Race puts Atlanta election on national media's radar

By Kristi E. Swartz

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

You would think the media would have election-coverage fatigue.

Between a never-ending Democratic presidential primary to an animated Republican vice presidential nominee, the press spent countless hours and big money following the 2008 election.

So why pay attention to who's going to be the next mayor of Atlanta, as national newspapers such as the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Times have done?

"It's the first time in decades that a white candidate may be poised to win the mayoral race in Atlanta," said Sam Feist, the political director for CNN.

Feist is talking about frontrunner Mary Norwood, currently a member of Atlanta's City Council. Her chief competitors are City Council President Lisa Borders; former state lawmaker Kasim Reed; and Jesse Spikes, an attorney at the law firm of McKenna, Long & Aldridge.

Sure, it may seem easy for CNN to take a look at what's going on in Atlanta because the cable news network is headquartered there. But Feist and the bulk of the network's political shop is in Washington, D.C.

Reporter and anchor Don Lemon is preparing a segment on Atlanta's mayoral race for The Situtation Room, which will air later Monday, Feist said.

New York, Boston, Detroit, Pittsburgh and Houston also top CNN's list of interesting elections to watch Tuesday, Feist said. Houston, one of the nation's largest cities, has a leading candidate who is openly gay.

But at this point, any election can make for a great story, said Paul Levinson, chairman of Fordham University's communication and media studies department.

And whatever stories traditional media choose not to cover, there's always the blogs, YouTube and Twitter. Those outlets can quickly turn a local story into a national or international one, Levinson writes in his new book, "New New Media."

"Once something is tweeted, it's international," Levinson told the AJC. "The big media pick up on that. They are highly receptive of what's being tweeted."