Political Journalists Discuss Book at IOP

Authors and political journalists Mark E. Halperin ’87 and John A. Heilemann visited the Institute of Politics Monday to discuss the details of their book “Double Down: Game Change 2012” on the recent election.

“The reporting job in this [book] is just truly extraordinary,” said Joe Klein, a political columnist for Time Magazine and moderator of the forum.

Klein asked the panelists a series of questions ranging from the secrets behind their success as writers to the changing role of political journalists.

Halperin, an editor-at-large and senior political analyst for Time Magazine, and Heilemann, national affairs editor of New York Magazine and an MSNBC political analyst, provided an insider’s look at Barack Obama’s election victory over opponent Mitt Romney.

Halperin attributes the success of his writing to what he considers a rare commodity: time.

“We have the greatest luxury that you can have…we have time,” Heilemann said.

He added that, despite journalism becoming increasingly instantaneous and reliant on social media, the authors spent a full year investigating the 2012 election. He said that this time allowed them to conduct deeper analysis than a typical news story.

Heilemann and Halperin suggested that their more than two decades of experience have afforded them unique reporting strategies.

“In asking for interview time, we always have the subject line of the email be, “Do you like piña coladas?” Heilemann commented, elaborating on one of his favorite tactics.

The duo also said that there has been a significant shift in the relationship between journalists and presidents in recent years.

“We have a lot less access than we used to,” Halperin said. “When I first started covering Bill Clinton, when we woke up in the morning, we saw him in the hotel lobby. That kind of access doesn’t happen.”

The event, the last JFK Jr. Forum of the semester, was well-received by audience members. A student in attendance, Sean R. Weller ’17, said that the two “offered intriguing insight into presidential campaigns from a journalistic perspective.”

“You hear so much on the surface... throughout the campaigns about a here and now, how the polling is going,” said Weller. “It’s not until you go forward [that]…you start to see the insights and see what the election is all about.”