WATCHING THE PRESS….The Columbia Journalism Review has started up a new blog called Campaign Desk with the avowed purpose of critiquing press coverage of the 2004 campaign. It’s a site worth bookmarking, although I’d give them a mixed grade for their work so far.
On the plus side, they picked up on the ridiculousness of both the Wes Clark congressional testimony story I mentioned in the previous post as well as the lame Howard Dean trooper story. What’s more, the posts seem generally punchy and well written.
On the down side, there’s not much coverage of non-print media. This requires a lot more work (someone has to sit and watch all those TV shows), but since far more people get their campaign coverage via TV and radio than via print, I hope they try. I also hope there won’t be too many posts like this one, which is nothing more than the author disagreeing with the analysis in a piece clearly labeled as analysis. It’s not bad journalism to have an opinion that differs from yours.
At any rate, it’s early days and I’m sure they’ll improve as they get their sea legs. So far, it looks like a site worth watching.
UPDATE: You might also want to check out FactCheck.org, a campaign watch site run by the Annenberg Public Policy Center.
