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November 23, 2005
Do reporters know Nevada actually has two senators in D.C.?
Today one of them (Barack Obama) is well known, and the other (Richard Durbin) is principally an inside-the-beltway figure, even though he's the assistant Democratic leader. And Obama is famous mainly for being famous, not yet for his senate record. Coverage of government has declined so far that men who once would have been household names go unnoticed. In 1964 a CBS reporter (Roger Mudd) could become famous almost overnight by doing daily coverage of a senate filibuster. Today coverage of government has declined so much that filibusters get mostly political, not substantive, news coverage. Nevada's senators neatly illustrate the situation. Harry Reid is the Democratic floor leader and his words have gained such import that his interviews on Jon Ralston's Nevada interview program are taped and shipped east (packed in ice, probably) to be scrutinized for their meaning. "Now, people are wondering what I'm thinking about," Reid says. "And so it's a lot different than it was before. I mean, who would think that somebody would cover a high school class I was talking to?" It's sometimes forgotten that Nevada has another senator. These are some of the things that Republican John Ensign has been involved in lately: • He introduced legislation on broadband and wireless service that has attracted heavy coverage in industry trade publications. • He has been a leader in efforts to break up the territory of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. • He complained about President Bush's Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers being "evasive," a striking statement coming from a Bush loyalist. • The Humane Society of the United States endorsed Ensign's "cockfighting" bill outlawing animal fighting and the transport of animals for fighting. • He introduced (with Durbin) a resolution on Armenian genocide. Most of these bits of news got either home state coverage or none at all. Ensign, formerly a veterinarian, didn't even get much attention for visiting a Louisiana animal shelter after Hurricane Katrina. (When the anthrax problem reared its head a few days after the Sept. 11 tragedies, Ensign's veterinary experience spoke directly to the issue, but it was fellow physician/senator Bill Frist who became the senate medical expert on anthrax, even though his experience was less relevant than Ensign's - and this was before Frist was GOP floor leader.) Ensign could raise his profile if he wins his race against John Cornyn for vice chair of the Republican Conference, thus giving him a bit of a leadership role. In that job, Ensign or Cornyn would help shape the GOP message in the face of a "war room" setup for the Democrats by Reid. The Congressional newspaper The Hill has reported, "Cornyn indicated in a brief interview that Republicans were having difficulty competing with the Democrats' communications 'war room'." So maybe Ensign can get more ink and air time that way. But maybe not. Reid says that even when he was the Democratic whip, it didn't cut much ice. "One of the things that's been interesting for me ..." he says, "is that even when I was assistant leader, nobody really cared what I said. And certainly when I was just a senator, it was rare that anybody even wrote what I said." That the word "just" can describe "a senator" is a sign of how far news coverage of Congress has fallen. Myers is a veteran capital reporter. His column, "Against the Grain," appears here on Wednesdays. |
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