No matter what your opinion is of Herman Cain, there’s no arguing he’s been quite a story this political season.
In a matter of weeks, he’s gone from long shot to front-runner to candidate under siege. That’s made it a challenge for Atlanta Journal-Constitution editors to judge the best way to cover Cain.
Cain and the other candidate with local connections, Newt Gingrich, have a strong following among our readers. Yet early on, few national political watchers gave Cain a chance in the crowded field of candidates for the Republican nomination. So interest in the front runners was stronger for many readers.
“When a local figure jumps onto the national stage, it’s a story,” said Susan Abramson, our editor in charge of local political coverage. “We wrote about his campaign, his fundraising, and researched his background, as we would for any local figure running for higher office.”
Cain’s win in the September Florida Straw Poll changed everything, Abramson said, calling for coverage that was anything but routine. Since early October, we’ve published dozens of stories, many offering information unavailable in national media reports. Two stand out in our effort to view Cain through a local lens:
● Staff writer Ernie Suggs wrote on Oct. 26 about Cain’s days at Morehouse College: “In debates, Cain has behaved in a manner true to the Morehouse man’s reputation, quickly rebutting challenges, accusing his rivals of being flat wrong, and exerting a plain-spoken and commanding style that is winning him fans nationwide. But historically black and all-male Morehouse, while proud of Cain’s accomplishments, is divided about his presidential bid.”
● On Nov. 4, we published staff writer Jill Vejnoska’s profile of Gloria Cain, whose voting record showed a Democratic streak. This story focused on her relatively low profile and the obligations she faces as a potential first lady. She has declined media requests for interviews, including ours.
Cain, with his business background, highlights how he differs from a typical politician. Staff writer Aaron Gould Sheinin, who has traveled to Tennessee, Arizona and Nevada to cover Cain, said he’s covered four presidential elections and has never encountered a campaign quite like Cain’s. He’s greeted like a rock star by huge crowds, but behind the scenes it’s hard to get answers to basic questions like the location and time of events.
“It truly seems like a campaign that was caught completely unprepared for his sudden surge and is slowly, painfully building the infrastructure a true national presidential campaign requires,” Gould Sheinin said.
When the news broke about sexual harassment allegations against Cain, the story took a different turn.
We’ve spent a lot of time discussing how to give readers fair coverage of Cain and his accusers.
The original story was broken by the Washington-based newspaper and website Politico, and in some cases we are running coverage from other news organizations, so decisions about story play and editing are especially important.
The allegations have brought comparisons to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, another Georgian and the subject of a biography by one of our editors, Ken Foskett.
Foskett said the similarities are obvious: two conservative black men seeking public office, both facing accusers recounting alleged actions a decade old. “In both cases you also have allegations that would not merit news coverage if the accused were private citizens,” Foskett said. “But because both were/are public actors seeking public office the allegations have become front-page news.”
“One big difference is that the allegations against Thomas quickly blew up into a much larger societal discussion about sexual harassment in the workplace, which hadn’t really happened before. In Cain’s case, the story is much more about who’s telling the truth.”
As you would expect, not all readers are happy with our coverage of Cain.
Some even believe that we ought to promote his candidacy because he’s a local guy.
“Please do not allow insulting articles to be published in the AJC about Mr. Cain,” one reader emailed us. “Please help him.”
It’s not our role to try to help or hurt any candidate. We take seriously the job of helping voters make their own decisions. We’ll continue to look for compelling stories about Herman Cain, so you can decide for yourself if he deserves your vote.
Disclosure: Before launching his campaign for the 2012 GOP presidential nomination, Cain was host of a talk show on Atlanta’s WSB, a radio station owned by Cox Enterprises. Cox also owns The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
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