In my other life as a political columnist, I get paid to delve into the details of candidates and campaigns, and to use what I discover to insult the people I’m covering. But along with the jokes and snarky comments, I sometimes try to insert a little information in my columns that might assist my readers in making their choices when they mark their ballots.

That’s not really what I’m hired to do, but I throw it in as a bonus at no additional charge.

If only the real political reporters in this state took the same approach. If they did, they’d make some radical changes in the way they profile gubernatorial hopefuls and their stands on issues. But instead of sorting out what the candidates support and oppose in ways the average voter could clearly comprehend, the journalists assigned to this beat seem intent on writing articles that will offend no one. And inform about as many.

Take, for example, the story by staff writer Christopher Cousins on Republican Les Otten published in the May 17 Bangor Daily News.

Cousins starts off his piece with Otten visiting a salmon farm in Bingham, where the candidate points out that most of the fish will be shipped to Canada to be processed. That’s because of the high cost of electricity and “[r]egulatory hurdles,” according to Cousins.

What would Otten do about those problems? Cousins says he has a “Jobs Plan.” And then, he moves on to other things.

It might have been worthwhile to devote another paragraph or two to the subject, explaining which regulations Otten believes should be eased or eliminated, and how he intends to reduce power bills. That probably would have done more to aid readers in their decision making than telling them, as Cousins did, that Otten has “put economic development front and center in his campaign.”

Is there any candidate who doesn’t claim the same thing?

Later in the same piece, Cousins followed Otten to a whitewater rafting company in The Forks, where the owner complained his customers “are taxed three times or more for the same trip.” The story seems to imply Otten thinks that’s wrong, but doesn’t bother to tell us whether he’d support exempting rafters from the sales tax, the meals and lodging tax or the fee paid to the state Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife for access to the river.

Might have been nice to know.

Cousins is a competent reporter, and I don’t mean to single him out for criticism. His Otten piece is just one of a flood of profiles that serve little purpose. I could just as easily have used the May 17 Portland Press Herald article by staff writer Matt Wickenheiser on GOP contender Steve Abbott as my subject for dissection.

In it we learn that Abbott is motivated by a commitment to “public service.” Near the bottom of the story, Abbott is quoted as saying he’s part of the “leave me alone” wing of the Republican Party.

That’s as close as Wickenheiser, another solid reporter, gets to informing us about an issue.

This lack of detail might be excusable if the pieces in question provided some sense of the type of person the candidates are. But Cousins slides by questions about Otten’s character with barely a mention, even though he’s been attacked for alleged plagiarism (by me, among others) and inflating his business record (also by me, among others). No need to feed those controversies.

The Press Herald leaves Abbott’s personality as much of a blur as any feel-good TV spot. Is a guy who’s run a couple of bare-knuckle political campaigns for his former boss, U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, really just an overgrown Boy Scout? Seems unlikely.

Even when a news organization attempts to dig into the issues, the results are often half-hearted. On May 16, the Lewiston Sun Journal ran answers from the seven Republican candidates to questions about a variety of issues.

Trouble was that, as with a similar series in the Maine Sunday Telegram, those answers often don’t provide much insight.

Here’s what Peter Mills told the Sun Journal about his stand on windpower development:

“We're not getting the power off them, the power is going into the New England market and we're paying for it basically at Boston rates, so I am not against it at all. But I just think the benefits of on-shore wind aren't enough, particularly considering how highly subsidized they are by the federal tax laws.”

Why didn’t an editor read that quote and realize it was incomprehensible? Why didn’t that editor send the reporter who collected the information back to the candidate for clarification? How hard would it have been to get understandable material?

If you think this is an isolated example of a sloppy answer sneaking by, check out all the candidates’ replies to the Sun Journal’s question about how state budget cuts will affect municipalities. None of them says a thing about what he or she would do if elected. So what’s the point of publishing this mess?

This indifference to real political reporting can be blamed on a number of factors, in particular staff reductions that have cost many newsrooms their most experienced reporters and editors. There’s a good example of that lack of institutional memory in the MaineToday Media papers on May 17. In State House reporter Susan Cover’s political column, she informs us this week’s Democratic state convention is the first ever to be held in Lewiston.

Apparently, there’s nobody left at the Press Herald, Kennebec Journal or Morning Sentinel who recalls the Democrats convening in Lewiston in 1984.

One of the few political reporting veterans still functioning is Maine Public Broadcasting Network’s A.J. Higgins. Higgins usually gets to the heart of whatever issue he’s covering quickly and concisely, and his analysis pieces are must reading for any political junkie.

There’s also some hope another generation of able political commentators may be developing on the Web, at such sites as Augusta Insider and Pine Tree Politics,

as well as the insights of my DownEast.com colleague Mike Tipping, both on this site and on his own blog.

All that takes up some of the slack, but it doesn’t quite make up for the lack of quality daily newspaper reporting that might help somebody figure out how to vote.

Al Diamon can be e-mailed at aldiamon@herniahill.net

The views expressed on this Web site are those of the authors alone and do not necessarily represent the views of Down East Enterprise or its employees.