David Sirota reflects on political news coverage:
Political journalism, of course, is supposed to be adversarial in nature. It’s supposed to be about providing a check on power, and about covering issues, elections and candidates without regard for whether the candidates and their staffs want them covered. Yet, what Capital New York tells us is a taboo truism that is rarely ever spoken out loud: Namely, that for all the faux conflict and chest thumping of the cable shows, and all the references to “Boys on the Bus” nostalgia among print reporters, political journalism today is now the mirror opposite of adversarial. It’s about people who preen around calling themselves “reporters,” but who are in reality just glorified royal courtiers simply transmitting press releases and spoon fed stories from the candidates and their staffs. Indeed, as Capital New York so aptly put it, “what reporters and editors say among themselves” is that it is “hard to mobilize a large reporting team around candidates” who don’t “make accommodation for press” and who don’t have “media jockeys” and “accomplished campaign managers” to feed them stories.
The courtier problem is not confined just to political coverage---business journalists seem to be equally willing to swallow the kool-aid fed to them by media relations staffers. But the larger questions remain: what is 'coverage'? Indeed, what is 'news'?
To me, to call something news indicates it involves 1) a change from a previous state of affairs which is 2) of interest to a general or sometimes specialized audience. But there has been nothing happening in Iowa which satisfies 1). As to 2), the constant drumbeat of talking heads from Iowa on tv and in print has created an interested audience, the same way that the publicity for a competition such as Dancing with the Stars builds viewers. This suggests that the function of the political media is to build an audience for the quadrennial reality show: Who Wants To Be The Next American President? Political journalists are courtiers serving as PR flaks for the showrunners.
(cross-posted at Possible Experience)