As I watch the coverage of the 2016 election continue, I am more desperate to change the way journalism covers politics. 

An example. Yesterday on CNN, I finally heard a discussion of why they think HRC has a problem with honesty. They had tape of Clinton, which I listened to carefully. The reporters discussed it, I listened to that too. 

Net-net: I think she's telling the truth about how it worked, and the reporters were quite clear, that's not the story the American public wants to hear. 

Context: She was the top person in a 70,000 person organization, cc'd on lots of email, none of it secure, not just her server. It was not the only weak link. 

Think about how much email crosses your inbox and how much of you read carefully, and then imagine being at the top of such a large organization. It means most of what happens there is delegated. 

Did someone screw up? You have to look at the whole thing, and use your judgment and experience with how human organizations work. Even in the worst case, this doesn't merit much of our attention, imho. But only if you think of the voters as real people not an abstract concept. 

This frustration lead to a simple statement of what journalism is for.

Journalism's most important job in covering an election is to help voters decide who would be the best choice.

Maybe that doesn't fit with a theoretical idea of what journalism is for, but that's what I want them to do, for me. I'm the person who watches their ads, who wants to be informed. I'm like a juror, and this is a trial. Who would make the better president. I, and all the other voters, have to decide.

PS: Paul Krugman explains my frustration better than I did.