Rebuilding political coverage to better serve the public

This is an important moment for the direction of national political coverage. New editors are coming aboard the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times and (before too long) The New York Times. And now, with the Trump presidency behind us, we’ve just ended one of the most tumultuous presidential cycles in history. I hope editors and other news leaders take advantage of this moment to step back, take a breather, look around, consider what it is that people need, what our country needs, and set new priorities for their political news reports. In my view, significant changes are needed.

For starters, I’d seriously expand coverage of state and local politics and government, even at the expense of Washington datelines. Here’s an example from the past of what I mean. One of the things I liked best about the Times, when I was cub editor of the Cedar Falls (Iowa) Record in the 1970s, was the ambitious way it kept watch on state legislatures and governors offices.

A typical story was the 1975 R.W. Apple account of a growing movement in state legislatures to encourage rape victims to report their attacks to police. Thirteen states, Apple said, had passed laws changing rules of trial evidence to limit or eliminate information on women’s sexual histories, and more were about to join. I would have been especially interested in this story because one of the states was Iowa.

The Times was really good at stories like this, and they often ended up on Page 1, as this one did. By monitoring government and political developments at the state level, The Times was able to spot new initiatives spreading across the country and bring its coverage of government much closer to home. Interesting, too, it showed, in often unexpected ways, how states shared common ground. Iowa, a swing state in those days, joined not only California, New York, Washington and Oregon in passing this law, but also Texas and Nebraska.

In the decades since, coverage of government and politics by national news organizations has become increasingly Washington-based, increasingly campaign-oriented, and in my view, increasingly distant from the broader ways government affects citizens throughout the country.

Changing the present course will be difficult. One of the biggest challenges, as my former colleague Jay Rosen has written, is defining news after Trump who, after all, has been a ratings and subscription bonanza for newspapers, news sites and TV news. (As former CBS chief Les Moonves famously said about the Trump campaign, “It may not be good for America, but it’s damn good for CBS.”) It will be a challenge, and will take courage, to ease back even a little from coverage of the intensely partisan rhetoric that, frankly, has been good for the news business.

But the stars are aligned for potential change. The next presidential election is almost four years away. And within the next year or so, new leaders will be taking over not just the Post and Times but also the Los Angeles Times, Reuters, CNN and others. Just as important, these news organizations are brimming with resources. They could try some stuff.

I cannot say whether the changes I suggest below would be business winners. But I do believe they’d be successful in two ways: They’d provide a more accurate picture of how government and politics work in the lives of American citizens. And because that picture encompasses state and local governments, which are generally less partisan, it would help counter the fever pitch we see reflected in Washington politics.

I’d begin by assigning a reporter — better yet a reporting team — to track government trends at the state level, particularly state legislatures but also governor and attorney general offices and state supreme courts. For that matter, I’d add reporting coverage of trends in city halls and county boards. (When is the last time you saw a story in the Times or Post about new developments among the counties?)

This kind of coverage is all the more important at a time when local news resources are quickly vanishing. Of course, it is no substitute for local reporting. Unfortunately, we have gotten to the point where, in many places, there is no reporting on local governance — a situation that is destined to get worse before it gets better. Having more reporting eyes on these arenas would be a valuable contribution to the public’s understanding.

When you think about the huge impact of state and local governments on American lives, and measure that against what we see in national news coverage, you have a giant mismatch. The public would be better served if the gap were closed.

Some other ideas, put forth over the years, that I hope news leaders consider — under the heading of broadening and diversifying coverage of government and politics:

Put People First: Today’s reporting starts with political leaders; too often it ends there. How about starting with the American people, and see what government looks like there. Are people getting what they want from the government? Are policies really helping? Are people of all walks of life getting a fair shake? What does legislation look like 5 years, 10 years after enactment? Where are the successes along with the failures? I’m speaking here about governments at all levels. (Yes indeed, national news organizations do some of this reporting now; in my view, though, it’s not nearly enough, and it’s swamped by the political and campaign beat.) More bottom-up reporting; less top-down.

Go Beyond Conflict: In a Tweet last year, Damon Kiesow succinctly said what many have been urging for some time: “We really need to stop using ‘conflict’ as the go-to frame for every political story.” There is no doubt conflict is an important framing, but it’s not the only one and its overuse is a distortion of reality. It’s true we have a partisan divide in the country. But you would think sometimes, reading or watching the news, that’s all we have. You can tell how much news organizations love the conflict angle by the headlines. We have “bitter fights” and “pitched battles” and “fierce infighting.” And, really, we’re still writing headlines with gunfire metaphors after Jan. 6? (“Exchange between GOP senator, transgender nominee draws fire from Democrats,” WashPost, Feb. 26.) All this has taken on a different color in light of the insurrection at the Capitol. Could it be that one contributor to the country’s division is news coverage that overwhelmingly shows government conflict, especially in militaristic ways? I believe it could. So many of the ways in which people’s lives are affected by government policies — in areas as diverse as transit, food stamps, zoning laws, trash collection — have little to do with conflict.

Give the Campaign Coverage a Rest: The perpetual campaign is real. People are acting now to prepare for the 2022 mid-terms. They are maneuvering for the 2024 presidential election. Some are probably looking even beyond that. Political reporters are able to write interesting stories about these activities. But I’d suggest: Give it a rest. Non-stop campaign coverage heightens the feeling that government and politics are nothing but sport, and contribute to a sense of exhaustion. Plus, they crowd out other kinds of reporting that are a truer reflection of government’s impact.

Look for Common Ground: If news is what’s aberrational or unexpected — i.e., it’s news when man bites dog — we ought to be spotlighting stories in which partisans work cooperatively for the benefit of their constituents. (I’m reminded of the recent Utah governor campaign in which both the Republican and Democrat sponsored an ad calling on citizens to be civil despite political differences.) Acts of political cooperation too often stay below the radar. They should get more attention. Some might say this amounts to social work, not journalism. I disagree. It would be providing a more complete picture of the way government works across the country. For many news consumers, it would be a bit of a surprise how frequently partisan politics are entirely missing from government policies that affect them.

I want to stipulate here that I am grateful for the way the Times, Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal and others reported aggressively on the Trump phenomenon. They all took way too long to be honest about Trump’s lying and shattering of other norms, but they and others did fantastic reporting that, as the Post’s Margaret Sullivan wrote, may have saved democracy. To do this at the same time they were doing terrific reporting on a worldwide pandemic was remarkable. I hope they continue to spend enormous resources documenting the pandemic as well as continuing threats to American democracy.

Still, our major national news organizations have not provided an accurate and complete view of how government and politics act in people’s lives. They happen to have, right now, an opportunity to do better. I’m not sure it would be good for CBS, but it would be great for the country.