The U.S. primaries last Tuesday captured a huge portion of the news hole -- in broadcasts, print and online -- in this country last week.
Kathy English, the Toronto Star's public editor, defends the heavy coverage by her publication.
In recent weeks, a handful of readers have questioned why this Toronto newspaper, strategically committed to local news coverage of Toronto and the GTA, is reporting U.S. political news on its front page and sending its reporters criss-crossing America to report this story.
My answer: News strategy should never take precedence over news judgment, the journalist's sense of what matters to readers on any given day.
By any journalistic judgment, this is captivating, important news, worthy of extensive coverage, including front-page play in the Star three days this week. The obvious reasons speak to why the Star has long manned its own Washington bureau: the U.S. – the world's superpower – is our largest trading partner, and what happens in presidential politics south of the border always matters to Canadians.
But there's something more happening here.
This campaign of optimism and new possibilities has galvanized a new generation of voters. On the Republican side is the political resurrection of 71-year-old front-runner John McCain. At the heart of the Democratic race between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama is the favourite dinner party question of late: Come next fall, will the U.S. elect its first woman or its first African American as president?
"It's history in the making, nothing like this has ever happened in U.S. politics," says Star managing editor Joe Hall, who thinks this is the story Toronto is talking about. At his local tavern Tuesday night, six TVs were tuned to the Leafs' game against the Florida Panthers. Some students switched one TV to watch coverage of the primaries. As the Leafs fell hard, losing 8-0 (Tsunami Tuesday, indeed), bar patrons switched all but one TV to coverage of the presidential primaries, cheering politicians instead of jeering hockey players.
Martin Regg Cohn, the Star's foreign editor, expects the U.S. election to be big news for most of 2008. "If you think about how much the election and re-election of George Bush changed the world, and how much impact a Hillary or Barack presidency would have, this has to be the biggest international story of the hour, and the year, so we're going to stay on top of it."