From shoe-leather reporting to handicapping to election modeling: How revolutions by Charlie Cook and Nate Silver transformed political journalism

This article is part of The Poynter 50, a series reflecting on 50 moments and people that shaped journalism over the past half-century — and continue to influence its future.

Politics has changed a lot in 50 years. So has political reporting.

In the 1970s, the quintessential political reporter was David Broder of The Washington Post. Broder, who died in 2011, was known for his deep network of sources in state and county political organizations, and even more so for his penchant for “shoe-leather” reporting — a willingness to trudge through far-flung neighborhoods to ask voters what mattered to them when deciding how to cast their vote.

Broder’s competitors — The New York Times’ R.W. “Johnny” Apple, and Jack Germond and Jules Witcover of The Baltimore Sun and The Washington Star — were also known for being shoe-leather reporters, and for their access to key figures inside presidential campaigns.

But since the days of “The Boys on the Bus” — and, yes, for a long historical moment, political reporters were mostly “boys” — political journalism has been shaped by a series of revolutions.