Groupthink Journalism

Jeff Jarvis wonders this morning why political journalists are so fixated on the horse-race aspect of the Democratic struggle, given that they are so lousy at it. I'd suggest:

1. Reporters are human.

2. Many humans are lazy.

3. Horse-race coverage is designed by and for lazy reporters.

4. There is never any apparent penalty for making wrong predictions (Jarvis lists quite a few, and most of us can add to his list).

5. This is groupthink journalism, as so much journalism, unfortunately, has become. It is painfully easy to predict the coverage we'll see on virtually any news story - politics, crime, business, etc. It manifests itself in the group predictions of the horse-race just as it does in the group coverage of the annual Groundhog Day nonsense. It isn't real journalism, it's lazy, gotta-fill-up-the-column writing. Journalists can - and should - be doing better. But...see items 1-4 again.