COMM 386: Questions for Wednesday

Read the stories on the front (home) page of Politico.com and answer the question: How does this election coverage help me exercise my rights and responsiblities as a citizen? As you think about the coverage, ask yourself what you (can) do as a citizen:

• Vote
  
• Keep up to date on issues
  
• Pay taxes
  
• Write your representative(s) and senator(s)
  
• Walk a precinct
  
• Sign up as a deputy registrar
  
• Work at the polls on election day
  
• Take part in a phone bank
  
• Attend a rally or demonstration
  
• Wear funny T-shirts
  
• Anything else that makes sense to you

As you read the coverage, ask yourself how individual stories on Politico.com factor into these roles. Post your answer(s) to your blog.

Example: Politico.com has a daily feature called "The Arena," in which politicians and others who follow public affairs answer questions of the day. Today's is "Based on what you know now, is Obama headed for a blowout victory?" One answer is by appellate lawyer Walter Dellinger of North Carolina and visiting professor at Harvard. His answer: "I can't speak to the national politics, but I have become convinced that Obama will win my home state of North Carolina ..." He adds, "I think enthusiasm and ground operation coupled with early voting will trump closet racism and Obama will exceed his poll numbers in NC."

This sounds like the kind of "horse race" coverage I like to complain of, but the issues Dellinger raises can affect my role as a citizen, because I bet my wife I would push a peanut with my nose from the Tennessee line on I-40 to Cape Hatteras if Obama carries North Carolina. (A Carolina-style boiled peanut, of course.) More importantly, he gives me reason to hope racial attitudes down South are not as harsh as I had feared they were.

Footnote
A story on the Bloomberg website about changing attitudes in the South makes the same point: "North Carolina, like Florida and Virginia, represents a New South politically, different from the deeply conservative, reliably red -- as in Republican -- one that marks most of Dixie," says Albert R. Hunt, executive Washington editor at Bloomberg News. It's a good example of political reporting as well. Worth a read. Would be a good one to analyze for next week's assignment, too, if you get my drift. So there's more going on in the horserace coverage, if it's done right, than who's going to win the election ... even if the horserace is the news hook that gets readers into the story.