Boys on the Bus
Mar 26th, 2008 at 6:54 am by Susie
I don’t know that this is completely a bad thing. I think we’re all a little weary of the campaign coverage, and there’s always a tendency to manufacture controversy to justify the expense of on-the-road coverage.
I also don’t concur that covering a campaign is the best possible preparation for covering that candidate in the White House. If anything, reporters tend to be less critical and challenging when they’ve covered their campaign, and if there’s anything we don’t need, it’s reporters who are even less critical of the people they cover.
And there’s another factor that’s rarely discussed. The reporters who cover presidential primaries tend to be the youngest (because they’re the only ones who are excited enough to put up with the grinding schedule) and thus less experienced. (And less skeptical.) If their candidate wins, they follow them to the White House - with no real institutional knowledge of how it works. Not necessarily the best thing for voters…
