Campaign coverage needs new approach
Commentary
By Charles L. Overby
Chairman and CEO, The Freedom Forum
11.15.98
Now that the midterm elections are over, news executives and political reporters need to ask serious questions about the way they will cover the elections in 2000.
Two areas deserve special attention:
Status quo coverage of these two areas is not good enough.
Private lives
After the Gary Hart disclosures in 1987, most mainstream media outlets agreed that staking out candidates to report about their sex lives was off limits.
It's easy to forget that the media only reluc-tantly began reporting about Bill Clinton's sex life after details were presented in public forums: press conferences and lawsuits. That's quite different from reporters hiding in bushes and spying on candidates.
The media journey from the Gennifer Flowers press conference to the Paula Jones lawsuit to the Monica Lewinsky relationship raises this basic question: When is it appropriate, if ever, to report about a candidate's sex life?
The conventional wisdom in the wake of Clinton-Lewinsky coverage has been that all candidates — certainly all presi-dential candidates — will be subject to media scrutiny of their personal lives, including their sex lives.
Former Vice President Dan Quayle said earlier this year that he expects the media to ask presidential candidates if they have had illicit affairs.
The media certainly have the right to ask those questions, but news executives should begin to ask if this is the respon-sible thing to do.
Now is the time for editors and news directors to decide the standards for their operations. Should their reporters ask questions about candidates' sex lives? If one publication reports on the sexual activities of a candidate, is it appropri-ate to repeat that report?
Media leaders should not wait until events overtake them to determine their policies. Of course, national standards are impossible — and inappropriate — because of the First Amendment. But each news director and each editor has the right and responsibility to set guidelines.
This is an issue that won't go away. It surely will affect every news operation. Not every news event can be predicted. But well-considered guidelines developed in advance will serve the best interests of readers and viewers.
Negative advertising
Television advertising has replaced candidate speeches as the most important factor in campaigns.
Yet coverage has not kept pace.
Most news outlets still do not adequately cover political advertising. Elections frequently are decided by television advertising — particularly negative advertising. But reporting about the substance of the ads is scant compared with the volume of ads.
It would be interesting to see a newspaper, television or radio station cover a campaign pri-marily through its television ads. That would come closer to mirroring the way voters view can-didates.
Many ads are distorted, using obscure votes to stake out a position. But these ads may get a small mention in a story, which runs one time. The ads, of course, run daily. Most news executives are content to say, "We've already run that story."
That's not good enough.
Political polls offer a parallel. When polls began to prolifer-ate, pollsters and the news media agreed that the legitimacy of the poll required disclosure of certain things, such as the name of the polling firm, the size of the sample and the mar-gin of error.
Similar standards need to be devised for political ads.
A new approach to campaign coverage is needed.
About half of the voting-age population doesn't vote. And many of those who do vote say they struggle to get pertinent information about candidates.
The news media must bear their share of the blame for that.
Unless the news media want to forfeit their role to paid political advertising, they need to begin planning now for dis-tinctive coverage with improved standards.