Chris Lehman on “moronic” campaign coverage

Ken Silverstein has a wonderfully acerbic Q & A with Chris Lehman about campaign coverage over at Harper’s. A senior editor at Congressional Quarterly and co-editor of Bookforum, Lehman mercilessly skewers the media for its horse-race coverage and fabricated storylines. Here’s his take on the incessant VP speculation:

Imagine if you were covering the baseball playoffs and you wrote that there was massive speculation about who was going to win. It’s manifestly moronic because you’re writing about a scheduled event that is going to take place on a known timeline. You’re contributing nothing. It’s the opposite of news; any useful public information is entirely missing. But that’s the way the press bubble operates. Not only do reporters write about what they’re talking about, but they’re writing about each other. Notice the passive construction in these stories about “rampant speculation” and ask yourself, “Who’s doing the speculating?” It’s the reporters who are; most voters, being sane people, might think about it for a second but then they move on to the next thing in their day.

Yes, we’re guilty as charged. Read the whole thing.