Politics and Social Media Sunshine

Twenty-five years ago, when the shift hit the land in San Francisco and we suffered a the Loma Prieta Earthquake, I was working for Mayor Dianne Feinstein.  One of my co-workers was a smart, headstrong newly minted graduate of the University of California named Jill Osur.  An incident happened in her life yesterday that illustrates the differences in politics in the media then and now.

Minding her business, probably drinking her morning coffee, Jill witnessed a school board candidate named Aimee Moss taking the sign of opponent Sherri McGoff off of her lawn.  Appalled, Jill immediately took to Facebook and wrote about the incident.  Seven hours later, she had confronted candidate Moss, who was evasive but admitted to taking the sign.  Jill posted her account of the conversation on Facebook.  Two hours after that post, the Contra Costa Times picked up the story with the candidate admitting to the caper and blaming “the stress of the campaign.”

It happened at lightning speed one week before the election.

Back when Jill and I worked together, we didn’t have the internet, social media and all the rest. For news, one relied on print, radio and television.  News, particularly in local races for boards travelled slowly.  One newspaper reporter covering a school board race would have to cover multiple candidates at multiple events and would be overwhelmed. A week before the election, the citizen and the offended candidate would have to hammer this beat reporter and hope that they picked up the story.  Election week could have passed and this ethical and possible legal breach might not have seen the light of day.

In California political history this is illustrated by the famous race where an incumbent’s campaign manager was being investigated in a murder.  It took weeks for the opponent to get the story published in a newspaper.  Days after the story ran, a television station picked it up and the camera crew cornered the incumbent. His sound byte that ran on the evening news that night was “What my staff does on their own time is their business.” Glacial news cycle compared to today.

As we are all too aware newspapers have been gutted, most radio stations don’t have news broadcasts, much less a news department and local television stations are way too stretched.  There probably is not a reporter even covering this school board race.  In this instance, it took citizen Jill Osur to report it on her news feed, follow up and then see someone at the city desk report it.

Our democracy relies on informed citizens.  Too often, someone wins a school board race, then a city council race, then goes up the rung to state assembly or senate and then on to Congress while passing under the electorate’s radar in today’s news media vacuum. Citizens need to report what they see and need more outlets than social media to chronicle their interactions with candidates.  Established mainstream media has to be creative in finding ways to cover the local races that have such a huge impact on our lives;