ABSTRACT
The relatively low national stature of the “major” Democratic candidates might logically have led people to pay attention to alternative candidates. Media coverage of the Democratic primaries went far out of its way to narrow the choices available to the voters. The media’s obsession with tabloid-style “character” stories—marital problems, draft history, old drug use—certainly hurt Clinton; journalists elevated evasive answers about his private life to a major “integrity” problem. The media’s tendency to neglect the discussion of issues in favor of more “color-fill” but less important campaign fare is distressing, and not only because readers don’t get to learn enough, early enough, about the candidates. The largest category of campaign stories focused on “campaign analysis”—articles that told us which candidate was “breaking from the pack,” which was “feeling the heat,” and which might “fade in the stretch.”.
