Campaign coverage needs to read between the
linesby David Shaw, LATimes
Steve Lovelady, managing editor of CampaignDesk.org, says he’s been appalled by the “everyday occurrence”
of this approach by reporters on the campaign trail.
“Reporters seem to think they’ve done an adequate job just because they give
both sides a chance to state their case,” Lovelady says. “But if that’s all you do, you may have satisfied the imagined constraints of
objectivity, but often you haven’t told the reader anything.
“It’s the most common and infuriating flaw in the press today.
Reporters just don’t measure what each side said against the known facts. It shouldn’t just be he said/she said. It should be he
said/she said/we say — and here’s why we say it.”