The Internet and Campaigning
Doris Haddock's remarks to the
American Society of Newspaper Editors
Washington, D.C., April 13, 2000
Thank you very much.
I know that you in the newspaper business are facing a real challenge today. You are concerned about the Internet and about the loss of advertising and news readership. Many of you are creating Internet websites in hopes that you can stay ahead of the trend, and I would like to share a thought with you in that department that might help you be successful.
But first, I would like to tell you two other quick things. Think of them as a few pages of advertisements that you have to flip past to get to the useful news.
I would like to sell you on the idea that your reporters and pollsters should ask the right questions when they are covering the campaign finance reform issue. If you ask people if they are concerned about campaign finance reform, only a small percent will say it is number one on their list.
If you ask them the right questions you will get closer to the heart of the issue. Ask them if they think they have access to their Senators, or if they think that only the rich have access. Ask them if they think there is too much money in political campaigning. Ask them how they feel about the political process. The term "campaign finance reform" may sound like something from a CPA firm or a think tank. They may not connect it to the real issues, which are access, privilege, money and the equality of Americans. If you ask the right questions, reform will come sooner, because, in fact, three-fourths of Americans think the big money going into our elections is a real problem, as the Washington Post recently reported after a Mellman Poll which asked the questions the right way. A solid majority of Americans, 59%, want the system overhauled. So, when Trent Lott says campaign finance reform is as serious a problem to most Americans as static cling, please report the truth alongside his remarks.
Here is my second request.
It has to do with the way you cover politicians. Let me tell you a little story. When John Kennedy asked Jacque to marry him and she accepted, at least one of Jacque's old friends took her aside and told her that John was a bit of a womanizer. It is reported that Jacque replied, "Yes. I know. Men are like that." If she said that, of course she did so in a much sweeter and wealthier voice than mine.
The reason I bring this up is that some of you are too young to have heard that story and it might be news to you that, indeed, men are like that. They are, you know.
And people in politics --people with the energy to run for a high office and get involved in the big issues of our day-- have so much energy that it is not unusual for them to have quite a bit left over for the other departments of living. Chasing stories about men who chase skirts --not a very original story, I must say-- might sell papers and might be inexpensive to cover, but there is always a huge moral price to pay when we take our eyes away from the more significant stories, and it puts you at risk of being used by cynical manipulators of the news at the ideological extremes of our society.
In my day, people did the same things in private that they do today. But a gentleman did not tell, and a lady did not tell, and the rest of us did not ask. Propagating the species is a messy business and we should leave it behind closed doors. If the science of it changes, by all means put it on the font page. Otherwise, thank you, we know what people do.
We all need our privacy, no matter who we are. I am not encouraging reporters and publishers to go back to the Blind-eye Boys Club as it was before Kennedy, but I am urging you to make sure that newspapers are a serious and ethically responsible news medium, and I think a part of that maturity includes acknowledging human frailty and human energy and not using it as a cheap alternative to covering the real and more difficult news. While everyone was printing stories about Monica, the non-violent self-governance movement in Kosovo was falling apart from international neglect.
In the more general sense, I am urging you to let our political leaders be our political leaders, not our father figures or our local gods. As a self-governing people, we do not need perfect leaders, and we only do mischief to our system if we pretend that people can be perfect. That simply clears the field of real people, leaving only the extremely self-righteous types who always do more damage than good because their dark sides are invisible to us or are projected onto other groups.
Now. The Internet, finally.
The Internet is a fundamentally new kind of news and advertising medium, as you must know. In a newspaper or broadcast station, a story or an ad must compete for time or space, for there is a limited amount of it in any one edition or program. That is what makes time or space expensive. Not so with the Internet.
If a candidate for office wants to share a 5,000-page report on tax reform, the report does not have to compete for space in the newspaper or even on the newspaper's website. A click on one word on the newspaper's website can take the reader into the full document on the candidate's website. That is new; that has wonderful possibilities for making campaigns affordable, and it must be creatively developed.
If I were the publisher of a newspaper with a website, I would work to make the newspaper's website a very interesting political meeting ground where ideas and candidates would spar, and I would push the website out to the public with good and constant promotion. In that environment, it might someday be possible for candidates to reach the public with their debates, their issues, their resumes, and their lies even, without the necessity of spending tremendous amounts of money.
In the small towns of my childhood, the speakers' platform in the park, and a good 4th of July crowd, was enough to get us through most elections. The Internet can give us that again, if responsible and serious news media will make it happen. And you know that, if everyone must go to that political website because it's fun, interesting, valuable and full of controversy, then companies will be happy to buy ads on that site. How wonderful that will be instead of companies buying candidates and depriving constituents of representation!
You will get the same advertising dollars that you now receive, but they will not be filtered through candidate committees.
In addition to the creative use of this new medium, I hope you will take a serious look at the newspaper as the soul of a community. I walked through several hundred towns. The civic life of many of them is dying or dead. A good newspaper is the heart of a community --it is much more than a business. A good newspaper needs long articles on the big issues, not just superficial nuggets. A good newspaper needs very good international coverage. Maybe you think that is not the case, that we all read the New York Times or scan the internet or cable television for international news. If you run a newspaper, don't give up territory: Cover the world. It is the context for our thinking as a free people. We need to know what is going on, even if we work in a little office in a little town and we don't have cable and we don't take the New York Times. We Americans need to know everything. Tell us. Show us. Explain. Forget your reader surveys: produce your newspapers as though we were all ideal citizens who read everything, and that is who we shall become. No one can compete with you if you provide real depth and quality. You will have the field to yourselves.
Thank you very much. And to those of you who ran stories about my walk across the U.S., and, more importantly, to those of you who run stories and good editorials about the need to get our public officials off the fundraising treadmill, I thank you very much and congratulate you.
Thank you.