Avoiding the obvious

The media really is the elephant in the room when it comes to political reporting. Much of modern reporting doesn't make sense on a meta-level (what does it all mean) if you exclude the influence the media has on the whole process.

The Republicans are masters at gearing their campaign to take advantage of the media. But when the media ignores this aspect of the campaign and just reports on "what happened today", the overall flow of the campaign just looks really strange. But if they were to report the role the media has in propagating campaign messages, then maybe the public might have a better chance of understanding just why the campaigns do what they do.

It's like the parties dance around a minefield (the media), trying to avoid getting blown up (gaffes!) but the public, not knowing there are mines in that field, just see a bunch of crazy people dancing around like idiots.

There's a reason politicians act the way they do. If the media was more honest in reporting this then maybe it wouldn't look all so confusing.