Veteran journalist speaks at Hood - Jack Germond discusses media and politics

Longtime journalist Jack Germond discusses the role of media during the 2012 presidential election Tuesday during a voter education event at Hood College. Had Hurricane Sandy not postponed his Oct. 30 speaking engagement at Hood College, longtime political journalist and media fixture Jack Germond might have told students and faculty the result of the presidential election a week before it happened. Germond spoke to communications and political science students and professors Tuesday as part of Vote 2012, a voter education series at the school. His outlook is that of a political expert who has written for Gannett newspapers, the Washington Star and The (Baltimore) Sun, as well as appearing on "Meet the Press," "The McLaughlin Group" and "Inside Washington" during his five-decade career. Most of his talk concerned the way presidential elections are covered by national media outlets.
Election stories are often derivative and focused on the spectacle of the race rather than its substance, he said. "Too many voters are getting their information from people who wouldn't know a political story if it bit them," he said. In the Obama-Romney race, "they were saying all year that it was a close election." But in reality, "they were wrong, it was never a close election." Germond specifically denounced polls, which this year gave the impression the race was neck and neck, he said. Janis Judson, a political science professor at Hood, admitted during the questions and comments portion of the lecture that she had been "duped" by the political coverage herself, believing the race was very close. "How do we avoid being duped?" she asked Germond. "The dirty little secret about polling in this country is that most of those people have no idea what they're talking about," he said. For example, a person who identifies as being against the Affordable Care Act usually cannot point to a specific reason why. Germond answered questions about whether he thinks the 2016 election will put a Democrat or Republican in the White House, whether journalists should take their roles as political watchdogs more seriously and what the most memorable presidential election he ever covered was -- his answer to the latter was 1968. Carin Robinson, an assistant political science professor and an organizer of the Vote 2012 series, said she was pleased with Germond's talk. "I appreciate the game of American politics, so I like that he could give some historical perspective," she said. She thought the talk was good for students, many of whom "don't know a time where we had to wait for the paper to land on our doorstep to know what's going on in politics." For freshman political science major Christine Maedche, Germond's appearance served as "a good inside look into how politics has changed and how it's the same," she said. Communications major Patrick Cairo said the talk showed him that he has to form his political opinions from many different sources, rather than a single voice. As someone who could be a future member of the media, Cairo said Germond "definitely did shape a little bit of how I would report things." Attribution: The Frederick-News Post, By Courtney Pomeroy, Photo by Graham Cullen,