I thought this story from Annie Aguiar of Poynter was both insightful and fun. The author takes a step back to reassess and interrogate the term used pejoratively to describe a certain type of coverage of elections and politics and see how the term fits and how it doesn’t—and what can be learned from the comparison between these two types of journalism.
Horse race journalism is an old-school term for political reporting that treats minor updates in polling and campaign strategy like play-by-play announcer calls. The approach is criticized for a disproportionate focus on the odds of an election over the actual stakes.
But is “horse race journalism” a fit comparison to actual horse racing journalism?
Poynter reached out to journalists who cover horse racing to get their take on the term, and what reporters covering 2024 can learn from their experience covering high-tension matchups and big-money betting at famous races like the Triple Crown.
This was brought to my attention by a segment on yesterday’s All Things Considered in which NPR’s Mary Louise Kelly interviewed Aguiar about the piece. Some interesting additional ideas came up in the interview. Kelly noted, “One huge difference that occurs to me is real horse-race journalists cannot interview the central characters in their stories because they’re horses.” Aguiar replied that Joe Drape of the New York Times had brought up that very issue and added her own comparison of horses and politicians:
But I will say, you know, we can say the horse can’t talk, but politicians can. But in the last couple of years, a couple of election cycles, candidates are continuing to limit, you know, traditional press access. So maybe sometimes it is the horse can’t talk. But in this case, the horse is choosing to not talk.
Image used in this post: “Lawn – Belmont” Photograph. Bain News Service, c1910-c1915. From Library of Congress: Bain News Service photograph collection. https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2014693241/.