Media Stuck with a Campaign It Helped Build
The blogosphere is certainly going to be all abuzz about the New York Times Magazine article about political blogging. Here is the passage that strikes me about the mainstream media’s shortcomings. Article author Matthew Klam writes:
And as a seasoned reporter myself — after two whole conventions — I can safely say that you get about as many insights into the hearts and souls of the candidates on the campaign trail as you would watching a plastic fern grow. The ever-increasing scrutiny of candidates because of cable and the Internet has only made more evident how impregnable and unfathomable our political machinery has become. Political reporters hanging around drinking and smoking at the conventions said that the bus had changed a lot since 1972. You spend all day watching nothing, fake deli-counter photo ops with six camera crews, and you get yelled at if you walk into the camera shot — that is, if you dare to go near the guy you’re covering.
The news media helped create the modern campaign, and now they seem to be stuck in it.
