Storytellers

Jamison Foser of Media Matters on the problems with relying on anecdotal information when talking about politicians:

These "illustrative anecdotes," and countless others like them -- John Kerry windsurfing or ordering cheesesteak, John Edwards' big house and expensive haircuts, etc., etc. -- aren't inherently illustrative. Journalists use them to illustrate not only things they know about the candidates, but things they think about the candidates as well; to dress up their guesses and hunches as factual observations.

President Bush has been widely mocked for saying upon his first meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, "I looked the man in the eye. ... I was able to get a sense of his soul." But that's essentially what journalists do when they claim these "telling anecdotes" illustrate something completely subjective about the candidates. They don't really know Al Gore is a phony; they're guessing at what is in his soul, then finding anecdotes that can seem to support their guess.

Take the most oft-repeated "telling anecdote" of the 2008 presidential campaign thus far: John Edwards paid $400 for a haircut. What does that really tell us about John Edwards? Many journalists insist (endlessly) that it tells us that he's vain, or a phony, or a hypocrite. Maybe it does tell us something like that. (For the record: It certainly does not tell us he is a hypocrite.) Or maybe it tells us he is inattentive to detail and didn't know how much it cost. Or maybe it tells us he didn't know how much it cost because he focuses his attention on important things like health care, poverty, and war, rather than on his hair. Or maybe it doesn't tell us anything at all. Sometimes, a haircut is just a haircut.

To me, anecdotes where always a technique journalists used to summarize a politician's view of an issue or just life in general. But as time has passed, it has become a substitute for actual reporting. Why give detail about a presidential candidate's view on health care when a story about a conversation with their advisor is so much more entertaining?

And that is the real problem here: there are too many political reporters who would prefer to entertain the public with stories (whether true or false) than inform them.