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James Risen @jamesrisen.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Is there a better way to cover campaigns and politics? Yes. But the problems with campaign coverage aren't new.

James Risen @jamesrisen.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

I remember feeling the same way when I helped cover a presidential campaign. I was irked that readers complained about the lack of issue coverage, because they didn't remember the issue stories I had written six months earlier, before I got busy covering the daily campaign news.

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James Risen @jamesrisen.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

I've always thought that the biggest thing that gets lost in all of this is real in-depth coverage of the issues and policy differences between candidates. I know what campaign reporters say to that: We do cover issues, and people don't give us credit for those stories.

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James Risen @jamesrisen.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Not much of this has changed over the years that I've been a reporter. There is still the same focus that there was in the coverage of the 1980s on advertising, polls, opposition research, travel schedules and other aspects of campaign strategy.

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James Risen @jamesrisen.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Over the years, political campaigns in both parties became expert at exploiting this press dynamic. Political consultants would, on an off-the-record or background basis, provide in-the-weeds details to reporters to feed a narrative.

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James Risen @jamesrisen.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

That dynamic can have the unintended consequence of prompting reporters to save time by looking for a fresh fact on the existing narrative surrounding a campaign. That saves time; you are just adding a bit of information to the ongoing narrative.

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James Risen @jamesrisen.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

That means every reporter is looking for a fresh angle or a fresh fact to advance a story. Since the competition is intense, you have very little time to find a new fact, a new scoop. In most reporting jobs, especially these days, you often don't get more than one day to report on a story.

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James Risen @jamesrisen.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Above all, I don't think the public has ever understood the degree to which press coverage is driven by the constant search for something new. As a reporter, you are in constant competition with other reporters. You are constantly aware of what other reporters have written or broadcast.

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James Risen @jamesrisen.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

But narratives do develop around stories naturally. And once a narrative has developed around a story, it is human nature that it becomes harder to diverge from that narrative.

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James Risen @jamesrisen.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

After spending my life in newsrooms, I can tell you that there is no secret collaboration or elitist conspiracy that leads to the way the press develops a narrative frame for a story. Reporters and editors bend over backwards to remain objective and non-partisan in campaign coverage.

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James Risen @jamesrisen.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Campaign coverage still tends to adhere to the framing of a narrative arc, one that often has such a powerful pull that it becomes generally accepted as the conventional wisdom.

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James Risen @jamesrisen.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Despite rapid technological change and the financial disruption of the media industry, those same tendencies are still seen in political journalism today.

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James Risen @jamesrisen.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

That has led to a style of campaign coverage that downplays ethical and moral lapses unless they get in the way of electoral victory.

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James Risen @jamesrisen.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

That has given the book an unintended legacy by convincing reporters that they should focus on whether candidates are willing to do anything, including sacrificing their integrity, in order to win.

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James Risen @jamesrisen.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

The book provides deeply researched profiles of the major candidates in 1988, concluding that George Herbert Walker Bush was the most willing of all of them to slash and burn his way to victory.

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James Risen @jamesrisen.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

“What It Takes” has shaped presidential campaign coverage ever since its publication in 1992, almost certainly in ways that Cramer never intended.

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James Risen @jamesrisen.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

No book has had a greater influence on the current generation of campaign reporters than “What It Takes: The Way to the White House,” Richard Ben Cramer’s iconic book about the 1988 presidential campaign.

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James Risen @jamesrisen.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

The Selling of the President was the first examination of how television and advertising were changing campaigns, and it convinced political reporters they should focus their coverage on the marketing gurus behind the candidates. That led their reporting deeper into the the campaign process.

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James Risen @jamesrisen.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

That transformation was captured in “The Selling of the President 1968,” another seminal campaign book that documented the way in which Madison Avenue advertising and marketing executives were able to remake and polish Nixon’s image, propelling him to victory after getting beat eight years earlier.

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James Risen @jamesrisen.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Presidential campaigns were now dominated by televised visuals, and reporters in turn focused their coverage on the imagery and symbolism of campaigns, rather than the substance. Which candidate was best on television became the story.

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James Risen @jamesrisen.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Television also came of age as a political force in 1960, and the nationally televised Kennedy–Nixon debates changed the relationship between candidates and the press. The television networks became more powerful at the expense of newspapers and weekly news magazines.

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James Risen @jamesrisen.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

White created the modern campaign book, and with it, a narrative framing that became the model for generations of political reporters. The presidential campaign, a quadrennial event, became the story; examining policies and issues and investigating potential scandals all became secondary.

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James Risen @jamesrisen.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

White’s book was a bestseller and won a Pulitzer Prize because it offered something new: White wrote about the presidential campaign as a yearlong narrative, an arc from New Hampshire to the November day when the Kennedy compound was suddenly transformed into the home of the president-elect.

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James Risen @jamesrisen.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

The 1960 race fundamentally altered the way journalists thought about and practiced campaign coverage. “The Making of the President 1960,” a ground-breaking book about the Kennedy–Nixon race by Theodore White, has had a long-lasting impact on how journalists cover presidential campaigns.

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James Risen @jamesrisen.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Modern American political coverage has its origins in the 1960 presidential campaign between Democratic Sen. John F. Kennedy and Republican Vice President Richard Nixon.

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James Risen @jamesrisen.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

I've been a reporter since 1978. I have some thoughts about political journalism. Spoiler alert: it's changed less than you might think.

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James Risen @jamesrisen.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

I've been a reporter since 1978. I have some thoughts about political journalism.

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James Risen @jamesrisen.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

Trump says blue states are terrible. Nine out of the top ten states ranked by per capita income are blue states: 1 DC 116,121 2 CT 98,879 3 Mass. 97,456 4 CA 91,116 5 Wyo. 89,806 6 Wash 89,396 7 NY 88,847 8 NJ 88,223 9 NH 86,959 10 Colorado 86,181

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James Risen @jamesrisen.bsky.social · 12/09/2025

Please, let's solve problems peacefully.

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James Risen @jamesrisen.bsky.social · 23/02/2025

What happened to all the people who said that the Trump-Russia scandal was a hoax? It was never a hoax. And now he is proving that it was true.

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Reposted by James Risen

Frank Bajak @fbajak.bsky.social · 18/02/2025

“Just go cover the hell out of (Trump) without sitting there in the press pool. Maybe it will be liberating,” @jamesrisen.bsky.social advises the AP. “If (you) have guts and nerve you find other ways to cover people.” The Washington press corps has become too accostomed to being stenographers.

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James Risen @jamesrisen.bsky.social · 13/02/2025

Braxton Bragg was not only a major slaveholder. He was also the most incompetent and widely hated general in the Confederate Army, who got routed by Grant at Missionary Ridge. Confederate officers serving under him demanded that Jefferson Davis dismiss him. theintercept.com/2019/10/06/a...

theintercept.com

Why is the Army Still Honoring Confederate Generals?

The U.S. Army has faced almost no resistance to bases named for prominent confederate white supremacists.

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Reposted by James Risen

Danny @recordsandradio.bsky.social · 09/02/2025

Jayden Daniels is a machine

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