It’s not news to anyone that political journalists tend to be liberal. That alone doesn’t mean they’re bad at their jobs, but the presence of strong political views combined with the lack of ideological diversity can pose problems for those with differing political views.
We see this frequently with mediated political debates, where journalists moderate and control what topics are covered, how questions are framed, and what assumptions are built into topics.
Some journalists are better than others, of course, but too often the moderators — from smug local journalists to Candy Crowley — become part of the story. They frequently don’t have the policy chops to ask good policy questions or respond to dumb policy answers. When they generally agree with a politician, they won’t push back on even the most erroneous or outlandish claims. But if they disagree with a candidate, they’ll push back, no matter how uninformed about the matter at hand they may be. This is related to another point of confusion: they seem to believe it’s their job to argue with candidates rather than facilitate discussions among candidates. The debate is supposed to be with one other, after all, not with the moderator.
They seem to believe it’s their job to argue with candidates rather than facilitate discussions among candidates.
Journalists frequently ask questions full of incorrect assumptions, mistaking their job of reporting on a given topic for being significantly knowledgeable on the same. The ideological agendas advanced by various journalists show that the media are not neutral parties. To take just one example, reporters love to push pro-life candidates about every angle of their views on the sanctity of life, posing increasingly difficult questions. But when was the last time you heard a pro-choice politician asked much of anything about his views, much less if he thinks the right to abortion extends to killing a child because she’s a girl?
Many Republican observers were excited by the news that Reince Priebus, Republican National Committee chairman, had announced changes to the 2015 primary debates. Here he was on Hugh Hewitt’s show earlier this year explaining why liberal media will partner with conservative media figures, including Salem Media and Hugh Hewitt, this time around:
RP: Well, hey, congratulations to you and congratulations to Salem Media. This is exactly what I wanted to do a couple of years ago when we talked about taking control of the presidential primary debate process. And I was never interested in turning the debate process into some kind of patty-cake session, but that we would have serious journalists, serious people that wanted to get involved in asking questions and creating a debate environment that would bring honor to the Republican Party, not a debate environment spurred on by nefarious actors like Chris Matthews and others. And so, you know, we’re going to have a reasonable number of debates, and we’re going to have conservatives help in the moderating and the management of these debates, and today was a big announcement. I’m excited about it. I’m happy for you.
That was a big announcement.
So permit me to ask the obvious questions: Why in the world is liberal journalist John Harwood moderating Wednesday’s Republican debate? And where the heck is his conservative media partner?
