Elections vs. Primaries or My Dog Ate My Homework
Posted on January 2, 2008
Filed Under Blogs |
Mainstream media coverage of elections, U.S. and international is deplorable. In an interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, Sen. Hillary Clinton said this:
“If President Musharraf wishes to stand for election, then he should abide by the same rules that every other candidate will have to follow.”
Blitzer skipped over this comment unaware, as apparently Clinton was, that Musharraf was elected as President of Pakistan in October 2007, and that the upcoming election Bhutto was to run in was for the country’s Prime Minister. Musharraf is not on any ballot. Seriously, politics aside for a minute, if our major media sources can’t even get the basics like what election an assassinated leader was going to run in right, when reporting or interviewing a leading presidential candidate, then how can anyone trust their reporting more broadly?
As I read coverage about the Iowa caucus and New Hampshire primary I am struck by how much the media is pining for a decisive victory that will establish the playing cards for the election in November. The whole point of the candidate selection process is to build support for a candidate that will ultimately be the party candidate following each party’s convention later this year.
The primaries are not the general election; the media shouldn’t be reporting on them as if it were the election. The idea that Iowa or New Hampshire alone will select a candidate is ludicrous on it’s face, and worse, the promotion of such an ideal by media sources hurts American democracy.
As I look forward to the 2008 U.S. presidential election I feel confident in predicting that bloggers will play a surprising role. Rather than just doing the spin cycle for the PR machines every candidate has, bloggers will be vital for the kind of granular reporting of events, speeches, and facts that our media should be playing the critical role in. As I look back over the last 6 months, this has certainly been the case.
It is the Nobody Knows election. Nobody knows which candidates will end up representing the two main parties, nobody knows exactly when the parties will choose them, and nobody knows which issues will decide the eventual contest.
[From BBC NEWS | Americas | The 'Nobody Knows' US election]
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About
My name is Jeff Nolan and I write Venture Chronicles. These are my thoughts on technology, innovation, management, public policy and pretty much anything else that I find interesting.
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