Dear media: Let’s agree to cover Chelsea Clinton only when she does something newsworthy.
Her tweets and Facebook posts don’t count. It’s fluff.
We’re especially looking at you, The Hill. For reference, The Hill has published approximately 16 Chelsea Clinton-related stories since Jan. 23.
Nearly every one of these stories is based on something Clinton said on social media. Here’s a sampling of the headlines:
- Chelsea Clinton rips Steve King’s ‘racism’
- Chelsea Clinton: Carson’s remarks on slaves and immigration ‘cant be real’
- Chelsea Clinton trolls trump on court ruling
- Chelsea Clinton mocks Trump over Sweden incident comments
- Chelsea Clinton praises New York subway riders who erased swastikas on train
This doesn’t even address The Hill’s official Twitter account, which tweets a Chelsea Clinton story once about every three hours.
If there is some news value to be found in any of these reports, it is hiding itself well.
There are much bigger things to cover, and the social media posts of an unelected individual who is best known for being related to a former U.S. president does not deserve coverage from national reporters. The same goes for the Bush twins and Sasha and Malia Obama (Sasha is off-limits anyway because she’s still a minor).
Sure, there will be times they deserve some coverage. Chelsea Clinton joining her mother’s presidential campaign last year, for example. Or the Bush twins announcing recently they’re writing a book together — that has some news value, though not much, perhaps.
But Chelsea Clinton tweeting trollish responses to the news of the day is not itself news. The famous interviewer of the Geico Gecko doesn’t hold a public office, as hell-bent as some people seem on making that happen through constant media coverage.
Please, let’s cool it with the former-president’s-daughter(s)-said-something stories. We may have just elected a reality television star as president, but that doesn’t mean we have to turn political reporting into something resembling entertainment reporting. In an age when the media are losing readers and credibility, why not try to keep the focus on issues that affect readers directly?
(h/t neontaster)
