What the media know

What you tell them, apparently. That’s no surprise, but it’s sure interesting to watch as they scramble to figure out what’s going on while you, the people, determine it.

They sure got the New Hampshire Democratic primary wrong.

Sixty percent of voters in the Democratic primary want to change the way things work in Washington, and these voters supported Barack Obama over Hillary Clinton by a 42 to 31 margin.

Nearly all the media had Sen. Obama beating Sen. Clinton by double digits.

Nearly one-third (29 percent) of Democratic primary voters said they think Hilary Clinton has practiced dirty politics more than any other Democratic candidate, and Obama won 66 percent of these voters.

But in the end, Hillary Clinton won New Hampshire, and the media were pretty stunned.

Here’s another pause for thought I wish they’d take. When everyone talks about change all of a sudden, it becomes a cheapened buzzword, and it proves there’s no change. The word itself loses meaning.

“There is a tide of change sweeping New Hampshire and America,” Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, said in a two-minute advertisement broadcast Monday night. “Everywhere I go people say Washington is broken.”

Hillary Rodham Clinton took the stage for one of her last rallies here Monday night in front of a battery of signs declaring, “Ready for Change.” Mr. Obama stood at a lectern that read, “Change We Can Believe In.”

Note that the Times article also had Sen. Obama winning NH, though everyone else did, too.

And note the reference to voters wanting change in “the way things work in Washington.” The White House is governed by a Republican, but Congress has been run by the Democrats for over a year, and Congress is at the bottom of public approval polls.

So what do we know at this point? That the media are starting to realize that they’re less in touch with the people than they knew. And maybe some of the change we want is in the way they cover the values of this nation.