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Calling Elections: The History of Horse-Race Journalism is the lively and important story of the origins and evolution of the "horserace" tradition of political journalism in the United States. Thomas B. Littlewood examines how the treatment of elections as sporting events has come to overshadow the reporting of the campaign as a forum for the discussion of ideas. He suggests reasons for the perception of presidential elections as spectator sport: the historical interconnections between gambling, politics, and the press; the infusion of sports language into political rhetoric; the government spoils system that gives individuals and businesses a financial stake in the status of the contest; the methodological development of "scientific" polling; the fiercely declared independence of many formerly partisan organizations; the perverse conviction of many journalists in the early 1900s that substantive politics was not interesting to news consumers and that partisan "speech" belonged in the paid advertising columns of the newspaper.
Many influential journalists resisted the growing power of media polls, preferring what some have called their "instincts and impressions." Littlewood contends that Washington journalists are biased by stylistic considerations and in favor of "a good story." Sometimes the "good story" will prevail temporarily over contrary numbers in the polls. Without denying the psychological desire of news consumers to know who is winning, Littlewood completes his study by suggesting how the journalism of a campaign discourse can be made more meaningful and compelling.
Political scientists, journalists, sociologists, American Studies scholars, and all those interested in the past, and upcoming, presidential elections will find much to ponder in Calling Elections: The History of Horse Race Journalism.
"This is an entertaining slice of American political history. Littlewood, a former congressional aide to Bob Dole, examines the ways in which newspapers—and later, television networks—have reported election results from the early 1800s to the present. While showing how elections came to be seen as a spectator sport, he treats significant methods with loving detail, such as the first use (in the 1880s) of 'key precincts,' the growing acceptance of public opinion polls, and the rise of exit polls and 'voter profile analysis' in the 1960s and 1970s." —Library Journal
Thomas B. Littlewood is Professor Emeritus of Journalism at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. He has worked as a reporter for the Chicago Sun-Times and on the congressional staff of Robert Dole.