Voice of the Mid-Columbia | Kennewick, Pasco and Richland, Wash. |
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Chris Mulick has worked for the Herald since 1998 and has served as the statehouse correspondent covering state government and politics since 2000. He works year-round out of the Herald's Olympia bureau on the state Capitol campus. Have a question? Send Chris an e-mail and he'll answer the best questions regularly. |
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closeI was interviewing a candidate for public office several weeks ago and when I was finished he made a plea for fair coverage because, since he wasn’t raising or spending money, his campaign depended on it to get his message out.
It happens every election year.
Once a longshot candidate for Congress, whose candidacy I already had reported, called to say he was ready for his campaign interview and story. It was as if he was ordering a pizza.
Another time, when I still was working in our Kennewick office, a longshot candidate for governor showed up without appointment and demanded an interview and story. She got neither.
Some candidates, almost always those running for the first time or those without serious hopes of being elected, seem to think their candidacy entitles them to having their views and campaign platforms presented to voters by the media. But it’s not quite that simple.
To varying degrees, newspapers do advance races for public office. At the Herald, we write reasonably thorough stories setting up races for the Legislature, for instance. And all races are previewed in some fashion well before election day.
But those stories aren’t simply a regurgitation of the vague claims and cheery posturing that you’ll find in campaign literature.
All campaigns are not created equal. And in the news business neither are all stories. That’s why the governor’s race will get lots of ink and the race for mosquito control district commissioner won’t.
That’s also why candidates who do little more than sign up to run and are unwilling to do the things that would legitimize their campaigns get little more than token coverage. Bottom line? If you’re a candidate it’s best not to depend on the media to get your message out for you. That’s your job. And if you do it well and your campaign becomes a legitimate force it may become newsworthy.
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