Why Washington Based Media Resents New Democratic Players

If you click on the link in this entry's title you can read an article from the Associated Press's political reporter, Ron Fournier entitled "Democratic Hopefuls Snub Party Moderates." The article talks about how no Democratic presidential candidate is attending the Democratic Leadership Council's summer meeting, which took place last weekend.

The title of the article tells you the tone of the article. This is an article that claims that the Democratic presidential candidates are catering to the so-called "liberal activist" base of the party, just like the Republicans cater to the "conservative activist" base of their party. In both cases, according to Fournier, the two political parties are ignoring the swing voters, who reside in the middle of the political spectrum.

Over the last 20-25 years reporters like Fournier have developed contacts with groups like the DLC. They use these groups for quotes and to give them insight on what is going on in the Democratic Party. Now these groups are being replaced. This makes the media's job harder. Compounding the problem for Beltway journalists and commentators is the fact that many of the new players in the Democratic Party don't live or work in D.C. Kos of Daily Kos, for example, lives near San Francisco. Journalists don't like the fact that they have to develop new contacts, groups like the DLC don't like competition, so they both have an interest in downplaying the power and significance of the newcomers.

The problem is magnified by the fact that most of these reporters and commentators work for corporations and many of the new players in the Democratic Party have an anti-corporate attitude, or at least, not a pro-corporate attitude. Thus, there may be pressure both from their co-workers and from their sources to write disparagingly about the so-called "activist" base of the Democratic Party.

What this means is that stories like the one linked to in this entry should be taken with a very large grain of salt. Ask yourself what evidence is being offered to back up the storyline or what biases of the author appear in the story. Don't rely on Washington based journalists and commentators to know what is happening out in the country.