How a New York Politics Reporter Sets Priorities

Because there’s always more races and candidates than we can cover, we try to prioritize the ones that give us a window into something bigger that’s happening. I’m Nick Fandos and I write about government, politics and elections in New York. We’re always trying to get a whole picture of what entanglements or conflicts or priorities candidates might bring, but that can be very different for somebody who has spent a career in local government and has developed a real record over the years. Or somebody who has not been in government before, and maybe we’re looking at their business career or trying to understand: What does their campaign look like? In New York City this month, we’re in the middle of an unusual number of competitive congressional primaries. So, a good example of a candidate that we looked into, who had not been in office before, is Jack Schlossberg. He’s the only grandson of John F. Kennedy. We, like a lot of voters, had questions about who is this guy? What would he be like as a member of Congress? Our job is not to set out with some end goal. I followed the reporting. I listened to people that I trust. I verified the information and put together a picture that would give voters the information that they needed about Schlossberg’s readiness for office. As a reporter, I don’t make contributions to political campaigns. I don’t advocate for causes. And it may sound a little bit corny, but as a New Yorker and a journalist, I also think it’s my job to report in an unbiased way to give a sense of where American politics may be going.