As a journalist living in Iowa, it was odd to be an observer during our first-in-the nation caucuses on Tuesday.

Four years ago, I missed reporting on or even attending a caucus event; my daughter was born days before. I was a little preoccupied. But eight years ago, in 2004, I was a general assignment reporter for the Des Moines Register. We had several regular political reporters who would take care of things initially, but when the trickle of early arriving candidates turned into a parade of candidates, others were quickly pulled in to help cover the dozens of events. I was among those traveling Iowa’s highways and back roads in 2004 to report as presidential contenders spoke at diners, community centers, libraries, or wherever there was room for a crowd.

For myself at least – and I suspect for others – the novelty of meeting a person that could someday be president wore off for the most part. You got used to it. That’s not to say the whole process wasn’t still fascinating. It was, and it still is. The thought that the first voter involvement in selecting our president started right in my home state was an amazing one.

Any Iowan (or anyone traveling to Iowa) could relatively easily catch almost every candidate at some point or another if they had the time to dedicate to this goal. A friend of mine and his wife took their baby to numerous candidate events in Iowa in 2008, eventually getting their son’s photo taken with John Edwards, Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, Rudy Guiliani, Hillary Clinton, Bill Richardson, Fred Thompson, John McCain, and, yes, Barack Obama (among others).

What’s the downside of all the national attention that goes along with this kind of access? Every four years, the media picks apart Iowa and its role in the presidential nomination process. That’s expected and doesn’t bother most people. You get used to that too, and many Iowans would probably agree that it’s valid to ask why Iowa is always first. (Read why we're first here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iowa_cau...)

But it’s the cheap shots that get old. The articles that portray Iowa as a backward, clueless place that has little to offer. University of Iowa journalism professor Stephen Bloom wrote the cheap shot piece that has probably drawn the most attention in this particular caucus season. His observations include that rural Iowans are “the elderly waiting to die, those too timid (or lacking in education) to peer around the bend for better opportunities, an assortment of waste-toids and meth addicts with pale skin and rotted teeth, or those who quixotically believe, like Little Orphan Annie, that ‘The sun'll come out tomorrow.’ ” You can read the full piece here: http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/a...

I’ve since read an article since quoting Bloom, who took a lot of heat, as saying that it was his job as a journalist to include observations. I didn’t lose sleep over it, but it was clear to me that he wasn’t working hard to include a balance of positive and negative observations. After all, would that have sold as well to the national magazines? Probably not.

But it also struck me that a person could write a piece like his about ANY state. Really. Any state. Here’s the formula: pick out a few towns that seem “scuzzy” and throw those under the bus, describe the people that you judge as being less desirable for how they look (never mind if it’s due to poverty), and talk about the small percentage of the population that has a drug problem (adjusting for the illegal drug of choice in your state). Voila! You’ve sold an article to a national publication.

And, to any state that might someday be successful in assuming the first-in-the-nation caucus status, you can bet someone living there will be ready with that piece for your state.

It’s the price of access, and, really, in my opinion, probably a relatively small one.