A couple of posters have begun zinging me pretty hard about NCPR’s lack of coverage of the Libertarian candidate in the 20th CD race. <\/p>\n
Here’s John Warren’s take on my decision to not include Eric Sundwall in my opening piece about the special election. <\/p>\n
That’s a disgrace, it’s un-American and anti-Democratic. The Republican candidate doesn’t even live in the district and you give him more credit then a candidate that does? There is no excuse for this. You owe us serious coverage of all the candidates, not just your hand-picked ones.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
It’s a legitimate criticism — worth airing and discussing. <\/p>\n
My job is to reflect reality in my stories. So I will be covering Mr. Sundwall, though I’ll generally treat him as an “issue” or a “protest” candidate. <\/p>\n
How much coverage he receives will depend on a) how interesting, thoughtful and compelling he turns out to be; and b) the degree to which his ideas influence the campaign debate.<\/p>\n
(Obviously, if Mr. Sundwall demonstrates somehow that he has a reasonable chance of winning, I’d certainly change my tune. THAT would be a great story…)<\/p>\n
Third party candidates — and their supporters — typically want the media to treat them as equals with their Republican and Democratic opponents. <\/p>\n
But in most instances, they haven’t done the work to establish their parties as viable political choices. <\/p>\n
Not because their ideas are bad, necessarily — sometimes their ideas are fascinating or compelling.<\/p>\n
But because they haven’t organized, built a party apparatus, raised enough money to campaign, etc. <\/p>\n
(Some choose not to do so for ideological reasons, but the result is the same; they can’t win.)<\/p>\n
Critics like to suggest that reporters create a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy by making judgments of this sort. <\/p>\n
By not covering alternative candidates, we make it impossible for them to compete.<\/p>\n
But the vast majority of grassroots organizing in politics goes on with absolutely no media coverage whatsoever.<\/p>\n
A lot of unpaid Democrats and Republicans have been volunteering for months (and years), raising money and building networks to prepare for this election. <\/p>\n
Aggressive and well-organized third parties can do the same — I lived in Germany when the Green Party elected its first members to Parliament.<\/p>\n
It just takes work. <\/p>\n
If third parties want more coverage, they might begin by electing members to local government. (Often this only requires a few hundred votes.) <\/p>\n
They could build a track record of shaping public policy and develop a level of institutional credibility.<\/p>\n
So there’s a peek behind the curtain, an honest look at how I make this kind of editorial decision. Let me know what you think.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A couple of posters have begun zinging me pretty hard about NCPR’s lack of coverage […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[874],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/490"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=490"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/490\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=490"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=490"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=490"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}