Great piece in the CJR by David Uberti:
All politics is local, as the old saying goes. But if Monday’s Kentucky Senate debate is any indication, the same can’t be said of political media coverage.
Democratic candidate Alison Lundergan Grimes made national headlines during the debate for again declining to share how she voted in previous presidential elections. At the same time, however, the Washington press corps barely covered a claim by incumbent Sen. Mitch McConnell that Obamacare, unpopular in Kentucky, could be repealed without dismantling Kynect, the popular statewide healthcare exchange funded through the law. McConnell’s argument is not only factually questionable, at best, but also seems to be of much more potential consequence to the state’s voters. Monday’s debate was the only televised face-off scheduled before the November election, and the imbalanced coverage calls into question the national media’s role in one of the most closely watched Senate races in the country.
Grimes’ non-answer received headline treatment on Web stories at CBS, NBC, ABC, and CNN. The Washington Post devoted an entire piece to the refusal, which led the Associated Press’ story, and Politico and National Journal both listed it as their top takeaway of the debate. Such stories either omitted McConnell’s claim or played it down relative to Grimes’ comment. FoxNews.com mentioned only the latter, meanwhile, and The Wall Street Journal left McConnell’s statement as its story’s kicker, unchallenged.
Our media is failing us on a daily basis, particularly our political press (although the financial press is a close runner-up. There was an interesting interview with Matt Bai on TDS last night that discussed how functionally there is no difference between the writers at the Fix, Politico, etc., and TMZ:
It’s depressing.
Oh, btw- Taegan Goddard still won’t explain how his bullshit rending of garments about the Davis ad was just him saying it was “not effective.”
