By Mary Winter
CIRCLE's interviews with 97 reporters who participated suggest the following conclusions:
- Because of staffing cuts and turnover in the profession, the news media struggles to cover politics. They are aware of their difficult situation and generally grateful for assistance.
- Providing high-quality information and constructive criticism does change reporters' behavior.
- Professionals in the news media are understandably somewhat sensitive about being given advice unless the person offering it recognizes the practical limitations they face.
- They are also concerned about being manipulated by ostensibly nonpartisan organizations that they fear may have partisan objectives.
Of particular interest to The Thicket readers was this finding:
Local coverage emerged as an area that needs special attention and support. As a reporter told us, "One of the faults with journalism coverage and journalism criticism, in general, is that it tends to focus on the big national players and the big national issues. And as we've seen a number of major publications pull back on local coverage … it's become all the more important that we have some sort of press criticism function taking care of local media and engaging with local media. And I think that a lot of reporters working locally and regionally would benefit from that sort of attention and that sort of engagement as well."
Before I joined NCSL as assistant editor of State Legislatures magazine, I was one of the reporters who participated in the project when I worked for Columbia Journalism Review as Colorado correspondent for the Swing State Project, so I read the evaluation with interest. My assignment was to monitor election coverage by print, online and TV media in Colorado, critiquing local reports that were particularly enterprising or illuminating, or illustrated how doggedness often pays off in reporting election pieces. On the other end, I also criticized stories I found particularly imbalanced, underreported or inaccurate, and I took outlets to task for missed opportunities and pack journalism. I also wrote pieces on resources and online tools for reporters covering elections such as Followthemoney.org, Opensecrets.org and the Sunlight Foundation.
The CIRCLE evaluation appears to be a good snapshot of the mood in the media world, but it didn't plow any new ground for me (although it was troublesome to read that press releases are being reported "word for word"). Many media outlets are no longer willing to (or cannot) spend the money it takes to get in-depth political reporting, and there is frustration all around. Talented journalists and editors have willing spirits but they're overwhelmed by demands and lack of resources.
To do a good job of covering elections today, I think you almost need people with finance and data-mining backgrounds. New campaign finance laws are such complicated, moving targets that only a handful of journalists really understand them, I suspect. I think there are some great local "follow the money" stories to be had in politics, but more than ever, it takes a village of sophisticated reporters to unearth them, and the reality is the opposite: fewer reporters with less time to research and do the necessary digging, in part because of more demand to tweet and blog what everyone else is tweeting and blogging. I also don't know how much the public's heavily tapped attention span and what their appetite for more in-depth political news factors is.
I loved the CJR assignment, but it was tough to criticize local journalists' work because you knew how strapped they were for time. It was much more fun to praise good enterprise, but opportunities were harder to find.
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