Dear NPR,

I listen to you every day while I'm at work. So last night when my power went out from 8 p.m. to 11:30 p.m. I turned to you to provide me with election coverage. I listened from 8 p.m. until 10:45 p.m. before your station even told me what percentage of the vote Edwards had gotten. The only thing your station would tell me prior to that was that "Edwards was a DISTANT third". I had to sit there and try to figure out what you meant by a distant third. Did he have 8%, 9%, 22%? Was he below expectations? At expectations? What did you mean?

At one point in the evening your commentators went live to the Edwards' campaign headquarters. Your reporter asked your other reporter a question like... what does Edwards hope to accomplish? The initial response from your reporter was a giggle followed by the words...I don't know. A short time later another one of your commentators interupted and said they had to break away to go somewhere else and that they would come back. They then went to cover Rudy Guilliani and it was a long, long time before they came back to Edwards camp.

Because I'm a polite person I can't tell you the heated words that I used last night to describe your coverage . What I can tell you is that your election coverage was the worst election coverage I've ever heard. Like the rest of the national media your station may consider this a race between two candidates but for your listeners it's not and we expect to hear all of the results, not just what is happening with the candidates you want to cover.

I am so sick and tired of the media injecting themselves into this election by who they deign to cover and who they don't. When Edwards came in 2nd in Iowa the media pretended like it never happened. The poor man had to resort to campaigning for another 36 hrs. straight just so he could get some attention. In fact, the media has been prematurely writing Edwards obit for months. And in NH they wrote off both Edwards and Hillary. Please stop trying to get ahead of the story by telling us who will win and who should fold up their tent and go home. WE will tell YOU who should win when WE VOTE. One final thing, please have your reporters stop editorializing about the race and just report the facts. I don't need your reporters opinion about how they think my candidate will do. I just need for them to tell me what is happening on the ground because I can't be there to see for myself.

Sent by Patty Morlan | 8:26 AM ET | 01-09-2008

How many people are actually in these polls? Why does this determine how we out here that have not been polled will vote? I believe too much weight is attached to the opinions of too few people.

Sent by Abigail Hollis Gray | 8:29 AM ET | 01-09-2008

Thank you, Gloria Steinam for a reality check in yesterday's NYT oped.

Sent by claire warnock | 9:21 AM ET | 01-09-2008

Ms. Morlan's comments are interesting and insightful. I have listened to NPR for decades, contribute to every fund drive, but I am dismayed that Edwards or any other candidate receives almost afterthought attention because he is not a first or second place candidate. This shrug of dismissal from NPR and other media helps keep other candidates from heard and harms democracy as a result. This is especially disappointing from such a normally first rate journalistic source such as NPR. Let us hear from and about everyone, not just the "front runners," they don't need your help.

Sent by David | 10:10 AM ET | 01-09-2008

The coverage of this campaign from NBC to NPR should be a wake up call to women of all ages.What Clinton is facing from the media is what we face every day,a smothering blanket of dimissal as serious members of this nation.I am not sure if Clinton is the candidate for me but I sure know uneven,bigoted coverage.The sad part is the old white male media wouldn't recognize it unless you dressed it up in a suit and spread testosterone jelly over the top.

Sent by susan | 10:43 AM ET | 01-09-2008

Yes, and men who voted for Hillary arrived at the polls wearing dresses and high heels.

The Wimping Down of Democrats in America became reared its massive head in quaint New Hampshire. Let's be real: New Hampshire is not New Mexico.

All those who are going to condemn me as as a misogynist, remember this: if you get into politics, get ready to bathe in your own blood. Gender will not save those who run for president (nor will race, creed nor preference of religion or atheistic proclivities).

Those who talk about the Constitution tend to forget that the document was drawn up and signed by virile, ready to fight men prepared to take on the most vaunted military the world knew at that time.

More than two hundred and fifty years of building America into a strategic superpower, and quaint New Hampshire sends this country back to dress design status.

Which is okay....for New Hampshire. After all, New Hampshire is not Michigan or South Carolina or Florida when it comes to politics.

Translated: Don't make too much adieu out of last night's escapade in New Hampshire primaries. The media has to soak the Hillary factor for all they can. The media doesn't have many more excuses to complain about Iraq. Iraq has a big, strong and strapping air base. Just because New Hampshire took it's Constitutional right to turn America into a Wimp for the evening doesn't mean America is going down to the wire as the biggest Wimp devolution in modern history.

It's a temporary blip on the oscilloscope screen.

Speaking of devolution: In Florida, the school board is arguing the merits of taking the word evolution out of high school textbooks, and replacing the one word evolution with the encompassing short paragraph of "Events that take place over a long period of time."

Yeah, more government bureaucracy. Bureaucrats in dresses.

I hear Fredericks of Hollywood is putting out an advertisement of the Framers of the Constitution gathered around signing the document in frilly underwear.

fred camorra call

Sent by fred camorra call | 11:21 AM ET | 01-09-2008

I am in firm agreement with " Patty Morlan | 8:26 AM ET | 01-09-2008". As a journalist who had been in the business for over 12 years, I have to ask, what happened to the thought we report (objectively, no commentary) and let the people decide.

What has happened to objectivity? We can we not hear the plain facts any more. Everyone seem to be an analysis these days. A spin has to be placed on everything. Its begining to get hard to tell fact from fiction. Do we need to send reporters to back to school to remember ojectivity and professionalism?

I wonder whats uncle Walters (Walter cronkite) take on the new age of journalism? If this is now the norm and the future of journalism, we are in trouble.

We are only giving fuel to the fire of those who have designs on curtailing the media.

I say here, here to for the old days of journalism and in hopes of a revival of that era.

Sent by Alanzo Tucker | 2:36 PM ET | 01-09-2008

I would like Melissa Block to do a story on women voters who do not support Clinton and who see her "weepy" moment in Portsmouth as the political ploy that I believe it was. As I drove home and listened to Clinton's comments, it was a person I had never heard before. That was not authentic but a bit of womanly drama for the purposes of political gain. This campaign should be gender neutral and based on the competence and integrity of the candidates. If a woman wins, then, as women, we can celebrate but it is reverse bias to vote for a woman because she is a woman. The 3 young woman you interviewed were wooed by emotion rather than making a decision based on an intellectual analysis of the candidates views and integrity.

Sent by jackie mccuin | 6:33 PM ET | 01-09-2008

One of my friends spent 11 years in the airforce as a Sgt in intel.She is a combat veteran.Can a woman lead a country in war-YES!!!!!Get your heads out of the 1950's.As far as the tears I myself find it difficult to vent but would you prefer screaming/ranting/chest beating? Come on drop the stereotypes and grow-up people.

Sent by Susan | 9:00 PM ET | 01-09-2008