Fact-checking the candidates' advertisements and speeches was the panacea of the 2004 campaign. Robertson, in American Journalism Review, argues that while news organizations did fact-check the two nominees, this practice should have begun sooner in the process. Keefer, in Columbia Journalism Review, struggled with the concept of journalistic objectivity and how journalists can fact-check-including identifying outright lies-without seeming biased. Such fact-checking finds safe harbor in Jamieson and Waldman's concept of the press as a custodian of facts and Kovach and Rosenstiel's "discipline of verification."

But for a press caught up in the frenzy of the race metaphor, even this commonsense suggestion seems impossible to accomplish. An editorial (p. 8) in the September/October 2004 issue of the Columbia Journalism Review lamented the hectic pace of campaign coverage, 24-hour deadlines, and "a never-ending torrent of digital spin...This system encourages busy reporters-even good ones-to lean on someone else's version of the truth instead of assembling a more complete version of their own."

The horse race metaphor makes it difficult for journalists to see that they could tell a different story with different conflicts and different protagonists-a story that would be far more politically useful to citizens.

What might journalists do in addition to typical political reporting? Here is a suggestion:

Making the people the primary protagonist of political stories during the pre-primary period requires the journalist to do some old fashioned, difficult, time-consuming, shoe-leather-reporting. But it would be of use to the citizen. For example, suppose a candidate proposes a health care plan for children. Typically, this story would be handled in he-said/she-said fashion by comparing that plan to other candidates' plans. But, to make this story more politically useful to the public requires background in the context of governance; tell if such programs have worked in the past and the reasons for success or failure. True, this takes time and money to accomplish at a time when there is so little time and money to do even typical and stereotypical reporting.

Continued...

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