Brendan Nyhan

New at CJR: Don't blame Obama’s problems on Syria

My new CJR column points out how journalists are overestimating the effects of Syria on the Obama administration. Here's how it begins:

The media love simple narratives based on dramatic events, so it’s no surprise that many journalists have suggested that President Obama’s fortunes hinge on Syria. In pursuing this line of reasoning, reporters have started to blame every second-term problem Obama faces on his failed effort to attract Congressional support for a military intervention. But while his efforts were not very popular and did temporarily displace other issues from the national agenda, it’s not clear that the episode fundamentally changed the president’s standing with Congress or the public.

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New at CJR: The costs of scandal/conspiracy coverage

My new piece for CJR summarizes new research on how media coverage of conspiracy theories and scandal can reduce trust in government and promote misperceptions. Here's how it begins:

We often speculate about how media coverage could make people cynical about politics and government. But new political science research suggests just how significant those effects can be, using Jack Welch’s jobs report conspiracy theory and coverage of the IRS scandal as case studies.

Read the rest here.

New at CJR: The failures of campaign coverage

I wrote a column for CJR yesterday on the limits of traditional approaches to campaign reporting. Here's the lede:

CNN’s Peter Hamby has written a must-read retrospective on coverage of the 2012 Romney campaign. His report, “Did Twitter Kill the Boys on the Bus? Searching for a better way to cover a campaign”, which weighs in at a hefty 95 pages, documents recent changes in the business models and journalistic practices of media outlets and how those have affected campaign coverage. Hamby, who interviewed with more than 70 journalists and campaign staff, places a particular emphasis on the youth and inexperience of many reporters who followed Romney, the lack of access to the candidate or senior staff that they were provided by the Romney campaign, and the effects of Twitter on how reporters covered the race and the relationship between the Romney campaign and its traveling press corps...

These sorts of trends are often cited in wistful laments for the good old days of journalism when candidates and journalists traveled the road together, but we should avoid nostalgia for the era when a few insiders from elite publications dominated how campaigns were covered.

Read the whole thing for more.