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assigned to the political beat for years and acquire valuable experience or regularly rotate reporters for the sake of a fresh perspective.
Experience gives a reporter time to cultivate sources with inside knowledge and to gain trust and respect. When a politician gets a call from a new reporter on the block, he is apt to be apprehensive.
Yet there is a danger the veteran reporter may become jaded by speeches and rallies he’s heard and seen a thousand times and may become overly chummy with some of the politicians he covers. That last factor has certainly been the origin of many “fluff’ pieces.
The bottom line is that one who covers politics should have, just as the politicians he covers, an obligation first and foremost to citizens who cast the votes that choose elected leaders. It’s a responsibility that should be taken very seriously.
John Goolrick, a former political reporter, is now an aide to Seventh District Congressman D. French Slaughter Jr. Opinions expressed are his own.
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