Reporting the Political News at Washington1

David Lawrence

American Political Science Review, 1928, vol. 22, issue 4, 893-902

Abstract: First of all, let me say that there is no question on which you can develop more controversy than the reporting of political news. Within the profession, within the newspaper business, there is a great deal of controversy, and has been for many years, particularly as to whether political news is fairly reported, impartially reported. I have listened to a good deal of discussion on that point. I have recognized, as have others in the newspaper business, the trend of the times—the so-called decrease in the strength of the editorial page, for instance, and the increase in the amount of material of a semi-editorial flavor printed in the news columns.The first branch of this topic, namely, reporting political news as it affects our domestic politics, seems to me to require an understanding, first, of the pressure and the difficulties that newspaper men face in handling news of campaigns and, second, of some of the pitfalls which they encounter between campaigns. I make that division arbitrarily, because the subject seems to divide itself in my own mind into those two general fields.It is much easier to report political news between campaigns than it is during campaigns. For one thing, your audience is not sensitive between campaigns. Especially just after a campaign has been concluded there is a sort of feeling that the victorious candidate, the newly inaugurated President, the newly introduced Congress, should have what we call popularly a square deal—as if, by inference, they did not have a square deal before.

Date: 1928
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