Alternate title: Why politicians beg journalists (read: offer large paychecks) to be their spokespeople.

On Thursday, Oct. 4 Kathleen Parker of the Washington Post will give the Red Smith Lecture to students involved in the Gallivan program for Journalism, Ethics and Democracy. In anticipation of her talk, our class read some of her more recent columns.

“Cyborg Mitt Speaks Out”

Parker interprets presidential hopeful Mitt Romney’s 47 percent remark while effectively framing his position as one based in truth about the way economics works in the United States. I mean really, were Romney’s comments something we didn’t expect him to say? No, not really. And is it unfair to rephrase (a portion of) his remark as “Heck, they need jobs an income before they can enjoy the problem of a high tax rate.”? Again, no. He’s not courting the vote of those who would fall into the 47 percent and they weren’t going to vote for him anyway. Hear, hear.

“Introducing President MSNBC”

I’m officially sending this column to anyone who wants to write one for Scholastic magazine, as it’s just a flat out good piece of journalism with an easy-to-map narrative structure. She teaches those of us purists who avert our eyes when MSNBC and Fox News comes on that in fact, at least one of these networks has a bi-partisan morning program. She also feeds our voyeuristic appetite with a colorful retelling of the DNC peppered with jokes at MSNBC’s expense. And then she goes on to explain why we so easily turn television journalists into celebrities, all while placing the blame on no one but the technology. With an attentive audience, she has set herself up nicely for her thesis: If news organizations would be more transparent and open about their biases, then people have the tools they need to hear the best case, rather than the set-in-stone fact of “balanced” programming. Hear, hear.

“The likability trap”

How anyone determines whether or not they “like” a candidate is beyond me, as no one outside of senior staffers ever get more than five minutes of the candidate’s time. And maybe I only speak for myself but I hardly think it fair that someone judge my “likability” factor off of five minutes. My suspicion is that I’m not alone. So why do we choose who we vote for based on whether we like them or not? Because politicians – like TV journalists – are celebrities, and as long as they’re not blander than vanilla tapioca, we’re willing to tune in. Parker says all that and more in her column about Romney’s unending battle to win the favor of the public. It’s a shame that she’s probably just preaching to the choir, which will be no different in Thurday’s lecture “Journalism in the Age of Twitteracy” – at least for our class (#NDJED).

But I’m happy to live tweet the event and more excited to meet Parker in person. Speaking of Twitter, follow @Sulliview. She’s the public editor for the New York Times and for those of you who thought “no one checks the press,” think again.

Huzzah! (Had to get that 3rd cheer in somewhere.)