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August 4, 2008
Media Not Impartial on Election, Need Race to be Close
Maybe I'm a little slow to realize this, but the major and traditional news media need the presidential race, actually political competition in general, to be excruciatingly close.
I don't believe most general news outlets are significantly biased (although there are some disturbing exceptions), but one thing is becoming increasingly clear: the media will work very hard to ensure that the contest is a close one. They will not settle for an easy victory. Rather, they will work to ensure that the underdog gets better, and more, coverage than the front-runner.
They do so for simple economic reasons. Media is a business. They rely on syndication of their content and advertising as their primary sources of revenue. If the contest is not close, people lose interest in the race and there is less consumption of stories about the race. This hinders syndication revenue and reduces the opportunity to sell ad space associated with those stories that people would otherwise read.
Additionally, and perhaps more significantly, the media (which mostly include both news sources and general distribution networks) sell tremendous amounts of ad space to the candidates, parties, and third parties with an interest in the outcome of the race. Much of that ad revenue would be lost if the race were considered to be a highly lopsided affair.
Without a competitive race, the media (news production and distribution networks) find themselves in a less desirable position. Thus, there is huge motivation for them to even up the race. Even if there is no official mandate from management to bias reporting, we should expect a slight shift (both in the type and amount of content) to favor the less-favorable candidate.
As I finished that last paragraph, a thought ran through my head: "No one will believe me without data." So I Googled around a bit and found a rather timely report:
Report on media bias that found a John McCain slant sparks fierce debateA war of words over media bias in the presidential race has become, at least at the moment, at least as fierce as the debate between the candidates themselves.
An "On the Media" column Sunday in the L.A. Times on a new study concluding that, since early June, Barack Obama has drawn tougher network television coverage than John McCain, met with a predictable response -- applause from the left and skepticism from the right.
Read the entire story (LA Times)
So, I guess there may be a bit of empirical evidence to support what seems like an obvious conflict-of-interest in our political reporting industry. Given the power the media has to influence polls, perhaps it's time that some of McCain's own ideas, such as the removal of private money in campaign finances, gets reconsidered. Except now, maybe we should consider reporting on the matter to be an in-kind contribution. Since we can't control political speech, it makes one wonder if there's any way out of this Catch-22. Certainly something to think about.
Posted by Craig in Popular Media
and Society / Politics
Comments
I've been aware of this phenomenon for years - It's just not natural in any way for all these elections to be so knife edge close year after year. The minute a poll comes out with higher numbers for one candidate it is followed by stories meant to pull back on the front runner and boost the other one. Al Franken always used to say the media is the media - it's not liberal or conservative. They have always made money on controversy and will always invent something for people to argue about.
Posted by: aredant at October 22, 2008 8:20 PM