cg political correspondent blog

I heard a few really interesting things on the radio today:
· Sarah Palin smoked pot once.
· According to some Republicans, Barack Obama wants to teach sex-ed to kindergarteners.
· A professor at a local college suggested media coverage be focused on substantive issues in this election.

Now there’s an idea.

From the War in Iraq and sky-rocketing oil costs to healthcare and taxes, there are some huge issues at play in this election. Yet all people seem to care about is whether a mother of five could find time to be vice president (of course she could) or what Barack Obama meant by his “lipstick on a pig” comment (nothing, it’s a figure of speech).

I would like to think that at heart, we’re a country of thoughtful, hard-working people who care about the future. But from reading some popular blogs or watching our non-stop news cycle (both of which spend so much time reporting on totally irrelevant issues in the presidential and vice presidential candidates’ lives), we seem like a bunch of sensationalist, narrow-minded drama queens.

The professor on the radio today suggested that all the major news networks make a pact: from now until the election, they could report on the politicians’ speeches and their stances on major policy issues. But no more coverage of family life, and no more searching for those “gotcha!” moments, when politicians misspeak. That kind of reporting adds no substantive value to our conversations about the election. On the contrary, it diverts our attention from what’s really important—the issues—to subjects that just don’t matter as much, like what kind of sex ed Sarah Palin’s daughter received, for example.

Of course, in reality, the truce wouldn’t work. Some gossipy bloggers live for those juicy moments on the campaign trail, so the information would get out somehow. But I wish these mainstream media outlets would stop covering everything the candidates do or say or think or breathe. Because as I’m about to learn in Journalism 101 (it’s my first year at Northwestern University), there are some things that are truly newsworthy (if, for example, they’re timely, significant, and hold human interest value). And a lot of the stuff we see today just doesn’t qualify.

xoxo,
Katie
katieg@cosmogirl.com

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