In a previous article, I analyzed horse race coverage of political issues in terms of partisanship. In retrospect, I don’t think the issue can be appropriately dealt with in terms of partisanship. The most corrosive aspect of ‘horse race coverage’ is not partisanship, but lack of substance in coverage. I use this article to expand my analysis on this particular aspect.
Since ‘horse race’ was first used to define media coverage of elections, I have extended the term to how media covers issues though a more appropriate analogy here would be ‘football game’ style coverage given that is heavy on reporting or ‘analysis’ of strategy.
The reportage today is focused towards analyzing the strategy of ‘teams’(parties), which are understood chiefly through its celebrity players (political leaders), engaged in a highly complex game. News coverage on domestic politics today involves extensive coverage of the process of how decisions are made (and not made), the innumerable stories on the power dynamics between the Legislative branch and the Executive, or between the leaders of the parties, whilst little attention is paid to charting out the impact of the policies. Whereas we see extensive coverage and analysis of alleged ‘missteps’, we hear little about the substantive topic of interest – issues at the heart of it.
There is now a virtual army of pundits – each appropriately fitted with meager intellect, large ego, and partisan affiliation - that dissects each and every political move and its impact on the public perception of a particular leader or of political parties. Be it the reporting about the ‘immigration bill’ or “Iraq’, there is now an abundance of reports that talk about ‘Bush’s loss’ or ‘Rove strategies’ or the ‘lame duck president’. Indeed strategy is an intrinsic part of politics, and dictates what is possible and what isn’t, but reporting on strategic aspects shouldn’t come at the expense of reporting on issues.
Causes
Driven partially by celebrity style coverage that puts individuals at the center rather than issues, serious reporters have mistakenly taken on the view that it is important to devote substantial energy on reporting on PR and strategy aspect of how decisions are made and how they will influence some person or organization.
Part of this style of reporting has to do with how news organization choose to organize and how they prioritize- There is a ‘White House’ and there are generally a few reporting from the bowels of congress, but aside from a regular crime beat there are few reporters assigned to analyzing issues. Analysis is either left to polemicists or hack pundits.
Certainly a substantial part of the reason has to do with reporters who haven’t thought through what is worth reporting what isn’t. There is this bizarre idea that news is current, that if news is a day old then it is stale and unworthy. What the heck is the utility of this news either way for poorly informed citizens of a democracy? I understand why news about the weather has to be reasonably fresh, and why some business news has to be fresh, but why does anything else have to be delivered within five seconds of it happening? This harks back to the comments I have made about the marginal (more likely no) utility of breaking news. The point though is broader – lack of a theory of news – aside from race to earn the most money – has seriously compromised not only the overall coverage, which is more Paris Hilton than substantive news topics, but also the coverage that is given to ’serious’ topics.