Politics

This election cycle, what’s really important?

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There are seven months left until the Nov. 8 presidential election. That’s more than 5,000 hours of broadcasting available to the public at a finger’s length, with the potential to be filled with enough crass mud-slinging and campaign boasts to make you lightheaded.

I attended a three-person panel on March 10 at Newsday’s headquarters, hosted by the Press Club of Long Island. The panelists examined the current presidential campaign coverage. The appropriateness of heavy news coverage given to Donald Trump was debated, aptly, for a large portion of the panel.

“Even when we’re talking about another candidate, we’re talking about the other candidate in relationship to Trump,” said political consultant Michael Dawidziak, who worked on George H.W. Bush’s 1988 and 1992 presidential campaigns.

Despite the fact that Trump has come under fire for numerous statements he’s made on the campaign trail, the real estate mogul seems to generate as much media coverage and public attention as outrage. Panel moderator Jed Morey, publisher of the Long Island Press, noted that Trump has national name recognition, and pointed out the media’s role in that.

Jim Klurfield, a Stony Brook University professor, former Newsday editorial page editor and longtime political reporter, said that the very fact that the public is generally aware of the controversy that follows Trump is because the press is covering it. It’s not the press’ job to select candidates or make judgments about what coverage they deserve, but to cover the totality of what is happening.

“When people say the press is biased, many times it’s your bias,” Klurfield said. “The people’s individual bias that they’re bringing to the story, and the story is quite fair.”

Klurfield also referenced a recent comment by CBS President, and Valley Stream native, Les Moonves regarding the surge in the network’s ratings due to the election coverage. “The media is under all types of pressure today to sell its product,” Klurfield said. “You look at what the circulation figures are and what they had been — you can understand it.”

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