Insight Into A Reporter’s Introspective Week

Let’s venture into the mind of a political journalist.Dangerous journey, I know. But this past week filled me with a sense of introspection that I want to share.It started at the Iowa State Fair, where I covered most of the Democratic presidential candidates who spoke at the Des Moines Register Political Soapbox and wandered the fairgrounds casting kernels, flipping pork chops, careening down slides and eating fried things on sticks.If you have not witnessed the spectacle, reporters follow the candidates as they traverse the fairgrounds, firing off questions to snag a few quotes for a story.One question kept recurring.