“At the Journal-World in Lawrence, Kans., the paper’s LJWorld.com also ran a Candidate Selector prior to last week’s election. Questions for the quiz were taken directly from the paper’s voter’s guide. Candidates’ answers were presented verbatim, but with no name attached and randomly sorted. Online users selected the candidate statement that most matched their own views, then at the end learned who said what. That approach is probably the smartest and safest, says Jonathan Dube, managing producer for MSNBC.com. Where you can get into trouble, he says, is in trying to paraphrase and categorize candidate positions — a practice that’s fraught with the danger of bias creeping in. For an example of what he’s talking about, take a look at the Politics Blind Quiz application of SelectSmart.com. This is a nifty application that helps you decide who to vote for — with more sophistication than the newspaper examples cited above, but it’s a more dangerous approach for media outlets which tout their objectivity….
“They’ll play a huge role in the 2004 elections, says MSNBC.com’s Dube. He especially likes the way they can focus on the intricacies of campaigns. Details that get reported in journalists’ political blogs often are not what would make it into a printed newspaper edition or on a TV newscast. They deepen political coverage, are interesting and often entertaining, and sometimes engage readers better than traditional inverted-pyramid style news writing.
“Dube, who in addition to his day job at MSNBC.com operates online-news industry resource Cyberjournalist.net, also suggests that blogs used in political reporting are great for smaller news organizations with modest staffs. A couple of reporters with duties other than covering politics can submit short items to a political-news blog, which doesn’t take as much time yet looks substantial. One small-paper editor told Dube recently that the blog format makes it easier to compete with larger news outfits with far greater resources. It looks like the small paper is doing more.
“Of course, large news organizations also will deploy blogs. MSNBC.com has been experimenting with “embedded” correspondents who tag along day to day with the presidential candidates — filing TV reports for MSNBC cable, and maintaining blogs about life and news on the campaign trail.”
? Steve Outing
