Undervoting is the result of voters’ lack of information about their government
(see below)
Neither democracy nor the free market system works without adequate information for decisionmakers.
The Florida-wide undervote phenomenon (see below) means that some candidates who would have benefitted from Obama’s coattails didn’t make it.
Chain Gang Journalism is the roof of great evils.
The Florida-wide undervote phenomenon is the foreseeable result of newspapers dumbing down coverage, reducing the number of stories and column inches devoted to political and government coverage. In turn, that’s the result of newspapers following the lead of GANNETT’S USA TODAY, producing prettier, shriekingly shallow surface journalism.
Who among us really knows what City Commission, County Commission or Mosquito Control or Airport Authority are doing if they don’t have the time to watch and if newspapers don’t report it?
When the St. Augustine Record barely covers even a hotly contested Congressional race – and didn’t even run a news article after the August 26, 2008 Democratic Primary reporting that Faye Armitage won with 72% of the vote (only putting the tally on the front page without saying it was a Primary) -- it’s difficult to fathom the Record’s editorial line lamenting undervoting and lack of information.l
When you have supercilious, sexist newspaper reporters and columnists for newspapers like the Daytona Beach News-Journal, the Orlando Sentinel and other large chain-owned newspapers, who won’t even report on tawdry Congressman JOHN L. MICA’s voting record and use sexist pejoratives (like “starry-eyed”) to describe Democrat Faye Armitage, is it any wonder that voters don’t have enough information.
We need more news and less fluff, more investigative reporting and less celebrity superficiality, more debate and less ass-kissing for the real estate speculators and lugubrious goobers who would destroy Florida for their rancid profits.
We shall overcome!
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