Confessions of a "Softie"   

I N MY YEARS COVERING politics for daily newspapers, I concealed a deep, dark fear that I suspect lurks in the hearts of many political reporters: Being a softie. Or being perceived as one.

A softie, as in one who likes politicians, or throws softball questions at them ˆ la Larry King, or who believes some public officials seek office for altruistic reasons.

As a former political writer, I can assure you, saying anything nice about a politician is dangerous to the hard-as-nails, unbiased image political journalists cultivate. Just look at how political reporters behave at press conferences, especially televised ones. They search for the hardest possible, put-them-on-the-spot, I'll-look-like-a-pit-bull question.

Want to mortally wound a political reporter? Accuse them of writing a "puff piece." That always made me want to curl up and die.

But what if a politician did a really good thing and deserved credit? That's a dilemma for a political reporter with a softie complex. I recall hesitating over a small but newsworthy item. A congresswoman had intervened to cut red tape that blocked a local little league from upgrading its baseball fields. I asked myself why I was resisting this story when I would never pause to pursue a whiff of wrongdoing by the congresswoman. I thought about how often, when confronted by the virtuous act of a politician, I had battled a tiny voice in my head whispering, "puff piece, puff piece."

I knew, of course, if I wrote about the good deeds or character of a public official, opponents of the do-gooder politician would see it and say, "I knew it! She's been on the side of Mr. Do-Gooder all along." And perhaps some--maybe just a few--in the political press corps would sneer and say, "She's a lightweight."

Assuming I'm not the only political reporter who ever felt this way, what is the cumulative effect of all of us running around trying to be hard-nosed?

I suspect one result is that politicians get little credit for what they do right. More often, things they do right are dismissed as politically motivated. But things they do wrong are just plain wrong, and by God we in the press are gonna slam them for it.

Actually, I have no problem with reporters slamming politicians for things they do wrong. Or scrutinizing their campaign finances. Or asking hard questions about the positions they take. Being a watchdog is the news media's most important job.

I do have trouble with the sort of media cynicism that rewards "gotcha" journalism while dismissing the good. And I'm not alone.

Tupper Hull used to cover the California Legislature for the San Francisco Examiner. Year after year he watched the Sacramento press corps serve up the same Easy-Bake exposŽs: How much did legislators spend on travel? How big were their office staffs? Most were written in a tone presuming all legislators were "crooks, geeks or creeps," Hull says, admitting he wrote his share.

"The most popular story you could do was get a list of the cars provided to the legislature every year," says Hull, who now works in public relations. "The presumption was legislators weren't entitled to a car. Those stories always got good feedback from editors. You could count on them generating outrage."

But he adds: "You could never sell an editor on a story about how hard a legislator worked. These guys work incredibly hard. There are tremendous demands on their time. They maintain two homes. You didn't report that."

These days, "there's a real nose for the negative in the press," says Thomas Patterson, a Harvard University political science professor who has studied campaign coverage. He found a dramatic change in the way the press portrays candidates. In 1960, 75 percent of reporters' "evaluative references" to John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon were positive. In 1992, only 40 percent of reporters' evaluations of Bill Clinton and George Bush were favorable.

In today's climate, "The positive tends not to be perceived as very newsworthy," Patterson says.

How did it come to this?

For my part, I do not recall anyone in J-school giving the command to "Sic 'em." I do remember we talked a lot about Watergate, Vietnam and the press' watchdog role. We also discussed fairness and objectivity. I left college (class of '88) boasting of the "noble" profession I'd chosen.

Later in my career I interviewed for a job at the Los Angeles Times. My inquisitor said she liked my writing, but the Times needed a "digger" more than a "wordsmith." For the next year, I obsessed over adding a worthy exposŽ to my clips, all the while whining to my closest colleagues, "I need a scandal."

The result: a thumbsucker detailing how lawmakers from my area mingled campaign funds with personal use, i.e., dining out and trips to exotic places.

I still think journalism is a noble profession. But these days I distinguish between a watchdog and a pit bull. One is on guard. The other always attacks.

That said, I'm going to walk out on a limb. The majority of politicians I covered were upstanding people motivated by a spirit of public service. Heartfelt philosophical views drove their actions. Often under intense pressure to compromise their integrity, they tried to do the right thing. Sometimes they made mistakes. They were only human.