The Time Has Come to Take Political Journalism Out of the Hands of Political Reporters
“…I exploit you, still you love me
I tell you, one and one makes three
Oh, I'm the cult of personality…” – Living Color, “Cult of Personality”
The problem with political journalism these days is politics reporters. Political journalism has become a “cult of personality.” It has strayed so far from the foundational ideals of journalism – to report the facts and hold the powerful accountable for their actions – that it may be too late to get it back.
These days, political reporters themselves have become the story, more so than some of the people they cover. They have become celebrities, some more well known than some of the politicians they write about.
Take The New York Times’s Maggie Haberman. She’s making the rounds of the cable shows now because she’s promoting a book, which contains a number of revelations about Donald Trump – some we knew about and some we didn’t.
Her book, “Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America,” is #4 this week on Amazon’s best seller list.
Terry Moran on Good Morning America says the book “delivers eye-popping details about the Trump presidency.” And it does. It’s well written, well reported and well sourced.
But the problem is that many of the “juicier” anecdotes and revelations in the book about Trump’s criminal and unethical activities would have been useful during Trump’s second impeachment trial. But Haberman saved them for her book, instead of reporting them in the pages of The New York Times when she found out about them.
This seems to be a trend these days. Reporters find out about stuff that’s illegal, unethical or worse, and save it for their books, instead of putting it in their papers when they uncover it. It helps sell their books. If they reported it when they found out about it, their books wouldn’t sell very well, unless they did additional reporting on it and fleshed it out more. Which requires a lot of time and work.
Haberman is not the only one guilty of this. Reporters from other papers have saved their scoops and revelations for their books as well.
Traditionally, political journalism has always been about access. The closer you are to your subject, the more stuff you can uncover. That’s why the political reporters show up at all the parties and rubber chicken dinners thrown by Washington politicians. So they can be “part of the in crowd” and people will talk to them.
But today, anonymous sources are changing that. Political reporters no longer have to cozy up to politicians to find out stuff. Members of their staffs, political rivals and even family members nowadays are willing to talk – off the record of course – and tell reporters about the dirty little secrets of the politicians in question.
That’s why you can always find a number of stories about a particular politician with no named sources in them. No one is willing to lend their name to any quotes for fear of being fired, or worse.
There are a number of problems with using anonymous sources in a story. And it used to be frowned upon by editors. Unfortunately these days, sometimes there is no other way to get a source to talk to you. So anonymous is the main source.
There are also a number of problems with covering politicians like they’re celebrities. Political reporters like to report about their stunts more than they like to dig into their policy positions – if they even have any.
Many of these politicians are outright bigots and Fascists, yet they are covered as if they are quirky celebrities.
Take Florida Governor Ron DeSantis for example. He’s covered as if he’s the Second Coming of Saint Ronald Reagan, rather than the authoritarian, racist, hateful human that he really is. Where are the stories about how dangerous he really is? Where are the stories about how bad he is for Florida – and the country – if he becomes president?
Instead, we get stories like this one written in The New York Times magazine on September 18 by Matt Flegenheimer. It’s a long puff piece about how DeSantis is the future of the Republican Party.
“Yet what distinguishes DeSantis, elevating him for now above the Cruzes and Cottons and Mikes Pompeo and Pence, is a central insight into where the party is and where it is headed,” writes Flegenheimer, “DeSantis’s read is that the signal trait worth emulating, and then heightening, is more elemental. It is about projecting the political fearlessness to crush adversaries with administrative precision.”
This is the man who basically kidnapped migrants seeking asylum in Texas and bussed them to Massachusetts, in an effort to “own the Libs” and make a statement about illegal immigration at the Southern border. Apparently someone forgot to tell him that Florida is not a border state and maybe he should leave the fascist, racist cruelty to Texas Governor Greg Abbott.
But do we get any stories about why DeSantis is so cruel to brown immigrants? No, we don’t. Instead we get stories about how he thinks he’s uniquely qualified to be president and how cool is that?
The case can be made (and has been made) for the need for fewer political reporters at the White House and more reporters with certain subject expertise – financial, medical, etc. During the White House Covid Task Force briefings, all the medical experts were questioned by political reporters, not medical reporters.
When asked on Twitter in May if he thinks all political reporters should be replaced by reporters with particular expertise in a certain area, New York University journalism professor Jay Rosen had this to say: “Not entirely, no, but a vast reduction in that category in order to re-distribute talent to the public problems with which politics must deal. These become the new ‘politics’ reporters, with a skeleton crew to handle the game, and the both sides sensibility that is native to it.”
While that may help, I think what’s really needed is for journalists to get back to basics. Stop chasing celebrity. Quit reporting on politicians as if they are movie stars and do more reporting on where they stand on particular issues. Scrutinize their positions on inflation, immigration, social security.
Don’t look at them as your ticket to fame and fortune and the next bestseller. Cover them as politicians who can make real change in this country, or who can do real, irreversible harm.
Ask them tough questions. And don’t settle for non-answers and platitudes. Make sure you get them on the record one way or the other.
In other words, do your job as a journalist.