Why not have the media initiate a policy where they DO NOT identify the political party of the person who is speaking to the camera/radio? It seems as though the political party is always identified before you hear the platform or program of the person speaking which short circuits the attention given to what might be good information.
My theory is that then you would have reduced "political" speak and more basic answers of yes/no to direct questions.
Any media coverage that is paid for by commercial advertisement or a news program should be this way.
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I don't know how well informed the general public may be, since a large percentage still seem to believe that Saddam Hussein was responsible for 9/11, but they would have to be a bit more unaware than I suspect they really are to not know that Bush was a Republican and Kerry was a Democrat.
But, speaking strictly from a journalistic point of view, the speaker's political party really does matter. "Democrat proposes health-care reform" is a dog-bites-man story; "Republican proposes health-care reform" is man-bites-dog. Likewise for the predicate "proposes media decency standards," if you switch the party labels above.
When politicians break away from issues that we expect their party to care about, this in itself is often newsworthy.
Often these people are interviewed specifically because of their political influence and party affiliation.