Swing States Project
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May 15, 2012 06:50 AM
For TV, campaigns create big winners, (relative) losers
Political ads may not be all "gravy" for local stations—but they're still an awfully good deal
When Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum suspended his presidential campaign last month, the former Pennsylvania senator all but sealed Mitt Romney’s easy victory in the state’s April 24 primary.
Santorum also dashed the expectations of his home state’s broadcasters, who were counting on the candidate to keep the race competitive and their ad inventory—much of which had already been reserved by Romney’s campaign—in high demand.
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May 14, 2012 11:29 AM
Pushing back, making connections
Michigan political reporters have a job to do
MICHIGAN — Quinn Klinefelter is a longtime news editor at WDET, the National Public Radio station in Detroit. His voice is easily recognizable, and so, apparently, is his face. Klinefelter recalls walking down a block, absorbed in his thoughts, when he passed a man he’d never met. They were several yards past each other when the man turned back and yelled, “Kill the newsman! Kill...
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May 11, 2012 03:42 PM
In Nevada, a candidate’s fecklessness on full display
Some sharp interview questions leave a congressional hopeful squirming
NEVADA — In this state, where it’s legal to carry an unconcealed handgun, John Oceguera, the Speaker of the Nevada Assembly, didn’t even need to unholster his pistol to shoot himself in the foot.
He’d probably prefer to imagine taking aim at the messengers—the political journalists who roasted him on two television programs, and in print, this week.
Oceguera, a Democrat, is running to unseat...
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May 10, 2012 12:07 PM
Mapmaker, mapmaker, make me a map…
A glut of "swing-state" stories risks inspiring false certainty about the coming election
For a newspaper that believes that a decent fraction of its readers know that Kurt Weill wrote the music for The Threepenny Opera (51 Down in Wednesday’s Crossword), The New York Times curiously assumes complete amnesia when it comes to presidential campaigns. The hanging-chad long count in Florida that decided the 2000 election—down the memory hole. The 60,000-vote shift in Ohio in 2004 that would...
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May 10, 2012 12:20 AM
In Ohio, political money gets around
Dayton Daily News shows how local lawmakers shuffle campaign donations to cash-strapped colleagues
OHIO—A thorough peek behind a curtain of campaign cash this week by the Dayton Daily News shed real light on one way that political money moves.
The newspaper, in a story crafted by Jeremy P. Kelley, walked readers through the legal, but perhaps not widely-known, practices by which money donated to a candidate on cruise control is diverted to another fighting for his...
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May 9, 2012 11:15 AM
A (blurry) snapshot of influence peddling
Finding out who paid $10,000 to party with Congress members remains a reporting challenge
COLORADO—A CBS News undercover video of a Republican fundraiser earlier this year gave viewers a tantalizing glimpse of a $10,000-a-head political shindig at one of the most exclusive resorts in the country.
The sometimes-grainy footage showed a dozen GOP congressmen in shorts and sandals enjoying a sun-splashed weekend at the Ocean Reef Club in Key Largo, Florida.
“But they didn't come alone,” Sharyl...
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May 8, 2012 12:00 PM
Obama ‘evolves,’ Romney ‘flip-flops’
As the candidates’ positions change, reporters construct differing narratives
NEW HAMPSHIRE—Are Barack Obama and Mitt Romney so different after all? Despite the media’s portrayal of Romney as a uniquely craven politician, the recent controversy over Obama’s views on gay marriage highlights the ways that both candidates—like nearly all politicians—have adjusted their positions over their careers for political reasons.
On Sunday’s Meet the Press, Vice President Joe Biden made unexpected news by saying...
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May 8, 2012 11:30 AM
Reporting on the hand that feeds
In North Carolina, TV news reporters find stories in their stations’ political ad buy data
NORTH CAROLINA—On April 27, the Federal Communications Commission made what CJR called “a good step toward transparency in the realm of money and politics” by ruling that local TV stations must move online their paper data on political ad buys. Network-affiliated stations in the top 50 markets will have to do this likely in the next few months; other stations...
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May 4, 2012 04:05 PM
The Rubio romance
For the national press, a harder look is in order
FLORIDA — Much of the national media appears to be in love with Florida’s junior senator—Republican Marco Rubio. Back on March 23, Chris Cillizza of The Washington Post wrote about potential vice-presidential running mates for Republican nominee Mitt Romney and offered this gushing assessment:
The case for Rubio is simple and close to conclusive. He’s Hispanic, giving the GOP an opportunity to reestablish...
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May 4, 2012 11:48 AM
New rules on political ads: how to mine them
Finding gold may require a group effort
A gold mine of data will soon be available to help make our political system more transparent, thanks to the Federal Communication Commission. But this gold will be useless unless it’s extracted, shaped, and polished.
Let’s first review what the FCC did—and did not do—last week. Local TV stations already collect information about political advertising; the FCC required that they move these paper...
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May 3, 2012 05:21 PM
What’s the right way to cover Joe the Plumber?
Reporters in northern Ohio bring scrutiny to bear on an unusual candidate
OHIO — There’s no telling how handy Joe the Plumber is with a wrench, but he’s certainly mastered the art of drawing media attention.
He’s garnered plenty since first popping up on the national radar during the 2008 presidential campaign, after initiating a sidewalk exchange with candidate Barack Obama over tax policy.
Joe, a candidate for Congress here in Ohio whose birth name is Samuel...
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May 3, 2012 10:13 AM
In an age of walled-off candidates, longing for LBJ
Caro's latest opus offers a strong case for the enduring value of journalistic access
The pivotal chapter on the 1960 Democratic Convention in The Passage of Power, the just-published and justly heralded fourth volume of Robert Caro’s Lyndon Johnson saga, is entitled “The Back Stairs.” The little-used staircase in question was in the Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles, and it provided a stealthy way to scamper from John Kennedy’s suite (Room 9333) or Robert Kennedy’s (Room 8315)...
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May 1, 2012 01:32 PM
28 hours of political ads (and a few minutes of news)
Tallying the ad buys at six local TV stations for one Pennsylvania primary race
Pennsylvania — In the weeks before the April 24 primary here, folks in Northeastern Pennsylvania saw and heard a lot on local television stations about the battle between longtime incumbent Democrat U.S. Rep. Tim Holden and challenger-turned-primary-winner attorney Matt Cartwright.
The visibility on the airwaves came through a deluge of paid political ads—not, unfortunately, from actual news reports (which were comparatively scarce and, when offered,...
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April 30, 2012 06:00 AM
Network Anchors for Romney?
Campaign ads are making greater use of TV news footage. Is that a problem?
Tom Brokaw, Katie Couric, and David Gregory endorsing presidential candidates: Could it happen? Actually, it already is—though not quite in the way you might imagine.
For decades, scholars have studied and debated the impact of media, both paid and earned, on the decision-making of swing voters.
Earned media—i.e., news—is generally believed to have limited impact, because the types of broadcasts valued by swing voters...
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About the
Swing States Project
Throughout the 2012 election season, CJR reporters on the ground in key states will watchdog local press coverage of political rhetoric and money in politics.
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Desks
The Audit Business
- Audit notes: Commercialization, GM and Facebook, Saverin’s taxes
- For TV, campaigns create big winners, (relative) losers Political ads may not be all “gravy” for local stations—but they’re still an awfully good deal
The Observatory Science
- Attachment parenting, detached debate Time’s titillating cover overshadows article’s substance
- The ice melt cometh But flawless coverage about happenings in Antarctica has been rare
Campaign Desk Politics & Policy
- Health costs: Is Mass. the only model? What about Vermont? (Not to mention Maryland)
- For TV, campaigns create big winners, (relative) losers Political ads may not be all “gravy” for local stations—but they’re still an awfully good deal
Behind the News The Media
Blog
The Kicker last updated: Mon 6:50 AM
- Seattle news site PubliCola is out of business
- Poynter chat: How to mine TV stations’ political files
- So you think you can dance?
- OffTheBus takes a ‘breather’
- 9 newsroom buyouts at the Hartford Courant (updated)
