The Columbia Journalism Review’s Campaign Desk blog has an item about how disengaged voters seem to be. Zachary Roth writes:
One antidote to help clear the air and possibly keep potential voters engaged is quite simple: Journalism that goes beyond just dumping the claims and counter-claims of two competing politicians into readers’ laps and then walking away. But 16 weeks into this experiment that we call Campaign Desk, it’s becoming increasingly clear that the newspapers that the rest of the profession look up to — the handful of papers thought to be the class of their field — too often don’t practice that kind of journalism. Day after day, in fact, few of them go much beyond the he-said/she-said school of journalism that leaves readers neither satisfied nor informed.
The papers that are looked up to just might include one that serves Northern Virginia. Hint: It isn’t the Northern Virginia Journal.
Speaking of the Not-the-Northern-Virginia-Journal, read Howard Kurtz “Ad-Watch” piece today. As with most of his pieces, he finds a way to criticize liberals, in this case MoveOn that is airing an ad contrasting Kerry’s Vietnam service with W’s “Hide in the Guard” tour of duty. Kurtz admits the ad is accurate, but adds:
The spot deals with Kerry’s war exploits but not his controversial statements and returning of his award ribbons after Vietnam. Similarly, it deals with a gap in Bush’s Guard record but not the risks of his decision to fly fighter jets.
Gee, Howie, I didn’t know the ad was supposed to give the history of the world in 30 seconds. And Bush’s “risk” flying planes? If that qualifies, surely we must add the risks Bush took driving drunk.