Signer to Mainstream Media: Do Your Job

With only a short time for media to be responsible and play their part in informing the public about the real differences between each remaining Presidential candidate's foreign policy plans and ideas, Michael Signer, former foreign policy advisor to presidential candidate John Edwards, is asking media to finally step up to the plate.

Just entertain the thought for a moment. What if, in the coming months, every major journalist who covers foreign affairs wrote one story that actually recounted what the candidates are proposing on a foreign policy issue. On the Middle East, or the developing world. On energy independence, proposals to help veterans, the critical role of global aid, denuclearization, or how we should deal with rising powers such as Russia, China and India.

These stories would tell us what the candidates have proposed and whether their ideas are silly or workable. They would quote experts and present tough criticism and fair praise. They would tell us something about the candidates' characters. They would illuminate the future and tell us something about the past.

Most important, they would give us insight into this most critical of decisions -- who should be commander in chief of the world's most powerful country in a time of war and a time of momentous choices.


- From: It's a Scary World. Don't Campaign Reporters Care? by Michael Signer [WaPo, February 24, 2008]