WaPo Journos Discuss News Biz, Election

The Washington Post reported on Wednesday, in a modest add-on in Howard Kurtz's Style section media column, that Susan Glasser, who has been assistant managing editor for national news, has been kicked upstairs. Kurtz wrote:

Susan Glasser, who directed The Washington Post's campaign coverage as assistant managing editor for national news, said yesterday she is leaving that job to work on a project for Post Co. Chief Executive Donald Graham.

Executive Editor Leonard Downie Jr. decided to remove Glasser after a high-level committee of editors concluded that her aggressive management style had led to a serious decline in staff morale. The timing, in the middle of the campaign, was unusual.

Meanwhile, Washingtonian magazine's blog reports that Glasser's husband, political reporter Peter Baker, may be leaving, too:

It is unclear whether Glasser, 39, will remain at the Post. It has been rumored that her husband, Peter Baker, who currently covers the White House for the Post, might be moving to the New York Times.

Early in March, I had an opportunity to see both Glasser and Baker speak at the annual meeting of the Virginia Electoral Board Association. They had been invited by VEBA president Maggi Luca, who knew Baker from his days as a reporter in the Post's Fairfax County bureau.

I had my video camera handy and recorded the whole presentation. Much of the discussion focused on the upcoming Democratic primaries in Texas and Ohio and whether Hillary Rodham Clinton would be able to survive them to go on to contest Pennsylvania. (We know how that turned out.)

One of the most interesting things said was by Baker, during some comments about how the Internet is affecting journalism. He said that the person who determines the most important story in the Washington Post is not Len Downie or any other editor on the Post's staff who might decide what goes on the front page, but rather Matt Drudge. He gave, as an example, an article he wrote that had been placed deep into the paper's A-section, but because Drudge linked to it, it had something like 250,000 hits -- or more than ten times as many hits as the front-page stories in the Post that day received.

I apologize for the poor video quality. The meeting room in the Homestead was lit quite dimly, and I was sitting near the back of the room (in an effort to be courteously unobtrusive).

By the way, when Maggi makes the claim in her introduction that Peter Baker was the first reporter to move from the Washington Times to the Washington Post, she is incorrect; that person was, in fact, Malcolm Gladwell, who later became a staff writer the New Yorker, and the best-selling author of The Tipping Point and Blink. (I knew Gladwell when we both worked at the Ethics and Public Policy Center; he left EPPC to work at the Times and it was big news when he was hired away from the upstart by the Post.)

For his part, Baker makes a historical error himself, when in Part II he claims that you have to "go all the way back to Monroe" -- 180 years -- before you can find the same political party holding the White House three terms in a row, except for Reagan-Bush. Even granting that FDR doesn't count because he was the same person who served four terms in row, what about Grant, Hayes, Garfield/Arthur? That's four terms in a row from 1869 through 1885. And then there was McKinley, Roosevelt, and Taft (1897-1913); that was followed by the Wilson interregnum and then Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover (1921-1933).

In Part III, Glasser talks about how the Internet "explodes" our notions about how elections should be run -- not only in how journalists report campaigns, but in how candidates raise money, and in how voters will turn out on Election Day. (She mentions how countries like Estonia already permit voting through the Internet, and how this may be the edge of a trend that will reach us eventually.)

In Part VI, Baker says the Democratic party would be "ripped apart" if the superdelegates end up handing the nomination to Hillary Clinton while Barack Obama wins the most states, the popular vote, and the most elected delegates. Letting the superdelegates exercise their discretion, he suggests, is "too divisive an alternative."

Also in Part VI, Glasser notes how these are "tough times" for the newspaper business, with the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, and the Washington Post all offering buy-outs to their employees, in an effort to cut costs and improve profitability. By mentioning the "democratization of information" and the "power of collective thinking," she invites her husband's comment about the inordinate influence of Matt Drudge. Glasser says that "Google News is by far the producer of news on the Internet ... they have built a sophisticated and super-secret algorithm" for aggregating news, which undermines the value of the local morning newspaper. (Baker's remark about the Drudge Report comes in Part VII, at 03:08.)

Part I:



Part II:



Part III:



Part IV:



Part V:



Part VI:



Part VII:

This presentation by the husband-and-wife, reporter-and-editor team of Peter Baker and Susan Glasser was entertaining and informative, even provocative. Although this event took place almost two months ago, much of the material they present is still relevant (even within the context of the primary election campaign, and especially with regard to the changing nature of the news business).

John Hager and Barnie Day Speak to Election Officials

Last weekend, the Virginia Electoral Board Association (VEBA) held its annual meeting at the Homestead in Hot Springs. The meeting included addresses by Tom Wilkey, the executive director of the federal Election Assistance Commission (EAC) and Doug Lewis, executive director of the Election Center, the nationwide professional organization for election officials. There were also break-out sessions on VERIS (the statewide voter registration system), recruiting election officials, "Electoral Board 101" (for new EB members), and an opportunity to exchange ideas with the new secretary of the State Board of Elections, Nancy Rodrigues, who took her post just weeks before last year's November elections.

VEBA's annual meeting also provides an informal opportunity for Electoral Board members from around the state to compare notes with their counterparts, discussing problems and solutions and learning how to do their jobs better by inquiring about other election officials' experience.

The Saturday banquet featured a panel discussion with former Virginia lieutenant governor John Hager (now chairman of the Republican Party of Virginia, and a candidate for re-election to that position) and Barnie Day, a former Democratic member of the House of Delegates and author of Notes from the Sausage Factory, a book about the legislative process.

The speakers' assignment was to discuss the question of whether having politically-appointed electoral board members is a case of "the fox guarding the hen house."

By way of background, each county and city in Virginia has an electoral board of three members. Two members come from the party of the current governor, and one member comes from the party of the candidate who came in second in the last gubernatorial election. That means that, since 2002, each electoral board has had two Democrats and one Republican. (The State Board of Elections, or SBE, has a similar make-up.)

Electoral board members are nominated by the chairmen of the local political party committees, and appointed by the Circuit Court judge. Technically, electoral boards are part of the judiciary, but they exercise administrative functions by themselves appointing General Registrars and supervising the activities of local Offices of Voter Registration and Elections.

To tell the truth, Hager and Day did not directly address the question put to them, but together they made some pertinent points about Virginia election law and procedures. They also seemed to agree with each other as much as they disagreed, despite the fact that they come from different political parties.

I had my video camera handy at the banquet and recorded the speeches and the question-and-answer session with the audience, which was moderated by VEBA communications director Robin Lind.

Part I:

In this first segment, VEBA president Maggi Luca (from the Fairfax County Electoral Board) introduces the speakers.




Part II:

John Hager took the microphone in this second segment, beginning with a listing of the various idiosyncrasies in Virginia politics and governance. Hager is a former president of VEBA, and here he tells a hilarious (and true) story about former Senator Chuck Robb, a lovely young lady, and a rendezvous one night at the Hot Springs airport.



Part III:

In this third segment, Hager continues his remarks, and then Barnie Day takes the microphone. Matching Hager shaggy-dog-story for shaggy-dog-story, Day amuses the audience with a memory of a family funeral, Southern-style.




Part IV:

Barnie Day continues his remarks in the fourth segment, emphasizing his thoughts about voter participation and whether voting should be a legal requirement. He offers some interesting trivia: "In the 1932 presidential election, Roosevelt vs. Hoover, there was one county east of the Mississippi that went for Hoover." That county turns out to have been Floyd County, Virginia.



Part V:

This is where the Q&A begins. Barnie Day responds to one question with a funny story about dog food. Hager talks about the recent Supreme Court decision that overturned last year's transportation package and the dangers of writing legislation "hastily." He addresses the apparent increase in voter participation this year and expresses hope that it's not a one-off phenomenon. Both Day and Hager talk about non-partisan redistricting. (They both believe that the redistricting process needs to be changed, but both are skeptical that the General Assembly will change it.)




Part VI:

As the Q&A continues in segment six, Barnie Day brings up the Electoral College and suggests it, too should be changed. Hager agrees with him. (I disagree with both -- though not on camera.)




Part VII:

In this final segment, Hager and Day continue to respond to questions from the audience, and continue a conversation about redistricting. Day suggests that there should be more of a match between state Senate and state House districts. There is a mismatch, he says, because there are 100 House districts and 40 Senate districts. It would be better to decrease the House districts to 80 or increase the Senate to 50, with two House districts contiguous with each Senate district. Because this is such a good idea, he says, "it is almost guaranteed never to happen."

Speaking of election laws and procedures, I will be a guest on "The Schilling Show" tomorrow on WINA-AM from 1:00 to 2:00 p.m., talking about voting machine security with David Swanson, who recently had articles in The Hook and C-VILLE casting doubt on the integrity of our electoral system.