For all the hand wringing and discussion about the need to “save” journalism’s accountability functions, there is an amazing lack of actual accountability journalism being practiced in the land.

Two recent cases of media failing to hold political power accountable illustrate the condition perfectly.

First, of course, is the sordid John Edwards affair. The National Enquirer dogged the story, breaking every bit of it, while American media large and small ignored the important story–important because Edwards was just a step away from being vice president or attorney general or holding some other high office. Why the media ignored the story is interesting, but it may be in large part because of traditional media disdain for the Enquirer and its kind of journalism.

Let me say this loudly: The Enquirer deserves a Pulitzer for its work and its public service. John Cook, writing in Gawker, makes a strong case for giving the tabloid one of journalism’s most coveted prizes. He pretty much destroys traditional media objections to such action.

Of course, it is not likely to happen for the same reasons traditional media ignored the story in the first place: they hate the Enquirer’s alternative journalism. It is certainly not the first time. The Washington Times in the early 1990s broke congressional scandal after scandal, which helped topple Democrats from power in 1994. The Washington Post ignored the story. It was so obvious that Congressional insiders–Democrat and Republican–joked the Post should refund a year’s worth of subscription payments. The reason it was ignored: traditional media did not like the “moony” ownership of the Washington Times.

Here’s the second case:

In Illinois, candidate Scott Lee Cohen won the Democratic lieutenant governor nomination with almost no media scrutiny. Lucky for him. Says Michael Miner in the Chicago Reader:

There was a delicious story to be written — steroids, hookers, assault charges all figured in Cohen’s murky pawnbroking history — and no one had written it, except the Sun-Time’s Mark Brown, months ago, and Brown admits he didn’t do it justice.

The result of that lack of media scrutiny is that voters were cheated. Panicked Democrats are calling for Cohen to pull out of the race, which he has refused to do.

Miner also notes other cases where media scrutiny of politicians was lacking.

The reason for accountability journalism is to give citizens information they can use to make decisions–decisions about politics, government and their communities. Timing is important. So while the Raleigh News and Observer has done an outstanding job exposing corruption in the Gov. Mike Easley administration, it is after the fact. What’s more important for citizens and voters: information about a politician who has left office–or a politician who is running for office?

That’s exactly why the Enquirer’s expose of the Edwards affair is so important.

And it is exactly why media organizations should hang a collective head in shame, and why the Enquirer should get the Pulitzer. Posted by Leroy Towns

TV still may be king of the political campaign, but social media has become the queen. To win, candidates must make strong use of social media. That’s exactly how Republican Scott Brown won the Massachusetts Senate race a few weeks ago, according to two new studies.

Talking Points Memo reports Brown is now the poster boy for use of online and social media to win campaigns:

“He really blew away the competition, and it showed in his metrics,” Galen Panger, a Google spokesperson, told TPM. “He had twice as many searches on Google [as Democratic opponent Martha Coakley], four times as many followers on Twitter, six times as many fans on Facebook, and eight times as many YouTube video views.”

TPM says Brown set a new record by spending 10% of his campaign funds on online outreach (Obama, by comparison, spent 4%), and Panger said Brown’s campaign was “one of the most aggressive uses of [Google] tools” the company has ever seen. “They used every tool in our arsenal.”

Three Ships Media in Raleigh agrees that aggressive use of social media was key to Brown’s victory. In an analysis of the race posted to Brighttalk.com, Three Ships CEO Zach Clayton notes that Brown’s followers and fans were much more engaged as communities than those of Coakley.

Lessons: Do not ignore social media. It is no longer enough to just have a presence on Facebook and Twitter. Social media must be leveraged to build communities of support–and voters. Posted by Leroy Towns

Fox News is the nation’s most-watched news channel. Now, it also is the most trusted by viewers–by far.

NC polling firm Public Policy Polling surveyed 1,151 Americans and found that only Fox gets positive reviews. Respondents said flatly they do not trust any of the other TV news channels, network or cable. Here are the numbers:

• FOX: 49% trust, 39% distrust
• CNN: 39% trust, 41% distrust
• NBC: 35% trust, 44% distrust
• CBS: 32% trust 46% distrust
• ABC: 31% trust, 46% distrust

PPP President Dean Debnam notes there is a partisan split in the numbers. That’s no surprise. Republicans and conservatives like FOX, Democrats and liberals do not. CNN was the second choice as most trusted among all groups. Says Debnam:

A generation ago you would have expected Americans to place their trust in the most neutral and unbiased conveyors of news. But the media landscape has really changed and now they’re turning more toward the outlets that tell them what they want to hear.

That certainly is true. But there may be something else going on here: viewers reject the old top-to-bottom-down gatekeeper model of news. They want to be entertained. They want a mix of fact, analysis and opinion. Most of all, they want to make up their own minds about the state of things. Posted by Leroy Towns

Thursday was a great day for the First Amendment.

SCOTUS tossed out restrictive parts of the clap-trap federal campaign finance system that had long denied businesses (and labor and other groups) their right of political free speech. The decision also boosted the free speech rights of labor unions and businesses by scrapping a particularly onerous portion of the McCain-Feingold legislation that had attempted to regulate speech shortly before elections.

Said Justice Kennedy, writing for the court’s majority:

“When government seeks to use its full power, including the criminal law, to command where a person may get his or her information or what distrusted source he or she may not hear, it uses censorship to control thought. This is unlawful. The First Amendment confirms the freedom to think for ourselves.”

His quote should be at the front of every classroom in America.

Predictably, however, reporters and commentators worked themselves into fits of hysteria on two themes: Republicans will benefit. There will be a new tidal wave of cash in politics.

Neither scenario is likely. The decision affects both labor and business–in other words, there is little advantage to either party. More importantly, however, businesses are unlikely to start spending much more than they already are spending. There is absolutely no reason to expect a tidal wave of business spending in the near future. The original McCain-Feingold legislation had become so diluted by various court decisions that the high court decision Thursday may be little noticed.

The Wall Street Journal was an exception.

Critics of the decision charge that business (and labor) will be able to spend unlimited amounts. They conveniently forget the court never has regulated the amount spent in elections.

Remember, too, federal campaign rules for candidates and PACs were not changed. There still are limits on contributions. Disclosure rules were not changed.

What did change is this: Businesses, labor and even nonprofit groups now have the right of free political speech in federal elections. They are not locked out of the marketplace of ideas 30 or 60 days before the election. They are not prohibited from advocating for or against candidates or issues. Because businesses always were forced to operate under more restrictive regulations on raising money than labor unions, the decision may level the field somewhat.

The special interest groups interested in using tax dollars to pay for campaigns, of course, are in full voice. They already are advocating legislation to move campaigns in that direction.

The decision is an affirmation of the First Amendment rights of citizens. The case came to the court initially because “Hillary: The Movie,” an anti-Clinton flick, was deemed to be campaign material financed in violation of federal law. In arguing the case, the government admitted that if it had the authority to ban the movie, it  had the authority to ban books. That’s government censorship in its purest form.

Now, Congress should quickly pass tough new disclosure rules t0 ensure all funds spent on elections will have full and timely transparency.

The only campaign finance law that furthers citizen participation in their government is this: Force full and timely disclosure of all money in campaigns backed with tough penalties. Then trust the people to make a decision at the ballot box.

As Justice Kennedy wrote, “The First Amendment confirms the freedom to think for ourselves.” Posted by Leroy Towns

As reported by Dome at the N&O, our political science colleague over at NC State, Andy Taylor, believes John Edwards’ mistress scandal hurt him more than most politicians because Edwards had set such a high standard for himself.

“He was in it to change the process,” said Taylor, the university’s chair and professor of Political Science in the School of Public and International Affairs. “If you’re going to be that kind of person, that kind of candidate, then the public holds you to a slightly higher level than they do others.”

With all due respect to Andy, who is a highly regarded political scientist, this theory fails to hold water.

Edwards went down so hard because he was playing in the presidential arena and because he piled sleazy lie on lie until it became obvious to everyone that he was not vice presidential material, but rather the lowest form of political life. People were horrified that he came so close to higher office.

Taylor is correct in another respect, however. Edwards’ political life will get no second act. For that, our nation is grateful. Posted by Leroy Towns

Noam Scheiber of the New Republic asks how many journalists in Haiti are enough? He then suggests a reporting pool to minimize the number of journalists in the earthquake-torn country. The reason: reporters are soaking up scarce and valuable resources that could be going to earthquake victims.

Journalists perform a valuable service in Haiti. They put a human face on the destruction, giving the world a reason to speed aid to the country. Jonathan Hunt of Fox news, for example, filed an excellent series of reports on the plight of Haitian orphans. Journalists there also perform the watchdog service of insuring aid flows to where it is needed.

But how many are enough? Watching WRAL’s Brian Mims leads one to wonder just what public service is being provided, other than PR for the 82nd Airborne, which hauled Mims to Haiti and has sheltered him since. He spent the first several days at the airport explaining what was being planned by the 82nd. Just how many lonely videos of an airport runway are enough?  Mims is part of a three person team that remains glued to their military escort. That’s three extra people who must be fed, watered and protected.

Scheiber may have a point. Maybe a reporting pool is the answer, at least until resources are stretched less thin. Posted by Leroy Towns

It comes as no surprise to anyone that the ranks of university professors and professional journalists contain few conservatives. The question always was why?

The NY Times reports that two sociologists, Neil Gross and Ethan Fosse, have new research indicating the reason may be “typecasting.” They say that profs, journalists and artists have a public image that just screams liberal. That in turn leaves conservatives with little interest in joining those professions.

Of course, academics, the arts and journalism have built-in protections that tend to discourage entry by conservative thinkers even if they were inclined to join. Most university campuses are downright hostile environments for political conservatives. And in journalism, when members of the group stray outside the liberal corral, they are demonized by the group. Think Fox news.

While there is little reason to expect any of this to change, what impact will the digital revolution have on, say, journalism? Traditional journalists themselves are endangered, replaced in many cases by citizen journalists, social media, and other new ways of producing news. Conservatives might just have a fighting chance in the news of the future. Posted by Leroy Towns

John Drescher, News and Observer
Rick Thames, Charlotte Observer

Gentlemen:

We have read with interest your respective columns in the N&O and in the Charlotte Observer regarding your  innovative approach to presenting science news. As we understand it, Duke Energy has agreed to buy an exclusive ad on two pages every week as a way of sponsoring that science news.

We want to set up a similar arrangement to pay for political news.

While we certainly realize your staff would retain complete editorial control over this political section, we suggest it contain your excellent Dome political blog along with columns by veteran political reporters Rob Christensen and Jack Betts. Of course, we also know that we may not always agree with what they write about us or our loyal opposition, but if our sponsored political coverage is similar to the first sponsored science coverage, we have little to fear. Besides, we can always cancel our advertising if we do not approve of the coverage. That’s no brag, just fact. Your editors will know what to do.

Please send your advertising rate for this kind of arrangement. We can’t wait to get started.

Sincerely,
North Carolina Republicans
North Carolina Democrats
Posted by Leroy Towns

The continuing success of Politico shows 1) news is not dead and 2) news can make money.

Paid Content reports that Politico is a juggernaut that keeps rolling, growing from $0 to $20 million in just two years. And it apparently turned a million-dollar profit last year, according to Paid Content.

In just two years, Politico has seriously eroded the political news franchise long owned by the Washington Post. It is a must read for doing business in DC. The operation is something of a hybrid, combining print, online and electronic media, all owned by Allbritton Communications.

Instead of wringing their hands over the death of journalism, old media types would be better served by a new approach. Politico proves it can be done, at least over a short term. New journalists should forget what they think they know, specialize, converge media types and aggressively distribute news and information that consumers want. Posted by Leroy Towns

Academics long have bemoaned North Carolina’s lack of clout in Congress. Roll Call rates the NC congressional delegation at 19th, while the state ranks 10th in population.

There may be several reasons for the lowered clout rating, including the fact the delegation is split by party and the the lack of seniority.

Fresh evidence is provided by National Journal, which has assembled groups of Democratic and Republican Hill “insiders” and regularly publishes “insiders polls” on the groups’ opinions. There are two groups of insiders. One is composed of members of Congress. The other is composed of congressional staffers and other political players.

The magazine’s December 12 issue asked the insiders to name their most admired senator and representative and also what member of Congress has the brightest future. No link is provided because National Journal has paid content.

North Carolina names were scarce on the lists.

Congressional Republican insiders mentioned NC’s Sen. Richard Burr as most admired, but he did not make the top of the list. Democratic Rep. Heath Shuler of the 11th District got a similar honorable mention by his party’s congressional insiders.

The only other North Carolinian to make the lists was 4th District Democratic Rep. David Price. He got a mention as most admired–by the Republican insiders group. Posted by Leroy Towns