Nine Things the Best Political Reporters Do

By: Michael W. Wagner | PBS MediaShift

The political reporter’s professional toolkit keeps expanding. Journalists are using social science research, “big data” and innovative alternative story formats to better serve their audience. Journalism education is catching up too, as Vicki Krueger and Katherine Krueger have shown here on EducationShift. I’m a long-time critic of political news coverage that treats politics like a game, ignores the structural factors that outweigh the force of big personalities when it comes to policymaking and winning elections, and acts like calling on politicians to “lead” solves everything.