Why Doesn't Political Reporting "Center" Voters?
The real reason gerontocrat Janet Mills ended her campaign
Ken Klippenstein calls for news coverage that puts the voters at the center, rather that focusing on secondary “wonkery.” You would think the the media would have learned its lesson from 2016 that there is intense dissatisfaction with the establishment. Is there are reason why news sites obscure this?
In this excerpt Ken Klippenstein draws attention to the fact that “The voters rebelled against [Janet Mills] and the party machine”, while reporting focuses on the secondary horserace technicals like cashflow and adspend.
Article:
Mills didn’t just “run out of money.” The voters rebelled against her and the party machine, and she couldn’t keep up.
But again, to tell that story, the major media would have to put voters on center stage instead of Washington wonkery about cashflow and ad spend. It would also force an uncomfortable question on the people who run the Democratic Party: what does it mean that Schumer’s hand-picked recruit — a sitting governor, the first woman elected attorney general in Maine, the first woman elected governor in Maine — couldn’t generate any support?
As for Platner, his simple anti-old ways message and affordability patter is clearly what people want right now. The press has spent months pointing out that he has no credentials, no qualifications, believes the wrong things, is anti-party, an “upstart,” a “newcomer” — at a time when rank-and-file voters could not possibly care less.
.. People are fed up with an establishment that doesn’t listen, that tells them everything is under control even as it drives the country into a ditch. So they’re taking the keys away.
And here’s the thing I keep coming back to: this is the same energy, the same rage, the same loss of faith in institutions driving everything else right now — including the wave of political shootings we keep seeing. I’m not equating them. Voting a geriatric establishment hack out of a primary is a healthy democratic outcome. Shooting a CEO or a politician is not. But they spring from the same well. People do not believe their voices are heard through normal channels. They do not believe the people in charge are competent, honest, or even particularly aware of what life is like outside the bubble they live in.
And the thing is, they’re right.
Questions
Why do reporters focus on meta aspects of the race such as cashflow and adspend, rather than talking to representative votes? Is this like the Jim Crow Southern Christian church focusing on inner-spirituality because to engage otherwise would force them to grapple with the injustice of slavery?
Is this a way to cover races without surfacing the issues that the public cares about that may diverge from the interests of corporations and the political class?
Source:
Voters TakeKeys Away From Elder Politician: The real reason gerontocrat Janet Mills ended her campaign, Ken Klippenstein, April 30, 2026