news you can lose

I'm missing out of what's happening in the presidential campaigns, I guess, because I rely on the traditional coverage in the mainstream media, in particular on carefully reported articles by seasoned journalists. WhatI want to know is not just what they say, but how they function as leaders of people and managers of complex organizations. I like the horse race stories every now and then, but what I value most is information that will allow me to assess how a candidate will perform in office.

Juliet Eilperin of the Washington Post has a revealing article for the Nieman Reports questioning the way reporters are covering the campaign and suggesting some alternative sources of information for better coverage. She says that candidates now can evade and avoid the traditional venues and practices by using social media. She talks about sites I've never seen because I don't have a smartphone. But that's where most people are getting their information about the campaigns and candidates, as superficial as it is.

It's useful to consider her critique of current coverage, but I wish we could rely on traditional gatekeepers and fact-checkers and professional standards. On the Internet, everything is equal -- truth and falsehood, reality and deception, consequential and trivial.