Quote Larry Sabato, Ever More

posted by Josh Goodman

The University of Virginia's Larry Sabato has been called a lot of things, from "the Mark McGwire of political analysts," to "America's favorite political scientist," to the "Dr. Phil of American politics." But, even more than that, he's been called a lot of times, by a lot of reporters, for a lot of reasons.

To find out whether he was truly Sabiquitous in the past election year, I counted the number of states where reporters quoted the quick-quipping professor, beginning January 1, 2006.

That day, the Roanoke Times asked Sabato about home-state presidential hopeful Governor Mark Warner. The next day, he got Florida, Tennessee, Wisconsin and Louisiana out of the way. By the end of the month, his count was up to 21. By the end of the year, Sabato had been quoted in at least 46 states and the District of Columbia. That's not even counting syndicated columns or wire-service articles, unless it was clear to me that the author was based in the state in question.

Sabato's name graced journalists' copy hundreds of times last year, and reporters couldn't quite agree on just how to describe him.

Copley News Services called him "an expert on political scandals" in an article about misdeeds in the Ohio GOP, the Sarasota Herald Tribune said he was a "congressional expert" when writing about a congressional election, the Indianapolis Star described him as an "expert on presidential affairs" when writing about a presidential visit and the Richmond Times-Dispatch referred to him as "an expert in opinion and opinion making" when discussing Katie Couric's declining ratings.

Sabato found himself opining on far-flung topics besides just Katie Couric. Reporters asked him about the potential execution of a man who converted to Christianity in Afghanistan, the passage of mine safety legislation in West Virginia and President Bush's back rub of German Chancellor Angela Merkel (though he wasn't described as an Afghanistan, mine safety or back rub expert).

Where were the good professor's chances of being quoted in all 50 states Sabatoged? I couldn't find any record of him being quoted in Idaho, North Dakota, Oklahoma or Wyoming. However, I searched LexisNexis' database to conduct my research, and LexisNexis doesn't include every publication, so it's possible he was quoted in one of those states too.

All of this tempts me to say that political reporting is suffering from some of the same problems as local government reporting -- that over-stretched journalists tap Sabato as an easy source because they lack the time or wherewithal to cultivate relationships with insiders.

I do think that over-reliance on academics is a problem for political reporters, but, having known Sabato since I was a reporter with the University of Virginia's Cavalier Daily, I can tell you that besides being an easy source, he's also a good one. He has the connections of an insider, knows what makes a compelling quote and has a good sense of historical context. Plus, it never hurts when someone will promptly return your calls.

Comments

[Alan Ehrenhalt]

I would argue that the overreliance on academic quotes isn't mainly due lack of time or reporter laziness -- it's at least as much the newspaper culture that bars reporters from expressing opinion. You call someone like Larry Sabato so you can get in the paper a judgment you could have made yourself if the editors would let you. I did this a lot myself.

[Dave Garrow]

I believe Alan Ehrenhalt's exactly right--as someone who's gotten called on several different subjects by a variety of reporters for some years, a significant percentage of those calls are made with exactly the tactical purpose that Alan identifies....

[Sara Perkins]

For a smaller-time example of the same phenomenon, you might try LN'ing Brown University's Darrell West. The college daily alone must have quoted him six dozen times during my tenure there, and he's a frequent guest in the New York Times, Boston Globe and Providence Journal. Often, he comments within his established subject expertise -- RI politics, Patrick Kennedy and the political media -- but when asked to step outside those boundaries, he often does so. I think that the tendency to rely on him and other quote-giving academics for expert validation of whatever theory the journalist is flogging makes both journalism and political science flabbier.

[ivan swift]

In Alabama some of the reporters covering a political story will go to a U of Alabama pol sc prof who comes up with the tritest, most pedestrian bits of commentary I've ever seen printed. The guy may have retired but his tired comments emerge anyway. You kind of look forward to them, to see if they are worse than what he uttered previously. There is one pol sc prof in Alabama who makes interesting, pertinent and perceptive commentary -- Jess Brown, at Athens State.

[Lucy Morgan]

Sabato was also right on with his predictions, a factor that makes him a reliable quote.
His crystal ball predicted we would have 29 new dems in the House and 6 dems in the Senate - exactly the number of winners. He did miss on governors, predicting 7 new ones instead of 6 - but no one is perfect!

[Jeffrey Dvorkin]

Professor Sabato is so well known in the UK, that the BBC aired a little ditty in his honor:

Want a quote?
Then do not tarry.
Call UVA
And ask for Larry.

[James R. Carroll]

In defense of all of us who have used Larry Sabato: 1. He knows what he is talking about. 2. He speaks in complete sentences and is coherent. 3. He is pleasant, engaging and, often, very funny. 4. He respects journalists. 5. He returns calls - from airplanes, from wherever he is at a conference, maybe even from the bathroom, though I don't know that for sure. I know that I and many of my colleagues spread the calls nationwide to experts known and unknown - a conscious effort to find other Sabatos out there. And we do sometimes find them. BUT...some advice for the next would-be-Larrys: If you hold yourself out to be a political expert, please keep up ("Gee, I haven't been following that" doesn't bode well for future calls), please have some concise points you wish to make (no 20 minutes of free-style thought before the first quotable sentence), and please, make every effort to return our calls in a timely fashion (24 hours later is eons in today's news world). There is nothing I want more than to add some new names and faces, with diverse perspectives and viewpoints, to the source list.

[Jim]

By all means, Mr. Carroll, we on the "inside" or poli sci types should do everything we can to make it easy for reporters to print sound bites. Being printed in the media is the pinnacle of achievement, I suppose. I enjoy Dr. Sabato, I studied a great deal of his academic work in college and grad school, and think he is one of the foremost political thinkers of his generation. I find it a little offensive that the media turns to him because they get a quote, though. Maybe some day someone will print his thoughts on the political process in detail, instead of using his expertise in such a superficial way. The first two comments especially make my skin crawl. Finding someone to use as a source because they share the same opinion as you isn't journalism in any real sense. It's no wonder to me that shows like "The Daily Show with John Stewart" do so well. "Journalism" as we know it today is no more than Entertainment Television. It's easy to make fun of the total lack of relevance reporters and network news have.