Before I get there, let me say that often people complain about how much money is spent during a political campaign, and how it would be nice if a person wasn't elected to office primarily because of the monetary advantage that person has over the competition (though to be frank, I haven't heard those people complaining as much about the monetary disparity between Obama and McCain, and I heard a lot of it about Romney when he was nearly in the picture).
Some have suggested that candidates be allotted the same amount of money for their campaigns, just to even the playing field and to create more distance between money and politics. I am tempted to agree with this concept, but it is flawed. Why? Well, there are probably many reasons, but a big one is the media.
This recent report by Project for Excellence in Journalism illustrated a problem...at least for those with conservative leanings, but also for anyone in general who truly values fairness above politics. This study evaluated how the mainstream media has been reporting on the candidates. These first two tables specifically compare MSNBC with the averaged overall media reporting (all studied outlets), but just looking at the right bars alone is telling.
Now compare with this:
Does John McCain really warrant this much more negative coverage? I have a hard time coming up with an explanation for this that would end in the honest conclusion that McCain somehow objectively deserved so much more negative coverage than Obama. Was he getting arrested for DWI's all the time? Obama has plenty of question marks--and some argue skeletons. I can't see how there hasn't been plenty of opportunity to flip the numbers, and have a more positive reporting of McCain than Obama. I am not a McCain fan--but this kind of stuff gets old.
Here is one more table that compares multiple media outlets.
It is interesting that Fox has had the same percentage of negative reporting for both McCain and Obama. I'm not one who pretends that Fox does not have a conservative slant, but I think it is often exaggerated by competitors and liberals, and I think this study attests to that pretty well. But that's just a tangent. There's much more to the study, and this is certainly not the first or only study to find similar patterns. Maybe they are all skewed, but my own anecdotal observations are consistent with them as well, and I think there is something to them.
If we could count on a fair media, then I think the proposal for having equal amounts of campaign money has more potential (I'm still chewing on the whole free-speech argument about donations and such).
I think the media is very important and helps keep politicians honest. If we can't trust the media to not choose sides, then I think we miss out on a critical check and balance in our system. Not to mention that the electorate may not get a fair look at the candidates in the first place. It continues to amaze me that McCain is even fairly close in the election. If it ends up being very close, it would be easy to conclude that the media made the difference--I would hope that's not the case regardless of the outcome, unless of course the type of media attention was warranted, which I seriously question in this situation.
2 comments:
If you look at the same numbers 5 months ago you'll see a huge difference. McCain's coverage was much more positive. It started to change when a big part of their campaign was how the "media elite" doesn't like them. Then you have a Vice-Presidential candidate in Pain that didn't hold a single press conference and refused to release her medical records (something all candidates have done historically). Think about that, other than rallies and a few interviews on television and radio, Palin hasn't communicated with the press. She hasn't had a single press conference where the group of journalists are able to ask her questions.
Then more complaints from McCain/Palin about the "liberal media" and Palin refusing to even talk to reporters on her plane and things really start to turn. Even last week she complained that the media was taking away her First Amendment right by criticizing her so much. Showing she doesn't have much use for the media, and doesn't really have a clue what the First Amendment actually means.
McCain /Palin brought this coverage on themselves as far as I'm concerned. A segment of their base thinks the media is evil, and McCain/Palin went out of their way to let that base know they agreed. Also McCain's attacks became increasingly negative starting in September, and so did the negative reports talking about how he was probably messing up (which the polls show now he was).
Jeremy, do you have a link to those numbers--I haven't seen them.
I think the points you make--whether or not they are technically accurate--don't explain much of this disparity, especially points about the lack of Palin's access to the media. But, this study was about tone in the media--that is key.
I suppose one could say that McCain insulted the media (though he had been a media darling when running against Republicans--and I think he has been slow to criticize the media overall, but maybe I missed it), and therefore the media are justified in taking a more negative tone toward him because they got their feelings hurt.
I would hope that the media could rise above that--their role is far too important to take comments so personally. Media should not be creating news--though our 24hour cable news culture needs something to fill the time, so I think there is way too much news-making these days.
I haven't followed all the Palin stories, but if anyone has a right to be a little huffy toward the media, it would be her. She has undoubtedly brought some of it on herself, but she was hit so harshly and I think unfairly out of the gate that the media set the tone, not her, in their relationship. If they were just doing their job--so be it, but they should do their job equally well regardless of the politician.
Your points also discount the opportunity to take a more negative tone toward Obama (or Biden) should the media have chosen to do so. There is no shortage of potential there, if so chosen. Dan Quayle was destroyed by the media for making half the gaffa's that Joe Biden has made (or even Obama for that matter). This has been going on for a long time.
I will stop now, because I don't want to be a McCain or Palin apologist, because I don't have enough passion to be as such, but I don't think the media have been particularly trustworthy and noble in their duties. I know people who make such claims will often be labeled as being conspiracy theorists, which is probably sometimes accurate, but sometimes there really is an imbalance, and I think this study helps verify that, and many in the media themselves have admitted as much.
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