanging chad. We're hedging our bets.
We've prepared three front pages for Wednesday: Obama wins; McCain wins; and Too Close to Call. (I am a survivor, barely, of the 2000 "Bush-wins!-Oops-not-so-fast" election.) Hagan-Dole and MCrory-Perdue will get a mention on the front page, but just a mention. Either way, the focus will be on the big race thanks both to intense voter interest and the historical dimensions: the first African American president or the first female vice president. If we have the winner by our deadline, the paper will be one of those that is worth putting away for posterity. (80%? Does that story say 80% of the registered voters in Guilford County are going to have voted in this election? Wow!)
Naturally, the big fear is that an Ohio or a Florida will drive the electoral college into OT, announcing the winner at, say, 3 a.m. Wednesday, well past our deadline. As our publisher likes to say, the best, most up-to-date newspaper in the world is no good if it is sitting, stacked and bundled, on the dock, undelivered because it came in too late.
So, we build an online plan. What do you think should be on it? What do you want to read about, other than the winners, when you get up Wednesday morning?
Mark Binker is one of the best political reporters in the state. So I had to laugh when I read this comment from one of our Reader Advisory Network members: Mark Binker is far too conservative. He has given short shrift to the Hagan and Bratton campaigns and to Obama. I was disgusted by the Life on October 21 with full color pictures of the Palin visit. Where were the photos of the huge Obama rally?
Of course, we published photos of the Obama rally, too.
Anyway, I asked the Network this question: Evaluate, in this the last week before the election, the N&R's election coverage in terms of completeness and fairness.
Most of the 102 respondents said they thought the coverage had been fair. That is affirming because our editors and reporters have been tenacious about being evenhanded. We weren't perfect by any means, but over the course of the loooong political season, the coverage should have been straight up.
What surprised me about the answers to my question was the number of people who said that because they had voted early, they had stopped following the campaigning. Here are two:
Just so tired of election coverage -- can't take it anymore, so I probably haven't looked very closely at any election stuff!
I've been hearing far too much for far too long about the election and I just want it to be over with.
The panel is made up of smart, passionate and opinionated readers. Sometimes their thinking converged; sometimes diverged. Normally, I hear from many people who think we and the rest of the media are too liberal. The eye of the beholder is pretty strong on this question.
This is N&R's banner year. The coverage this year is unsurpassed in your history for both completeness and fairness. The reportage and articles have been excellent for all levels of the campaigns..local, state, and national. Give yourselves an "A."
No, my mother didn't write that one...or the following one.
There is nothing fair about N&R's coverage. As with most newspapers there is a very deliberate liberal slant. There is no reporting of the news when it comes to politics and your paper. It has almost become an entirely editorial newspaper.
But maybe we should get that person together with the one below to see if we could weave together some common ground.
You lean toward McCain, and I do not. You hide his and Palin's lies, and tend to play up Obama's. McCain/Palin ticket is a nightmare, who could possibly want them to run our country.
Finally, although some respondents wanted less of the campaign frivolity and more depth on the issues, there is this:
I would like to see more about the clothes, hair, makeup that Sarah Palin has received. She has a bad track record and it is like the media won't touch her. Why is that?
Want to join the panel? We wish you would. Your comments are the best way to help us improve.
We got a few calls today that our front page was "too Democratic," although the callers used more colorful language. A Jamestown woman told me that the Biden story, followed by the early voting story and the African American voters story were "Democrat, Democrat and Democrat."
I asked her how she would have played the Biden visit to Winston. She said she would have ignored it. "He's a nothing," she said.
Another told me that he didn't care who was voting early and that we ought to "just let the election take place without meddling."
I have also gotten two e-mails saying that we are guilty as charged in Scott Card's column, which is just another strident political opinion piece in a conservative paper. By the way, we don't have reporters in Washington, or with the Obama campaign, or assigned to the national housing industry. Makes it difficult to investigate.
Meanwhile, this week I was sent these three emails by different people. They asked me why we hadn't reported the "news," when we were going to report it, or whether we knew if it was true. To each, I sent the appropriate Snopes link back to them, saying that there was more information they should consider.
Days like these make me oh-so-ready for the election to be over.
I know people want to affirm and validate their core beliefs. I hope they will challenge those beliefs, just to keep themselves honest. And Snopes is a wonderful thing.
The cover story of this week's Newsweek reflects on "how a President Obama might govern a center-right nation."
It begins with an anecdote of a December 1985 New York dinner celebrating the "Age of Reagan." Then the story travels to Greensboro:
A month before, in November 1985, Al From, the former staff director of the House Democratic Caucus, had been in North Carolina, flying from Raleigh to Greensboro, on a trip to talk wavering Democrats into staying in the fold after Mondale. "The common charge we heard from voters was that 'we didn't leave the Democratic Party, the Democratic Party left us'," says From, whose organization, the Democratic Leadership Council, was trying to move the party rightward toward the center. Dick Gephardt, Joe Biden, Sam Nunn and Lawton Chiles were among those flying with From, and things were not going well. "It was a miserable day, and our trip was about to be aborted," From says. There was congressional business in Washington, and From had already canceled the last leg of the journey, an event in Charlotte. Landing in Greensboro in the rain, the group made its gloomy way to an airport hotel for a fundraiser. "We were sure no one would show up," From says. "But when we got there we saw people lined up out the door." As he recalls it, the message of the occasion was straightforward: "We were trying to reconnect the Democratic Party with mainstream America."
In these two moments from a now distant year -- the dinner at the Plaza and the gathering in Greensboro—lie the roots of our politics.
Actually, it was October 1985. Oct. 21 to be exact. 335 tickets were sold to the luncheon at the Sheraton that day.
Here's how reporter Chuck Alston began his story of that meeting.
Remember "Mondale-liberal," the political label that Republican Sen. Jesse Helms sewed on former Democratic Gov. Jim Hunt during the 1984 campaign?
The Democratic Leadership Council, a group of moderate and conservative Democrats out to reshape the party in its image, remembers the label all too well. To the GOP's advantage, the liberal image of Walter Mondale, the Democratic presidential candidate, wore like a lead weight on Hunt and other Southern Democrats.
In a two-day visit to North Carolina that ended Monday in Greensboro, council members made it clear that the National Democratic Party must tailor a new label for Democrats to wear into 1988.
"We are trying to make it safe for state and local officials to identify themselves with the national party and survive," Sen. Sam Nunn, D-Georgia, told a Greensboro luncheon in explaining the council's mission.
Organized last March, the council counts 17 senators, 61 representatives and 10 governors, mostly from the South and West, in its membership. Operating outside the national Democratic Party, the council is seeking changes in structure and platform that will broaden the party's appeal, especially in the South.
Rep. Richard Gephardt, D-Mo., the DLC chairman, said its task is to preseve the party's "old values," but deliver them with "new ideas."
Council members delivered this message over cocktails, supper and breakfast in Raleigh, at lunch in Greensboro and in press conferences in both cities. The tough-talking messengers were Sens. Lawton Chiles, D-Fla., Joe Biden, D-Del., and Nunn, and Gephardt and Rep. Steve Neal, D-N.C.
Speaking bluntly about the party's recent past, the described a dim future unless change in forthcoming. The party, DLC members said, must pitch for "mainstream America" and shed its image as a captive of liberal interest groups.
"The perception, whether we like it or not...is that (the Democratic Party) has gone to the left, while the country has gone to right," Chiles said.
Despite From's memory about things in Raleigh not going well, Alston reports that "In general, the DLC and its message were greeted eagerly during the two days."
Alston didn't mention From in his story. Biden, of course, is running for vice president. Chiles is the uncle of Kay Hagan, who is running for U.S. Senate. And Chuck Alston ended up working as executive director of the DLC for several years.
Giles Lambertson was an editorial columnist for the newspaper at the time. He also attended and wrote a column about the luncheon. Some excerpts:
When Biden said his was a party of opportunity and optimism, he tried to illustrate it by remembering how his favorite president, John Kennedy, had set America's sights on the moon -- a bold initiative. "He had no notion how that would be done," he said. For some reason, the Strategic Defense Initiative of Ronald Reagan popped into my mind.
As it turned out Nunn himself showed true leadership and courage in this comment: "Black leadership also is going to have to move to the mainstream" as the party pursues what is in "the best interest of the majority as well as the minority." That's saying something.
And Biden, finally, indicated a basic misunderstanding of what leadership means, saying: "The American people rejected our stagnation, not what we stood for." The truth is, senator, the party stood for stagnation, and that's exactly what the American people rejected.
Earlier this month, we published a photo package of Sen. Obama's visit to Greensboro. Several people thought that that showed our bias, given that the package came several days after Obama's appearance. I said that we would do the same if and when Sen. McCain came to town.
McCain hasn't made it back to Greensboro, but Gov. Palin came to Elon last Thursday. That's close enough.
Tomorrow -- on our regular Thursday Life photo page -- we are publishing some of the snaps from the Palin rally.
If you voted Sunday, we're looking for you.
By the way, I've complained suggested that Gov. Palin make herself more available to the news media.
On her visit here, she did. Just not to us.
From reporter Mark Binker's post at Capital Beat:
I'm not real happy with the McCain campaign today. After the Elon event Palin did a fundraiser and I was told the local pool would be able to cover that. It's a major reason I took the pool assignment. I was told mid-way through my day that the fundraiser would be closed. And I just found out that the campaign tossed a one-on-one to an out-of-town competitor rather than to the paper that staffed their pool today.
Who knows why campaigns do what they do. Rob's interview.
It wasn't entirely a beautiful day in the neighborhood yesterday at the Palin rally.
One of our reporters, Joe Killian, is kicked by a rally-goer.
Classy.
Joe's take.
Joe's fine, by the way, and is ready to move to the next day's story.
Update: A report on the arrest of an Elon University student here. Meanwhile, Sara comments at Binker's place about other incidents.
Update: Palin rally video.
In an otherwise irreverent online chat, Dana Milbank of the Washington Post refers to reports that a heckler at a Palin rally shouted out "Kill him!" (The Secret Service has since described the report as unfounded.)
"I wasn't at the Scranton event, but I have to say the Secret Service is in dangerous territory here. In cooperation with the Palin campaign, they've started preventing reporters from leaving the press section to interview people in the crowd. This is a serious violation of their duty --protecting the protectee -- and gets into assisting with the political aspirations of the candidate. It also often makes it impossible for reporters to get into the crowd to question the people who say vulgar things. So they prevent reporters from getting near the people doing the shouting, then claim it's unfounded because the reporters can't get close enough to identify the person."
I don't know what that heckler may or may not have said. But it must be noted that this isn't just a Palin campaign issue. Reporters at the Obama rally here in September were prevented from leaving the press area. Well, sort of.
From reporter Joe Killian's Twitter feed that day:
9:29 a.m. Secret service and staff can't agree if press are allowed to mix in with crowd
9:40 a.m. Secret service says yes to mixing with crowd. If escorted by staff.
9:46 a.m. Obama staffer says press not allowed on ground, not allowed to talk to crowd even through fence.
9:52 Am removing press badge and getting out of press area to talk with people.
Reporter Gerald Witt didn't even go into the press area. He mingled with the crowd for his story. Good old fashioned reporting.
Friday update: Visitors here may be more interested in this.
Newspapers publish a lot of public records: crime reports, court dispositions, home purchases, births, marriages, divorces, gun permits among others.
So, how about the names of people who didn't vote?
A Tennessee paper does it it as a way to encourage people to vote. (Via E&P.)
"Sometimes when you embarrass people they do the right thing," the president and publisher the Tennessee Tribune said.
Interesting concept and perfectly legal. Seems wrong, but that's what some people tell us about every list we publish, including marriages and births.
Don't expect us to follow suit. If you have to shame people into voting, I'm not sure I want them to vote.
If you're planning to vote early -- it starts tomorrow -- here's some information that might help.
Editor & Publisher is collecting newspaper presidential endorsements.
So far, the Obama-Biden ticket leads with 28 editorial endorsements, with the McCain-Palin lagging far behind with 11. It's too early to project, but in 2004, John Kerry barely edged George W. Bush in endorsements, by about 220 to 205.
In another important measure: Obama has so far won the backing from five papers that endorsed the GOP candidate in 2004, while McCain has earned no flip-flops.
The only N.C. paper that has made the list so far: Asheville Citizen-Times for Obama. (The News & Record won't be on either list.) If you know of others tell E&P.
Do political polls have any news value? I mean, they are sort of interesting, in that here's-what-1,000-people-are-thinking-at-this-precise-moment-in-time way. Actually, I probably should have said here's what they say they are thinking, given that we know that some people lie to pollsters. And don't forget the usual 3% margin of error.
Here are four recent ones. ABC-Washington Post, Zogby, Gallup, and Rasmussen. All have different, yet similar results.
In the end, are the results important to the common citizen? Do they tell us anything of particular use? Do they affect the way that people vote, with voters either casting their ballots for the "winner" or voters becoming non-voters, thinking their vote won't count?
The only benefit of polls I can think of is that good reporters use them to inform their stories about campaign strategy. Unfortunately, too often polls are merely used to track the political horse race. And to me, that has little value to the common voter.
Of course, I may change my mind the next time I'm asked.
Advice for the McCain campaign:
Provide total media accessibility on their campaign planes and buses. Kick most of the aides off and send them out to swing states to work for the state coordinators on getting voters to the polls. Keep just a minimal staff to help organize the press conferences McCain and Palin should have at every stop and the TV interviews they should do at every location. Do town halls, do the Sunday TV shows, do talk radio -- and invite Obama and Biden to join them in some of these venues, on the ground that more joint appearances might restore civility and substance to the contest.
Ain't me talking but William Kristol in today's New York Times.
Maybe the well-known conservative has a loug enough voice that Gov. Palin will talk with us when she's in town Thursday. Here's hoping.
Meanwhile, reporter Mark Binker is in Wilmington with the McCain campaign.
Update: His initial blog entryt and news report.
After listening to friends and acquaintances talk about their weariness and impatience with the presidential attack campaign, I used Twitter to ask: Are people really sick of the campaign, as I often hear? And does that mean they don't want to read/watch it anymore?
Responses came quickly:
dsilverman: Some are, some aren't. You're most apt to hear from those who are sick of it. doesn't mean they're the majority.
gabrieli: How can people not want to watch the debates, it's like watching a train wreck. Though the current tv version is more fun.
Natallini: Although I am weary of the campaign, this election is the most important I've faced and have to keep up with all media.
JennySeeley: I'm getting sick of the campaign. I can't watch the debates or read about it anymore. It's become too trivial.
I can't find any recent poll showing how many undecided voters are out there, but in early Sept. an AP-Yahoo poll indicated there were 18%. It's surely less now. (Indecision 2008 on the Daily Show says the undecided is 8%. Worth a look. But anyway...)
What's your political temperature? Are you ready for Nov. 4 now?
I watched the debate last night. I know that Gwen Ifill is getting props for her performance as moderator. Won't hear that from me.
Some questions I wished she had asked:
For Biden:
Would you cite the sources you used to defend your pro-abortion stance despite being Catholic?
After being in Congress for so many years, what past political mistakes or miscalculations have changed the way you go about your decision-making process today?
Are you prepared to be second fiddle to a man with little experience compared to yours? Are you able to deal with Obama's potentially successful bid for Presidency while your own never succeeded? How will the dynamics work between what you bring to the ticket (experience) versus Obama's strengths (vision and personality)?
For Palin:
Why did you fire the public safety commissioner in Alaska?
What was the last book you read that significantly impacted your perspective on political office/public service? How did it influence you?
Why do you feel you deserve to be Vice President? Why do you want this job? For love of country or for party ideology? What leadership can you provide that more seasoned politicians (Mitt Romney, for example) can't?
Specific, direct. Might have provided some insight. These aren't my questions. They came from citizens on our Voterspeak panel.
This is the front page of our Life section today. Every week, Thursday's Life front is a photo page, sometimes based on the news, most times using feature photos.
We had many more good photos of the Obama rally on Saturday than we could run in Sunday's paper.
We decided to focus the photo page on scenes from rally, whether it is shots of security eyeing the crowd, people dancing or people praying. One photo shows the backs of the candidates and the size of the crowd. The smallest photo is of a grinning Obama.
A few people called today to suggest that this page was too much like a campaign ad. We did discuss that point yesterday. I decided to run with it for these reasons:
* The presidential election is arguably the biggest news event going these days (arguably because the economy is competing strongly with it).
* 18,000 people -- most probably from our readership area -- turned out for the rally.
* We had compelling people-oriented photos.
* We hope to do the same if McCain comes to town, or Palin schedules a public event when she's here on Oct. 16.
Some pretty sharp journalists here objected, saying it could communicate a bias. Thoughts? (I expect political partisans to weigh in, but also encourage those with more neutral political stands to voice an opinion.)
Now that Gov. Sarah Palin is coming to Greensboro, maybe she will grant us the same face time she gave Charlie, Sean and Katie. (Some say the current media strategy ain't workin'. You know how I feel about it.)
May be moot. Past fundraisers at the DeJoys' have been private affairs, although it's hard to imagine the party bringing the vice presidential candidate in without some sort of public campaigning.
Anyway, I'm taking questions to ask her if we get the opportunity.
"Is it OK for me to attend the Obama speech?" one of our newsroom folks asked me last week. "Not to cover it as a journalist or anything, but just to watch it?"
It's a common question whenever politics is involved. Journalists' answers to this question run from "Absolutely not' to "Sure. What's the big deal?" (Disagreement in a newsroom? Who'd a thunk?)
My answer: Yes, if you want to go listen to someone who could be the next president of the United States, go. Don't carry an Obama sign or where a pin or indicate support (or protest, for that matter). But you are welcome to educate yourself and to see the candidate in the flesh and listen to his words. Attending will certainly help you understand better what people see in him and how they respond.
I would give the same response to those in the newsroom who want to watch McCain and/or Palin when they come. If either comes.
Some in the traditional media think that attending rallies feeds the perception of political bias. And I suspect that for some, it does. Others think we should go in the other direction and state our biases at the top so that readers will know how to interpret our reporting. I'm at neither place, obviously.
We intend to Twitter the Obama rally Saturday. We'll have the usual online updates on Saturday, the Sunday newspaper stories, the photo slideshows and all, but Twittering the thing will be a new one for us.
Try it. Right now, the plan is for the feed to be here. That, of course, could change as smarter people get involved with it Thursday and Friday.
The news media is pushing back on the McCain-Palin efforts to shelter Gov. Palin's from questions from the press. (In case this post paints me as a left-wing nut, I will note that Fox News is reporting it, too.)
Seriously, isn't it important to watch and listen to how she responds to questions about her qualifications and her views? Isn't that part of the vetting process that every candidate goes through? Don't you want to hear her talk about the economy, about the war, about jobs, about taxes when it is not scripted? Isn't there a question of her accountability if she won't answer questions?
You don't need to be part of the Obama Nation to be interested in hearing what she really thinks about the issues voters care about.
Not that they asked me, but I think this strategy is going to backfire before election day. I know there are McCain-Palin supporters who read this blog. Help me understand how it is good for the electorate when any major candidate declines to meet the press.
Update: Boy, for a bunch of commenters who demand answers from this inconsequential newspaper editor to every obscure question about, say, former Chief Wray, y'all sure don't seem interested in answers from someone who could be president.
Thursday update: My colleague Mark Binker refers me to this rant by Campbell Brown at CNN.
Sen. Obama placed a pink rose in the reflecting pool at ground zero in New York. Sen. McCain, a yellow rose. Is there significance in the color selections?
According to Florapedia:
Yellow -- The bright, sunny color of yellow roses evokes a feeling of warmth and happiness. The warm feelings associated with the yellow rose are often akin to those shared with a true friend. As such, the yellow rose is an ideal symbol for joy and friendship.
Pink -- As a symbol of grace and elegance, the pink rose is often given as an expression of admiration. Pink roses can also convey appreciation as well as joyfulness. Pink rose bouquets often impart a gentler meaning than their red counterparts.
Just in case you wanted to know. (It's about as relevant as lipstick on a pig.)
... Conservatism is a partially heritable personality trait that predisposes some people to be cognitively inflexible, fond of hierarchy, and inordinately afraid of uncertainty, change, and death. People vote Republican because Republicans offer "moral clarity" -- a simple vision of good and evil that activates deep seated fears in much of the electorate. Democrats, in contrast, appeal to reason with their long-winded explorations of policy options for a complex world.
That comes from an article by Jonathan Haidt, associate professor of psychology at the University of Virginia.
I know the question that I use as the headline of this post is relevant because people have asked it of me, thinking, presumably, that I have some insight because of my position. (I have also gotten a similar question from Republicans about voting Democratic.) But before you leap to the conclusion that this is an essay from a pointy-headed liberal academic, read on:
Our diagnosis tells us that we have nothing to learn from other ideologies, and it blinds us to what I think is one of the main reasons that so many Americans voted Republican over the last 30 years: they honestly prefer the Republican vision of a moral order to the one offered by Democrats.
... Democrats often seem to think of voters as consumers; they rely on polls to choose a set of policy positions that will convince 51% of the electorate to buy. Most Democrats don't understand that politics is more like religion than it is like shopping.
The whole thing is worth a read. It's longer than the typical blog post, but reads shorter. And it does offer a believable answer to the question.
For everyone who thinks that everyone thinks just as they do, here's evidence that they don't.
First letter this a.m.
Could this paper bury its "coverage" of the protests in St. Paul any deeper? The fact that nearly as many people came to the Twin Cities to protest as came to attend the Republican convention would seem to merit some attention. 10,000 marched on Monday. Nearly 400 were arrested on the final day, when police barred their path to the convention site.
One would think, given the coverage, that the only storm the Republican's had to worry about was Gustav.
Next letter in:
Perhaps your paper's masthead should read "Democrat Party News Only."
The News-Record continues to disparage the Republican Party. Just look at your coverage of the Republican National Convention the past two days. First, you ignore Senator McCain's Vice-Presidential candidate and her wonderful speech. Then today, you publish the NYTimes report on the convention which is negative and uncomplimentary. By the way, the AP report is upbeat and congratulatory of McCain and the Republican party.
Me, I just want to move beyond partisan rancor.
Lots of buzz on media sites about when and whether Gov. Palin is going to meet with reporters and answer questions.
Even though you may not like the media elite and think we/they are biased and nasty, shouldn't a candidate stumping to be "a heart beat away from the presidency" answer questions in public? Maybe today in Wisconsin?
Jay Rosen has an interesting scenario.
Strategy: double down on defiance by never letting her answer questions, except from friendly media figures who have joined your narrative; like Cheney with Fox. No meet the press at all. No interviews of Palin with the DC media elite— at all. De-legitimate the ask. Break with all "access" expectations. Use surrogates and spokesmen, let them get mauled, then whip up resentment at their mistreatment. Answer questions at town halls and call that adequate enough.
Update: Yesterday, Debatables asked for reaction to Palin's speech: 32 comments to date. This morning asked for reaction to McCain's: Nada, (to quote Rudy G.) Maybe it's too early.
Update II: Uh, nah, no interviews anytime soon.
As a member of something referred to as "the media," I'm used to being used as a tool in political campaigns. The term "media" has joined "liberal," "trial lawyer" and, lately, "Muslim" as weapons, not words with meaning.
So, this strategy to plant the idea that we the media are on "a mission to destroy" Gov. Palin isn't unexpected. Nor is Palin's comment last night much more than evidence that she understands the playbook of American politics...Republican politics, according to Post media writer Howard Kurtz.
From what I read from mainstream coverage -- not counting the recently celebrated National Enquirer -- Kurtz nails it: But most journalists weren't so much biased against Palin as skeptical that she had the experience to step in as commander-in-chief, the standard that McCain himself had repeatedly touted.
Actually, much of what I've read and seen has been positive overall, attempting to explain how an unknown governor got to this position, reviewing her past and outlining her status as an outsider. The reviews on morning news shows give her top marks for her speech last night. Because she is such an unknown, her record, her positions, her votes, her statements, and, yes, her missteps will be news for awhile because most of the country knows so little about her.
That will put the media in the position we are in right now.
Steve Yelvington has a nice piece on the rock-solid American right of freedom of speech and of the press. Consequently, I won't spend time writing about American values here.
I wonder, though, how long the strategy of attacking the media will be effective when everyone is the media? With YouTube and blogs, it's not far off.
Over the past few days we have tried to direct our newspaper coverage of the Democratic National Convention forward, focusing as much as what is expected tonight as the speech that was on television last night. For instance, this is the story that we have on the front page today. It's less about the Bill and Joe show and more about the historical significance of the Obama nomination.
The DNC has also not been the lead story on the front page, unlike most of the larger newspapers in North Carolina. Today's front page:
Our aim is to treat the Republican National Convention in similar fashion.
What we believe is that presidential politics in August is a bit like NHL hockey here. A small number of people care intensely, and a large number don't care at all, knowing the big event is two months away.
But we are apparently swimming against the media tide, if reports are true that 15,000 journalists are covering the two conventions. I wonder how many of those 15,000 are from media outlets that laid off people in the past year. I'm thinking a lot. (Here's a report on what they're all doing there.)
Anyway, do you want more/different coverage?
For several weeks, I have marveled at the daily media speculation over the running mates of Sen. Obama and Sen. McCain. Why waste so much time and manpower on a guessing game that would become news eventually anyway? Particularly, when the guessing game so often turns out wrong?
Juan Antonio Giner tracks the speculation and false reports, with Drudge reporting Obama-Bayh, the Wall Street Journal reporting that it's Tim Kaine, Warren Buffett picking Sam Nunn, and the Chicago Tribune and David Brooks getting it right.
As a bonus, he includes a front page for Hillary lovers.
Until yesterday, all the speculation was a non-story. So why spend all that energy chasing it?
N&O Editor John Drescher quotes reports that the National Enquirer's going rate for info about John Edwards and his affair was $50,000.
You can shake a lot of tree with that kind of money. Bring down a lot of nuts, too.
Both Gerald Witt at Inside Scoop and Mark Binker at Capital Beat have announced and solicited for Voterspeak '08, a weekly online conversation about news and politics. You might think there is no reason for me to promote it here, too. You would be wrong.
I know that readers of this blog are politically engaged and would love to participate with us and each other. Just in case you don't read Scoop or Capital Beat, well, now, you won't miss this opportunity.
We have talked about this John Edwards story for a couple days. The arguments to publish and not to publish are pretty well covered in these links.
For our part, we got nothing to publish. AP hasn't moved anything. The New York Times hasn't moved anything. The other wires we use have sent us nothing, all because they don't have any independent confirmation that what the Enquirer is reporting is actually true. I have no doubt, though, that many of their reporters are on the trail.
Surprisingly, I have not gotten many calls about the story. I don't know if that is because it comes from the Enquirer, because people don't know about it or because it's summer and people have better things to do than obsess over a politician without an office. For the record, I have no idea if the allegations are true. I would be disappointed, but not surprised. (Is it possible to be surprised anymore by any behavior exhibited by national politicians?)
In any case, we aren't avoiding the story because of some bias. We will publish if we get a story from a credible source.
After the school board voted to offer the superintendent's job to Mo Green last night, board member Amos Quick thanked the two assistant superintendents who had run the school system for the past several months. The board and the crowd gave the one assistant who was there a standing ovation.
The reporter from the News & Record remained seated, taking notes.
It may seem rude, but it is generally a rule that reporters don't applaud much of anyone when they're on the job covering a news event. It goes with the turf of being independent of the people and institutions you cover.
I thought of this as I've read about the exuberance with which Sen. Obama is expected to be received at the Unity Convention, a conference of members of the national associations of Black, Hispanic, Native American and Asian American journalists. If there is cheering among supposedly objective, unbiased journalists, how will it be interpreted?
I understand the significance of having a minority candidate in a serious run for the highest office in the land. I think I can understand how personally exciting that is. And I certainly see and feel his charisma.
But then I also remember the abuse that one of our reporters took when she expressed, with too much exuberance, her appreciation for Condi Rice at the end of an interview with the Secretary of State a few years ago.
No question that personal feelings can outrun professional obligations. We don't permit journalists to campaign for candidates or put bumper stickers or post yard signs for candidates. We don't want to put our credibility in jeopardy. We vote, but we also exercise dispassionate detachment as best we can. We know that some members of the public question our objectivity, and we don't want to further fuel the perception that we favor one candidate over another.
In 1999, I attended a journalists conference where then President Clinton was invited to speak. He was politely applauded at his introduction and at the end of his talk. Politely. Most of us were simply conference attendees; I didn't see the working reporters clapping.
Myself, on Sunday, I hope Sen. Obama is greeted with applause, polite, respectful applause.
Sunday update: From a Chicago Tribune report: At UNITY, the applause was restrained, after organizers reminded conference participants that the appearance was being nationally broadcast and they should make every effort to maintain "professional decorum."
Still, Obama received a standing ovation from many in the audience at the start and end of his appearance. There was also a rush toward the stage after his speech, as Obama shook hands and signed autographs.
Does this story about Rep. Howard Coble and its display seem as if we are giving him an advantage in an election year?
The question was raised yesterday. We decided that it is noteworthy that Coble has become the longest serving Republican in the state. With the election a long four months away, we didn't think the story would unduly sway any voter now. Had we been trying to parse his views and votes over 24 years, we would have handled the story differently.
Of course, Dr. Bratton may not see it that way.
We get occasional complaints -- normally when we mention Sen. Obama on the front page -- that we give him preferential treatment.
Today, your paper, once again, put Sen. Obama on the front page under "Quick Read" with a headline story on p.3, again with picture and plenty of coverage, while relegating Sen. McCain to "Washington Brief", two paragraph story farther down the page. In sales, we call this Position-Position-Position. Just another of your many ways to try to show Sen. Obama in the best of circumstances while trying to downplay his opponent. If you can't see this for yourself, you need to have your eyes checked.
That was yesterday. Obama was on the front page because his proposal to expand efforts to send money to religious groups is a decent news story. It breaks with his more liberal positions for one thing, and it expands upon a program that began in a Republican White House. On the other hand, Sen. McCain's visit to Colombia was much less newsworthy. He essentially asked the country to do a better job with human rights. Worthy but hardly surprising.
Still, we're going to track our presidential coverage to see who gets what sort of coverage day in and day out. The one caveat: When it comes to politics, we try to be fair, but we can't always give equal coverage. Sometimes candidates make news by what they say and do. And attempting to be equal cannot trump news judgment.
Update: Angela Tuck, public editor at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution has a related view.
My newspaper column
For most people, the presidential race began in earnest last Saturday when Sen. Hillary Clinton conceded and threw her support to the presumptive Democratic nominee, Sen. Barack Obama.
That cleared the way for Obama and Sen. John McCain to go right at each other.
For me, I knew the campaign was on last Tuesday when I received my first complaints about bias in our coverage of the campaign.
The message, in essence, was "too much Obama."
Today, we received the first phone call and letter since Obama became the presumptive Democratic nominee complaining that our coverage has been "too Obama."
It is true, too.
On Sunday, we published a story on the front page about Obama challenging McCain in the "red states" including the news that Obama was coming to Raleigh first.
Today, we published a story on the front page about his Raleigh visit with a distinctive photo of Obama and Gov. Mike Easley giving each other an enthusiastic thumbs up. As Easley was an ardent Clinton supporter a month ago, it is an interesting photograph.
We will get to the point in the campaign in which we give each candidate a close approximation of equal time. We will do that on the issues. We will do that on fundraising, campaign styles, profiles and the like.
But we won't do it all the time. Political coverage isn't like grade school when everyone gets the same number of crayons. The news doesn't permit it to work that way.
When one candidate comes to Greensboro or Raleigh or Winston, his visit will get priority. When one candidate proposes a program that has a distinct impact on North Carolinians, we will cover that program and candidate closer.
It works the other way, too: When one candidate gets into trouble, he will get more press.
In this case, Obama had just clinched the nomination; Clinton had finally conceded; he was about to start a two-week campaign tour in North Carolina. He and the state were in the national news. It deserved to be on the front page both days. At the same time, McCain, who has been the Republican candidate for months, was in Washington and Virginia.
I hope that Obama holds true to his initial strategy to campaign in the traditionally Republican strongholds. The campaign automatically becomes much more interesting. Both candidates will visit -- neither can take a victory or defeat for granted -- and voters will have the opportunity to see each in person. Being able to make a personal connection with a national candidate is increasingly rare these days.
Anyway, over the course of the campaign, our coverage should even out to be fairly apportioned. But there are no guarantees: If Obama never makes it back to NC, but McCain comes three or four times, I fully expect to hear from Democrats complaining about unequal time.
Thursday update: For those who think the national media is in Obama's camp, from this month's Vanity Fair: "I love the guy," professed New York Times columnist David Brooks one Sunday on The Chris Matthews Show, that church service of chipmunk chatter. The lucky guy on the receiving end of Brooks's blown kiss was John McCain, the rare politician with the magical property to make otherwise finicky journalists go misty and let drop the chastity belt of objectivity. As MSNBC's Joe Scarborough wisecracked about the reporters on the campaign beat this season, "I think every last one of them would move to Massachusetts and marry John McCain if they could."
I have been critical in the past of celebrity news coverage in the paper, explaining that we didn't spend any time and little space on the antics of Britney and Brangelina. Leave that to the Peoples and the Us magazines of the world.
Oh, how wrong I was. Little did I know that we have had nothing but celebrity-dominated front pages for much of the past month
From The New York Times:
Some of the most celebrity-centric, entertainment-obsessed news media outlets have added a heavy dose of political news to their lineups, taking space normally devoted to Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie and handing it to articles on people known more for wonkiness than sexiness....
Driving all of it, editors and campaign aides say, is the appetite for news on presidential candidates and their families -- people who have transcended politics to become bona fide celebrities. As the campaign stretches into its second year, in some corners it is simply seen as entertainment.
Entertaining, it is.
A caller wanted to know why we didn't identify the race of the voters we quoted in our presidential primary stories.
Specifically, he wanted to know whether all of the people we quoted supporting Obama were African Americans. (I'm being kind: He said that he knew they were because they "sounded" like it.)
Racial profiling?
By including that piece of information, it would suggest that the individual's race is specifically relevant to how they voted. It may be. It may be because an African American wants a black man to win in the same way that a woman votes for Hillary because of her gender. It may also mean that the voter agrees with Obama's policies because they have seen the world through similar eyes.
I think the discussion overly simplifies a complex decision, and, in some case, tries to affirm our own beliefs about people. Many emotional, intellectual and political factors enter into picking a candidate.
Singling race out seems unfair, unless the voter specifically said he voted for Obama because of his race. An African American may vote for Obama because they support his policies. Put another way, imagine this sentence: "John Doe, who is white, said he voted for Obama because he agreed with him on the gas tax moratorium." What does race have to do with his vote? Nothing.
Granted, we want it both ways. We look at the demographics of voter registration and exit polling. Our first paragraph on the Obama victory story today certainly examined the results through a racial lens: Sen. Barack Obama's sweeping victory over Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton in the North Carolina primary reaffirmed his strength among the affluent and African American voters and set up the final rounds in the bruising contest for the Democratic presidential nomination.
That tells me more about who voted for Obama and how he won, but not why.
Want to hear the straight talk on McCain's Straight Talk Express? Mark Binker taped it in all its 25-minute glory today.
Be prepared to listen to sausage being made.
Traditionally, newspapers shy away from giving last-minute controversial political statements high visibility on Election Day. Certainly not on the front page; probably tucked inside the paper, if we publish at all. We're old fashioned that way. Several reasons:
* The statements often cannot be vetted in time
* Publishing on the day people vote risks giving the statement more influence that it deserves
* The "other side" doesn't have much time to respond to the "hot" story
If I could do it over again, this story would have been inside the paper today. (It was on the Local front.) A week ago, an article about two school board members urging voters to vote down school bonds would have been worth notice. Today, it violates at least two of the reasons above. Unfortunately, they successfully played us. It's not a mortal sin; more of a low-grade venial one. Still.
Allen has more. Right now this feels wrong, like a political sucker punch..
Joe Killian posts a couple photos on Decision 2008 of the extent to which some Hillary fans will go. (And Joe has a nice little riff about the music played for the candidates.)
While it has been exciting to live through the past two weeks as the two Democratic presidential candidates have discovered that there are voters in North Carolina, I must admit that a small but rapidly growing part of me is so done with the candidates and their families visiting the state.
A day hasn't gone by in the past two weeks in which an Obama or a Clinton haven't been in the state. (With the Clintons triple-teaming us, I can well imagine how Tyler Hansbrough feels in the paint.) We have Bill in Reidsville last night and Hill in High Point today. We even have John McCain in Winston on Election Day, for goodness sakes. (I'm sure he's getting good advice about where to campaign, but I hope he isn't expecting his visit to get much play in the Wednesday papers.)
I know from the crowds they draw that people love the face time with the candidate. It is an exciting time to be a voter whose vote in the presidential primary matters....at least if you are a Democrat. But for a newspaper, how many times can we write a story about Bill visiting Greensboro or Elon or Kernersville or Reidsville? (He says he has the rural tour.) Chelsea is good for one story, but she doesn't say much that's newsworthy. She scarcely spoke to the media during her visit to the Children's Museum. Even though Hillary was at Guilford College Friday afternoon, we put most of our efforts into her appearance in Raleigh later that night. We wrote: Earlier Friday, Clinton gave a speech at Guilford College in Greensboro. Her talk touched on many of her regular themes, including making college affordable, improving health care and pulling soldiers from Iraq.
Given that their stump speeches are much the same, what do we have to report? And the coverage gets the candidates' faithful all riled up. (Actually, that happens regardless of where the candidates are.) We didn't cover the former president in our area last night, but we will be the candidate today. And we don't know yet whether either will be in the state to celebrate a victory tomorrow night.
Personally, I'm trying to keep my eye on the prize -- the potential for more people than ever participating in the democratic process by voting.
Lenslinger has more. What all this simulated momentum has to do with governing our great land I ain't so sure, but if I wanted to manufacturethis kind of clamor I'd go back to pimpin' American Idol. They got w-a-y cuter interns.
Yet more evidence that putting much stock in political polls is wasted effort. I don't have a clue why any media organization would publish the results prominently, much less pay to conduct them.
My newspaper column
"Who are you going to vote for?" is almost as common a question in my household as "What's for dinner?"
With the May 6 primary looming, it is a darned good question. Not only are dozens of presidential, state and local candidates vying for your attention, but Guilford County voters must decide whether to approve a total of $671.6 million in bonds.
It can be a daunting, frustrating time for even the most engaged citizen.
So last week we asked our Reader Panel this question: Do you think the News & Record covers politics in a fair manner?
You'll enjoy the results: Of the 128 people who responded, 82 answered yes, 28 said no and 18 qualified their answers in a variety of ways.
Now, if that doesn't make you want to join the Reader Panel, I don't know what will. Sign up and have your say about our news coverage. It will help us improve.
Those results are true, by the way. But as I said before, the sample is too small to draw many conclusions from. Still.
Some of the comments, presented in a fair and balanced way:
I think the paper tries to be objective and doesn't have a pronounced bias either liberal or conservative. I only wish the letter writers could be as calm and intelligent. The paper does a very good job, good paper for this size market.
..........
Tends to empahsize stories with a liberal agenda without examining both sides of an issue. Not quite as bad as the NY Times, but far from "balanced reporting."
..........
No! I have never thought the paper was objective. The editorials are fairly balanced between left and right but the local opinions are not. I must admit that most newspapers have a left lean which is sad and not objective reporting. Sorry!
..........
I do. All of us have inherent biases that are difficult to overcome. But on balance, the N&R seeks to be fair.
..........
Absolutely not. The bias toward the Democrat Party (it is Democrat not Democratic as the article states) is blatantly obvious. Get a few conservatives to write for your paper and maybe more people will read it with more interest.
..........
Yes -- the GOP can't help that they are stupid people.
At what point does covering the presidential candidates' visits become repetitive? How many times does Hillary come into the region before her visit doesn't make big news? Or, better still, how many times do Bill or Chelsea campaign here before they assume the mantle of "routine?" (Both are coming to N.C. again this week.)
We did not write a news story about Hillary's second visit to Winston-Salem Friday, although we have video of her appearance. For the paper, we opted instead for Columnist Lorraine Ahearn's take on Sunday.
Of course, we covered both Clinton(s) and Obama when they came to the region the first time a few weeks ago. And it is a wonderful thing for civic engagement for presidential candidates to care so deeply about North Carolina (democratic) voters for the first time in many seasons.
But unless the candidates come into the counties where we sell papers we are probably going to let the AP send us reports. Yes, we miss the possibility of some gaff. Yes, we miss something amiss occurring. Yes, we miss the possibility, however slim, slight and non-existent, that the candidate may make news.
But we can use our reporters for other stories, and the AP does send reports of the candidates' visits.
Is it wrong? Should we sent a reporter and photographer if Obama or Clinton skip Greensboro but return to Winston or, say, Durham?
Do you think we did enough with Barack Obama's visit?
Update: And video.
Best story?
With NCAA tournament time upon us, the big question for Sen. Barack Obama was about basketball. Who won the basketball game he played in February against North Carolina's former Sen. John Edwards?
Obama's answer: Edwards.
"(H)e's got an interesting game. He doesn't have much range, but from about 14 to 16 feet, he does not miss. So when I took it outside, beyond the 3-point line, he couldn't go out there. But he hit like eight in a row from 14 to 16 (feet), and that midrange jumper was tough."
On to Clinton! (But we probably won't have a piece about her basketball game.)
What does this say about our Web visitors?
According to Michael Grossman, our Web content guru, stories about Obama's visit here have been among the most read headlines every day. (It's No. 2 today.) The news yesterday that Clinton is coming to Winston barely cracked the Top 20. (It's 19.)
Of course, her visit is to Winston, not Greensboro, and the story was posted in the afternoon, so it didn't get a full day's traffic.
Does that mean that Obama has more support here? More support among our Web users? Readers automatically went to the Journal's site? Maybe supporters who know how to get a story about their candidate on the "most viewed" list?
It'll be interesting to see if Bill Clinton's visit Friday gets more traffic that Hillary's.
Of course, putting it into perspective, the story that is No. 1 to Obama's No.2? Gibsonville Police are looking for a woman who shot and wounded her live-in boyfriend after an argument Monday night.
The N&O's public editor, Ted Vaden, discussed that paper's coverage of a visit by Barack Obama to Fayetteville last week. He mentions that the N&O solicited questions for Obama from readers, three of which were posed to the candidate by the N&O's longtime political reporter.
I have mixed feelings about that. It's great to give readers more ownership of the coverage, and their questions were good ones. But that also meant that Christensen had less time to ask his own questions.
I don't know about you, but in a fly-by interview with the possible next president of the United States I want the questions asked by a 30-year political reporter.
I know this is preaching to the choir, but I was thinking/hoping we were beyond deferring to the superior question-asking of the 30-year vet. (Hmmm...I'm a 30-year vet.) Fortunately, the news leadership at the N&O is. Senior Editor Linda Williams said:
Why should the professional journalists be the only people who get to decide what questions are important? I think we're beyond the point where just journalists get to decide what the important questions are and who gets to ask them.
With that sentiment in mind, Obama is coming here on Wednesday. I don't know that we will get an interview with him, but if we are, what questions should we ask?
And given that Clinton is coming somewhere in North Carolina on Thursday -- her camp is not saying where -- the same goes for her if she comes around here.
I vote.
I don't know why you'd care about that, but the issue of journalists voting is being kicked around.
Some journalists don't vote. I respect their thinking, but I don't agree.
I have thoughts and opinions about issues of the day. To say that I don't and therefore won't vote would be wrong. Most of the journalists I know have been trained to report dispassionately and can keep their opinions out of their stories.
I don't know who I'm going to vote for yet; it's early for me to decide. But come May, I'll be ready.
Think designing a newspaper is easy? Check out the typography critique of the candidates' (and now former candidates') logos.
These guys pick McCain and Obama based on typography, design and fairy dust.
Me, I'm just hoping for an NFC winner on Sunday.
(Thanks to Mel for the pointer.)
Normally, we get complaints that we expend too much space on the presidential candidacy of John Edwards. Just to let you know that we hear all sides:
On Jan. 3, we published a package on the upcoming Iowa caucuses and used photos of Obama, Clinton, Romney and Huckabee on the front page to illustrate it. We got this e-mail:
Regardless of your political affiliation and regardless of your candidate preference in the Iowa presidential caucas, why would you publish on the front page photos of Democrats Obama and Clinton and not that of Edwards? Polls then showed Edwards even with the other two.
John Edwards is a respectable North Carolina citizen. N&R's omission raises questions as to its fairness. Democrats and Repubicans expect that in their local newspaper.
Americans believe that the news media does not provide enough coverage of the most important information about the (presidential) candidates and provides too much coverage of the least important information. In fact, the more important the American people believe an area of press coverage is, the less they say the press is providing coverage of it. In contrast, the less important they believe an area of coverage is, the more they believe they are seeing
too much of it.
That's from a new study by the Center for Public Leadership at Harvard.
You might be surprised to learn that I agree with many of the survey results. We do a pretty lousy job of helping you choose the best person to lead the country. (Of course, the survey also says that you don't trust the information we provide anyway so that probably doesn't matter.)
* Almost everyone polled say candidate policy plans are important to them, and almost two-thirds say we're not doing well providing it
* Same with candidates' personal values: They're important, and we're not providing coverage
* Coverage of negative campaign ads bore you, and we provide to much of it
* Gotcha moments for candidates aren't important, but we focus on them
Makes me proud.
In one sense, I have some distance from the indictments of the report. We don't cover the presidential campaign on our own; we use wire services. Additionally, "news media" is such a loaded, universal term these days that it's hard to feel connected to it. (Or maybe it's easy to justify the disconnect.) When you say news media, do you mean Fox News or CBS? Do you Inside Edition or Bill O'Reilly? Do you mean Oprah or Jon Stewart? Do you mean Daily Kos or Michelle Malkin? Do you mean the News & Record or The New York Times?
I watch the same television news programs you do. (Yes, I will watch me some Fox News as much as I watch CNN.) I may read a bit more because it's part of my job, but given that I don't disagree with the crux of the survey, the issue is moot.
Still, we select the wire stories we use. This information should inform our selection.
One issue we will have to get a handle on is frequency. We can drop most of the horse race stories without much trouble. We can drop most of the gotcha stories, too. (Has the debate coverage shed any light other than gotcha moments and horse race speculation?)
But if we do a page on the candidates' positions on immigration and you miss the paper that day, you and I disagree on how well we do it. So, presumably we need to print more in-depth pieces more often?
If you don't care about the news media, but do care about politics, the report also shows some interesting differences in the way Democrats and Republicans look at candidate attributes and qualifications.
Do you think that Sandy's blog is one reason she didn't win?
A reader asked me that, fearing that rather than helping her, the council member's openness and accessibility essentially painted a target on her back.
My answer: No.
Her blog demonstrated to that she is reasonable, kind and cares deeply about Greensboro. It says that she was trying to navigate her role as a politician responsible to the public and a city official bound by commitments to confidentiality on some matters.
You might read her opinions on public matters, decide you disagree and vote for her opponent, but that's the result of her opinions, not her blog. I believe that the blog helps people get a sense of who Sandy is and enable them to connect with her.
Her accessibility did open her to disparagement from some bloggers, who took shots at her far and away more often than the other council members. But I can't imagine it cost her many votes.
In any case, who knows how many people in her district routinely read her blog -- and the others -- and who voted? (Only slightly more than 3,500 people voted in the district.)
I think the biggest contributor to her defeat was that she didn't get the Simkins PAC endorsement.
Other thoughts: Sandy's, David Wharton's, Cara Michele's and Samuel Spagnola's.
Update: I've just read her 10 Plus interview for the Sunday paper. She addresses several of the points above and in the comments.
Margaret Banks wrote today of newly elected city council members Mike Barber, Trudy Wade and Mary Rakestraw: The three leaders -- along with Councilwoman Sandra Anderson Groat, who was re-elected Tuesday -- ran on platforms of increasing transparency in city government. They argued City Hall should bring controversial issues into the open, even if it means not portraying a unified front for the TV cameras.
Regardless of what you think of Sandy Carmany's politics, she is an impressively transparent and accessible council member. She loses her council seat -- let's pray not her blogging voice -- next month.
So, now, with their vows of transparency, who among the new council will start blogging the talk?
Wondering who to vote for? Wondering what the candidates look and sound like? Want to hear them without the filter -- or questions -- of the news media? Here they are.
Well, not all of them. All candidates were invited; some didn't take us up on it. Curiously, many challengers didn't come in, but most of the incumbents did. In any case, they are about what you'd think they'd be.
I voted early so this won't help me, but it may interest you. Here the video debate between mayoral candidates Yvonne Johnson and Milton Kern. (Sorry, Billy.) Moderators are Editorial Page Editor Allen Johnson and Government Editor Eddie Wooten.
Fair warning: It's 35 minutes long; they are politicians, after all.
Update: We've broken it down by question so it's more manageable.
