Give the people what they want: issues

As we've been ramping up discussions here in the newsroom about coverage of the 2008 election campaigns, it was gratifying to read the latest survey at the Pew Research Center on what people want from the news media. It turns out what they want is what we've been planning to provide, namely lots of coverage about candidates' positions on the issues. By contrast, they are ambivalent about who's leading in the polls - about half of those surveyed want more coverage, half want less. We will again do some polling throughout the campaign, but we do hope to go beyond just the horse-race with our polling into issues and analysis. And throughout the next year I hope you'll let us know what you want from our coverage.