Our Failing Press

One of the legacies of this campaign season ought to be the across-the-board failing of our nation press. Clark Hoyt, the public editor of the New York Times, reveals just how poorly we've been served:

Through Friday, of 270 news articles published in The Times about the election since the national tickets were formed in late August, only 29, or a little over 10 percent, were primarily about policy substance. And that is a generous tally that includes some very brief items.

That count by my assistant, Michael McElroy, is similar to figures compiled by the Project for Excellence in Journalism, which has been closely monitoring election coverage in a wide range of media. The group found that only 8 percent of front-page articles in The Times from late August through last Sunday were about policy. Nearly three-quarters were about the horse race, political tactics, polls and the like. The Times numbers are about the same as for the news media in general, including cable television and blogs — not a standard to aspire to...

Tom Rosenstiel, the director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism, said there is a disconnect between how journalists approach an election — an exciting narrative about a contest — and how voters look at it. Voters “come into this narrative quite late and are just trying to figure out which of these guys they prefer,” he said.

Monday, October 13, 2008