With less than a week remaining before Americans elect their next president, four veteran national journalists took time out last night to reflect on the process of covering the White House race.

Jill Abramson, managing editor of the New York Times: This election is on a knife's edge Why there are undecided voters Impact of 24-hour cable news Role of newspapers in testing "truth" Her "sad" story of being interviewed by Comedy Central Click photo for larger image.

Their audience packed a small auditorium at the Carnegie Science Center to listen in on a free-wheeling discussion that ran the course from media bias to the importance of Comedy Central's "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart."

The event was billed as "Media and The Issues / Campaign 2004: The Final Sprint" and was sponsored by the law firm of Babst, Calland, Clements & Zomnir and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

On stage were Jill Abramson, managing editor of The New York Times, Albert R. Hunt, executive Washington editor of The Wall Street Journal, Gregg W. Ramshaw, former senior producer of "The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer," and Rob Rogers, a Post-Gazette editorial cartoonist whose nationally syndicated work appears in The New York Times, The Washington Post and Newsweek.

David Shribman, executive editor of the Post-Gazette and discussion moderator, noted interest in the event was so high that organizers were forced to turn away hundreds of people who asked to attend.

"This race is on a knife's edge," said Abramson. "There is a good chance that we won't know on election night who the president is, which would be an awful deja vu of 2000."

"Voters seem very charged up," she said, and "highly engaged in a very bitter, hard fought election."

	Gregg Ramshaw, former senior producer, The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer: Network news election night accuracy Negative campaign coverage Polarized opinion on news talkshows Broadcast reporting resources Click photo for larger image.

From the journalist's perspective the level of conflict across the country makes this "the most exciting election since the Kennedy/Nixon election in 1960," Hunt said. "Whatever you think of the candidates, it doesn't get any better than this."

The television networks, in particular, have learned a lesson from the closeness of the 2000 election, Ramshaw said. The major networks have said they "will focus on getting the results right, rather than first," Ramshaw said. "We'll see how they honor all this when the competitive pressure is on."

All of the panelists touched on the issue of media bias. Hunt said journalists see a clear distinction between opinions expressed on the editorial page and how stories should be written for the news sections. "The mainstream press by and large tries to [cover news] down the middle," Hunt said. "The only issues where I see a little more than slight liberal bias is on some of the lifestyle issues -- gay rights, abortion, guns -- but certainly not on economic issues, not on political issues [like] foreign policy."

Rogers gave the audience some insight into how the opinion process works by showing some of his editorial cartoons. He joked that cartoonists are big on potty humor and small on taste. In print cartoons serve somewhat the same role as talk radio, Rogers said, because they are able to ignite discussion more easily than written opinion.

He noted that his humorous work gets far bigger play nationally than his more sharply opinionated drawings. Rogers said he is disturbed by a recent trend in which newspapers seem too afraid to be controversial and are hiring fewer local cartoonists and depending more on syndicated work.

Albert Hunt, executive Washington editor for the Wall Street Journal: Liberal bias and agenda press Why the presidential race is so close The Daily Show Click photo for larger image.

The panel fielded several questions on the relationship between journalism and entertainment.

Both Abramson, who taught a journalism class at Princeton University, and Hunt, who teaches a class at the University of Pennsylvania, said they were surprised at how little their students relied on the mainstream media.

"None of my kids read a newspaper, none of my students, but they always knew what was going on in the campaign," Abramson said. "So I was just curious. Why were they so up on everything? They were saying, 'The Daily Show, The Daily Show.'"

Hunt said he polled his students -- "news junkies" -- and got a similar result. Only three students watched network television news on a regular basis, but he said 24 of his 28 students watched The Daily Show.

"If it hooks kids and gets them more interested in politics and gets them talking about things, I think that's a contribution," Hunt said.

Abramson said bloggers are the most significant new element in political journalism. She said she reads several regularly, but they don't drive the campaigns or mainstream press coverage.

	Rob Rogers, nationally syndicated Post-Gazette editorial cartoonist: How editors and cartoonists work View Rob Rogers' cartoons Click photo for larger image.

She said the most interesting recent episode demonstrating their impact was the ability of bloggers to focus attention on the probability that documents used in a CBS news report on the President's National Guard career were forgeries produced on a computer rather than a typewriter.

Abramson said the vast amount of airtime available on 24-hour cable news channels has helped stories initiated by bloggers and third-party campaign advertisements get aired quickly before vast audiences. Ramshaw said television has limited reporting staffs, so it repeats the stories without having the resources to check all the facts. This job falls to newspapers, he said.

Abramson said it is difficult for newspapers to marshal the resources to check facts, too. She said it took a New York Times team a week to check out statements made by the "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth," which she said were largely without basis.

But in an increasingly digital world, newspapers must learn to respond more quickly to such stories, Abramson said.