Focus is one of journalism’s most important skills. It’s that separating the wheat from the chaff thing. In an age of distraction we need THAT skill now more than ever. (Is anyone going to explain why Richard Nixon’s 1972 campaign … Read more
There was a whole lot that went right in 2016 campaign coverage. If you were reading Slate’s Jamelle Bouie, PRRI’s Robert Jones, or New America’s Lee Drutman, you understood how race, identity, and our changing culture were deeply shaping this … Read more
I watched election-night coverage on television with acquaintances from Europe, who seemed flummoxed by what was unfolding on the screen. I spent a lot of time explaining the Electoral College and unpacking why I thought that Donald Trump was getting … Read more
Donald Trump’s precedent-breaking refusal to allow a small pool of journalists to cover his travels as president-elect has revealed some common ground in our otherwise fractured republic. Good, Trump supporters tell me. The press deserves to be treated badly after … Read more
One thing I worry about is the seeming expectation that the press should have been able to predict the outcome of the election. And that “we got it wrong.” Clairvoyance is the stuff of fortune tellers; journalists report on the world. Read more
Many post-election observers have lambasted the national news media, the so-called coastal media elites, for missing the breadth of support for Donald Trump among white working- and lower middle-class voters living outside of major urban-suburban areas. Such criticism obscures a … Read more
From 1980 through 2008, when I was editor of the Concord (N.H.) Monitor, most presidential candidacies began long before the campaign went national. From fringe to favorite, candidates came to New Hampshire and visited Rotary Clubs, town halls, and living … Read more
Being a political animal, one of my first thoughts the morning after the election was, “Who’s going to run for President now?” You can rest assured that there are a dozen or so billionaires slamming their fists on their kitchen tables … Read more
If you’re looking for something to explain President-elect Donald Trump’s unlikely victory, the signs were everywhere this fall in Millinocket, a northern Maine mill town now without a mill. Trump/Pence signs, that is, often paired with “No on 3” signs, … Read more
Everyone has a story along the lines of mine. At a family gathering in October, I was chatting with a cousin about the campaign, and, since we didn’t see it quite the same way, each of us was speaking delicately. Read more