Teddy White Would Have Approved

Between sips of Jack Daniels, White, who had interviewed Carter that afternoon only to discover afterward that his tape recorder had malfunctioned, was explaining why he had pretty much decided to give up writing books about how presidents are made. For one thing, he said, it was becoming harder and harder to predict with any certainty who would win – and therefore which candidates should get his attention. And for another thing: “You guys in the regular press corps are now routinely doing during&nbsp the campaign what I used to do after it was all over.”

He was right. For better or worse, two generations of political reporters learned their craft at the knee of the late, talented White. His speciality was providing mountains of inside detail that went beyond describing a campaign’s public activities-Teddy assumed those were already well-covered – to emphasize behind-the-scenes strategic maneuvers by candidates.

Sometime in the late 1960s or early 1970s, the “regular press corps” had begun beating Teddy at his own game. The focus of campaign coverage shifted from what candidates said and did on the stump to what was going on in the so-called smoke-filled rooms. The problem with such coverage, however, was that it was not very helpful to voters who had to choose one candidate over another.

White himself was disturbed by what he had wrought. As early as 1972, he told an interviewer how much he regretted having “invented” this new form of political journalism. If he had regrets then, however, he would have been horror-stricken to see what campaign coverage has become in the 1990s.

Reporters increasingly focus on the minutia of staff politics, on the “horse race” among the candidates, on so-called “character issues,” on campaign “gaffes.” With television coverage, to the extent candidates are heard at all outside of formal “debates” and their own ads, they are heard in 10-second “sound bites.” And throughout the media, greater emphasis is given to reporters’ interpretations than on what the candidates actually do and say. Even when journalists focus on “the issues,” they tend to choose issues that they and the politicians deem important; it rarely seems to occur to them that other things may be on voters’ minds.

The Citizens Election Project, launched last spring by the Pew Center for Civic Journalism with the University of Maryland’s School of Journalism, is intended to demonstrate ways modern political journalism might be changed.

Involving at least five media partnerships and focusing on four crucial states in the 1996 presidential election – Iowa, New Hampshire, Florida and California – the CEP is trying to bring the priorities and attitudes of the voters back into what has become the closed shop of political campaign coverage. Beyond helping to support the basic partnerships, the CEP also makes available expert technical consultants, focus-group and polling services by the Washington-based Harwood Group and Andrew Kohut’s public-opinion research firm, plus an on-line communications capability provided by Soundprint Media Center. Each partnership has developed its own plan, but all share a commitment to changing the status quo.

Here is a rundown on what the partnerships are up to:

• Iowa. The partners include the Wisconsin State Journal, four Iowa-based newspapers of the Lee chain, the Waterloo Courier, the Associated Press of Iowa, as well as Iowa’s National Public Radio stations and Wisconsin Public Television. The partners’ goal is to encourage serious discussion of the issues prior to the usually influential Iowa caucuses on Feb. 12. Using Harwood focus-group data as a guide, the partners are planning a town-hall meeting to be held Jan. 5. A series of issue seminars will lead up to the town meeting, during which voters will have an opportunity to discuss issues and the questions they want put to the candidates. Each of the print partners cover these events, and major portions will be carried live by Iowa NPR and Wisconsin Public TV.

• New Hampshire. As a prelude to the New Hampshire primary, a partnership involving New Hampshire Public Radio, the Telegraph of Nashua, New Hampshire Associated Press and New Hampshire Public TV is organizing a series of nine public forums, to begin Oct. 7 and wind up Jan. 7, at which small groups of voters will discuss issues and put questions to presidential candidates. Again, detailed polling and focus group data will guide, in part, the selection of issues and the development of voter profiles.

  A Boston-based partnership involving the Boston Globe and NPR station WBUR-FM and WABU-TV will provide intensive reporting on how the campaign affects a single town – Derry, N.H., near the Massachusetts border – as its voters follow the issues and the candidates and finally cast their ballots. The project is to begin by early October with a poll on attitudes among Derry residents. In late October, a series of feature articles and broadcasts on Derry will be launched and will continue for about a month. Between Thanksgiving and Christmas, Derry residents will question presidential candidates in a series of public forums. Other coverage is still being planned, but town meetings to discuss such general issues as future job security are under active consideration.

• Florida. In October, a partnership involving the Miami Herald, the St. Petersburg Times, the Tallahassee Democrat, the Florida Times-Union, the Bradenton Herald and Florida News Network, a statewide group of 11 ABC and CBS affiliates, will sponsor a statewide poll on the single – and potentially explosive – subject of immigration. The partnership will also participate in several focus groups by the Harwood Group that will deal in part with the same issue. In October and November, the partners will use data derived from the poll and focus groups to produce a series of print and broadcast stories and to question presidential candidates on immigration.

• California. A Bay-area partnership among the San Francisco Chronicle, KQED-FM and KRON-TV is currently focusing on the October San Francisco mayoral election. The partnership has already sponsored several “Voice of the Voter” polls and a town meeting. On Oct. 27 the Chronicle, KQED and KRON will join with the Commonwealth Club of San Francisco to sponsor a debate among the mayoral candidates at Golden Gate University. The event, to be broadcast on television and radio, will feature reporters representing the three CEP partners and videotaped citizens’ questions. The partnership is also cooperating on an ambitious “neighborhood series.” Each of the members is focusing on three Bay Area communities, including a number of key minority neighborhoods, during the mayoral campaign. Reporters will go into the communities on a continuing basis to determine voter attitudes and priorities. The series began, on the air and in print, in August and will continue until the election. The partners hope to use their coverage of the mayoral race as a stepping stone for the ’96 presidential campaign.