Campaign News Coverage Falls Short

Chapel Hill Herald, Saturday October 29, 2005

Judging by the news coverage, this year's municipal elections have been a pretty dull affair. The papers have provided an outlet for candidates to express their views through guest columns, web profiles, and articles on forums. But there is a lot more that could have been reported on their backgrounds and positions and on campaign events.

Let's start with Will Raymond. He claims to be a dotcom success story, promising to bring strong business and financial management skills to the Town Council. The news media could have looked into Raymond's background and informed voters of the reality behind these claims.

Robin Cutson has called into question the adequacy of our water supply to meet the needs of growth. OWASA chair Mark Marcoplos has rebutted some of her charges on orangepolitics.org. This too could have led to an informative news story.

Alderman candidate Katrina Ryan has spoken of her intention to help launch a private company that will take advantage of energy tax credits to promote solar energy in Carrboro. Is that a flaky idea or a good one? You'd have to know the details to decide.

Ryan wondered back in February “why can't Carrboro be the funky neighborhood in Chapel Hill?”, adding in April that “the towns should merge. It's pure hubris on the part of both town councils not to be investigating the viability of a merger.” The news media have not reported whether this is still on her agenda.

Surely it was big news when the Sierra Club chose not to endorse Ed Harrison, who they supported in 2001. The importance of this endorsement may be gleaned from the fact that seven of nine sitting Town Council members were elected with Sierra Club support and that Mayor Foy is a former member of its executive committee.

It also happened the other way around, with the Sierra Club endorsing Jacquie Gist who it did not support four years ago. No reporter asked whether Gist had changed, the club's standards had changed, or if it was just the makeup of the candidate pool.

Voters may not know that Mark Kleinschmidt received an endorsement from the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund whose mission is to help elect LGBT candidates nationwide. Now, given the anti-gay climate being fostered by the right wing, the work of groups like the Victory Fund is critically important. Chapel Hill voters deserve to know that the organization considers Kleinschmidt's re-election to be of national importance and have the chance to make their own judgments on the appropriateness of the group weighing in on town affairs.

One paper told us “as the only Latino board member in a town where the Hispanic population is growing, Herrera is in a unique position to serves a community that needs a voice.” A valuable campaign story might have profiled Carrboro's Hispanic community with an eye to informing voters of its concerns.

Past years have seen some thoughtful coverage of campaign contributions, even including publication of complete contributor lists. This may still happen after the next set of reports comes in but, so far, an invaluable piece of information on the campaigns is missing.

Covering one Carrboro forum, the Herald reported “Chilton attacked Zaffron's transportation strategy, and said the N.C. Department of Transportation had driven a wedge between Carrboro and surrounding communities. Zaffron rebuked Chilton's remarks after the meeting, saying ‘I don't know where [Chilton] gets this stuff.'” The paper offered no further background or explanation. Surely, readers would like to know exactly what they were talking about.

One of the strangest reporting omissions came in an article this week on the proposed move of the IFC soup kitchen to Carrboro. The article overlooked the fact that candidates had been asked about this in a forum just a few days earlier and that some pretty divergent views had been expressed.

Ultimately, it's the candidates' job to get their messages to the voters. But, if we know less about the candidates this year, the news media share some of the blame.