Election coverage

I’ve never been much into politics, so when I was first assigned to write blogs on the 2008 Presidential Campaign, I was kind of dreading it. I voted in the last election, but I admit that I was not really sure what each of the candidates stood for. I didn’t watch much of the coverage, because well… I was in high school and in all honesty I had other things to do. But now as someone who is studying journalism, I feel that it is my responsibility to watch the election coverage.

Throughout the past semester I have been watching a lot of election coverage. Not because I was assigned to do it, but because I’m actually starting to get interested in it. My first observation about the coverage, is that there is a lot of it! Stories about the candidates seem to have consumed most of the news.

When I wasn’t watching actual news coverage, I went online to ABC News most of the time to get stories. They have their own “Politics” link on the page, which directs you to all the political/ election articles. Every single story about the candidates is there to click one. I even remember one silly one about some of the republicans having a lunch or something one afternoon. Not that the story was relevant in anyway… but I guess if they needed to fill up their page and had someone to report on it, why not?

Although there are 17 candidates, as feel as though I only know things about “some” of them. I took quiz on ABC to find out my “potential” presidential candidate, and my answers best matched those of Dennis Kucinich… honestly, I don’t even know who that is.

I feel like most of the coverage followed on the frontrunners.. such as Obama, Clinton, Giuliani, and McCain. I’ve especially been seeing a lot of coverage on Obama and Oprah.. and Clinton and her husband. Maybe it’s because the two people endorsing them have a bit of a “Celebrity” status.

A lot of the coverage I’ve been seeing has to do with health care and most recently I’ve heard and seen a lot about religion. Last week the big deal in the news was Mitt Romney’s speech on him being Mormon and how that would NOT affect his presidency in any way. I’ve heard it being compared to JFK’S speech in 1960 many times.

Now after Romney’s speech many politicians are ganging up against one another on their religious positions. I’ve actually heard that the interaction between religion and politics is helping republican candidates in the race.

Not that this has to do with the coverage or anything.. but I think it’s really cool/funny/ weird that the presidential candidates have their own facebook’s and myspace’s to help get younger people interested.

So far, these are my only thoughts about the coverage on the 2008 Presidental election… I will continue to follow the news throughout the weekend, and report back with more themes and comments.

Mormon: Mitt

It was Mitt Romney’s biggest speech of his presidential campaign just as it was John F. Kennedy’s in 1960.. both topics were about their religions. One has to wonder, in a country where there is separation of church and state, why does the religion of a presidential candidate matter to the people so much?

Why does it matter if Romney believes in Jesus Christ? Is it going to help him to lead our country? No it’s not.

Last week on CNN Live.. someone asked the presidential candidates whether they believed what the bible says? Once again, does it really matter what they believe? How one reads the bible, or believes the bible is not moving us forward or helping us at all with this presidential campaign.

“But some scholars and evangelical Christians, who make up a crucial voting bloc in the Republican Party and consider Mormonism to be heretical, say that many voters would like to hear more from Mr. Romney about exactly what he believes, even though he has studiously avoided discussing this except in the broadest terms.”

This coming from ABC News says that people want to know what Romney’s beliefs are… but why? Romney said that he is not a spokesman for his church and that theological matters dealing with his religion have absolutely no bearing on what he would do as president.

Okay.. I understand that a president’s believes may have an impact on how they make certain decisions, but why are the making such a big deal out of it?

Soundslides

Really the only thing I can say about the Soundslides article from Poynter Online, is that I think it's really how how the inventor came up with it. I think it's a medium that will continue to grow and journalists continue to experiment with their work.

The article said that not many hard news stories have be done using an audio slideshow... and I wonder what these stories actually look like.. it's kind of hard to image a "hard" news story like that.

While i haven't seen a hard news story, i have watched really long audio slideshows that just drag along... I like visuals, but unless there is something that really goes with the audio, definetly don't use it. I've been confused numerous times by slides that have nothing to do with the audio. it made me wonder why they were using that picture at that exact time.. and then i completely forgot what the person was saying!

Poynter Subjects..

After reading about Merrill’s case of plagiarism, I can’t help but feel disgusted. I mean how can a “professional” journalist think that it was okay to take quotes from a student’s article? There is no excuse for that. If this man was in the profession for 40 years, how could he have not known what plagiarism was? I have to question the fact of whether or not this was the first time that Merrill took someone’s quotes without attributing them. I mean this girl just happened to be reading the paper, to see her own words… lucky for her. But for those that maybe haven’t been reading the Missourian they would have no idea if their work was stolen from them.

Now after reading Merrill’s response, I feel bad for the old guy.. and I do mean old, he is 83 after all. I only feel bad because his apology does sound sincere, but at the same time.. I still question why he didn’t just attribute the quotes?! I mean come on, John. It would have been nothing to just say that you go the quotes from somewhere else, no one would have looked down upon your writing. Now you have to pay the consequences.

Just to touch on the ‘Places Journalists Should Go for Politics’… I think it’s a great tool if one is writing about a political subject and needs information. Everything is right there for you! I’ll definitely be bookmarking that website!