The media’s reaction to Senator Elizabeth Warren’s health care plan reflects a troubling approach to the way it thinks we should evaluate candidates for the presidency. After the Senator released her very smart proposal, the media might have asked a number of important questions about the plan’s impact on health care access. Instead, much of the commentary has been about the tax implications of the plan.
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Winner and Losers at the Democratic Debate
Pundits have been quick to identify winners and losers from last night’s debate. There are, of course, many problems with such commentary. We know which teams win soccer matches because they score more goals, and we generally know which candidates win elections because they receive more votes, but we have no similar objective measure for debates.
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Presidential Campaigns and the Media
In today’s paper, th
e New York Times buried its article on U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet’s entrance into the presidential campaign on page A12. Last Friday, the Times featured former Vice President Joe Biden’s announcement of his candidacy on the front page, as a lead story for the day. While there will be many surprises between now and November 2020, we can be confident that the media will repeat many of the mistakes it makes in covering presidential elections.
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