I admit I’m biased: As someone who covers City Council, I think it’s important to tell people what their government is doing. It may not affect the world, but it can have a big effect on Destin (and if it’s having none, people need to know that too).

That’s why it drives me up the wall to read—courtesy of Bob Somerby of The Daily Howler , a media-watchdog site—how many national journalists think actually writing about policy is too big a snooze to bother with.

In his Jan. 10 post, Somersby recounts pundits and reporters — David Broder, Mary McGrory, Gail Collins—who grumble that long speeches discussing health-care policy, welfare reform, foreign policy, pretty much any policy—put them to sleep. Collins, for example, grumbles about Clinton giving an “extremely boring speech” about HMOs, reducing our carbon footprint and other positions and adds that this and similar speeches “drove reporters mad with tedium.” Broder, in one column, admits he found Clinton’s “swell ideas” on achieving energy independence so boring he didn’t bother to listen.

I will wholeheartedly agree that policy discussions can be less than thrilling. But guys (and women), that’s part of the job of covering government: To pay attention to policy proposals, to explain them as clearly as possible and show how they will (or won’t) affect the public. If you’ve no interest in doing that, stay home and eat yogurt, because you’re not much use in the field.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 15th, 2008 at 1:48 pm and is filed under Journalism, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.