In his introduction to the Nieman Foundation Watchdog Conference held at Harvard University in September, Curator Bob Giles described how and why the Watchdog project was created. He invited Murrey Marder, its guiding force and benefactor, to speak about the … Read more
Steven Brill, Publisher of Brill’s Content, told conference participants what he would do to keep candidates accountable and the public interested in coverage of issues. Bill Kovach asked me to think about what, if I had a staff at … Read more
Cartoon by David Horsey. Reprinted with permission, Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Sheila Tate, President, Powell Tate, and former press secretary: “I’ve had the field producer for a major network come to me in September … Read more
Photo by Greg Behar/U.C. Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, Center for Photography. By a margin of 59 percent to 34 percent, participants in Pew Center survey said they think editors care more … Read more
David Broder, columnist, The Washington Post: “The harder part is how we can help voters figure out who the hell these candidates really are and how they might operate. I think we’ve slowly gotten better at probing those questions. And … Read more
Ron Faucheux, Editor in Chief, Campaigns & Elections: “[Politicians] are not really complaining about the questions the press is asking. What they’re complaining about is that nobody’s covering their answers. And candidates who try to talk about relevant, connected issues … Read more
Andrew Kohut, Director of The Pew Research Center for The People & The Press, addressed the question of ‘What would the people ask?’ by sharing results of a September 1999 survey. In that survey a sample group of Americans was asked to describe what they would like to know—and what they don’t want to know— about the candidates running for President. Their answers are instructive as reporters consider coverage of the campaign. Read more
Are members of the press asking candidates the right questions? What should those
questions be? A number of panelists, including journalists and politicians, had some
ideas about specific topics that should be addressed and ways for reporters to do so.
Excerpts from these discussions follow. Read more