media
Mood:  incredulous
Media Hype Could Make Presidential Election a Joke
By Daniel G. Jennings
Media types covering the presidential election are acting more like the commentators and promoters at a professional wrestling match than objective journalists. That is they are spending most of their time hyping up candidates in order to get the public to pay more attention to the election rather than actually covering the election.
Remember Howard Dean? The media crowned him the front runner and gave unlimited attention to his brash style, and large band of idealistic young followers. They all but said Dean would be the Democratic nominee. Then the real primaries and caucuses were held and Dean came in a distant third or fourth well behind lackluster candidates like Wesley Clark and John Kerry.
The whole "Dean Phenomenon" turned out to be nothing but media hype. Dean's popularity and his legion of followers was shown to exist only in the pages of newspapers and on TV reports. Real voters had no little or no interest in the man from Vermont and actually seemed to be turned off by Dean's personality?
Why did the media go to such lengths to hype and promote Dean? Obviously a lot of media types liked Dean and sympathized with his left wing politics but that wasn't the main reason Dean was hyped. Dean was given a "push" as they would say in the wrestling business because he was the most interesting and entertaining of the candidates.
This is nothing new, in the 2000 presidential primaries the media paid vast amounts of attention to John McCain and tried to convince the public that he was a serious rival to George W. Bush when he was nothing of the sort. McCain was a much more interesting and entertaining candidate than Bush and one the media liked better.
Now the media hype machine is trying to convince the public that John Kerry can beat George W. Bush. Political commentators are saying that high voter turn in the Democratic primaries means enough Democrats could come out to help Kerry beat Bush. Newsweek magazine is asking what sort of President Kerry would make on its cover?
This of course is nonsense, Kerry is a bland and lackluster candidate who will probably suffer a defeat on the order of Michael Dukakis or Walter Mondale. Most of the political journalists know that Kerry's chances of beating Bush rival Quenton Tarantino's prospects of winning an Academy Award for Best Director they're zilch.
So why is the media deliberately slanting stories to make the presidential race seem like a real contest? Because a close presidential race makes for better television, bigger headlines and increased ratings.
Like wrestling promoters and reality TV producers the journalists covering the presidential race have to compete for attention. They have to compete with the war coverage, the Laci Peterson case, the Michael Jackson trial, all manner of sporting events, the Academy Awards, the Super Bowl, Janet Jackson, the War on Terror, the War in Iraq, Martha Stewart, Wall Street and a thousand other things. A routine presidential election with a second rate challenger being quashed by a popular incumbent just can't compete for attention with all that.
Like everybody else in our modern economy journalists have to justify their existence that is they have to convince their bosses that their stories bring in ratings or sell newspapers or magazines. If they can't they could loose their jobs or see their departments' budgets cut. If the presidential race is dull, it could threaten the political journalists' jobs. Since the race isn't sexy enough to attract attention they make it that way.
The ethical problem with this stance is obvious the political journalists have abandoned their objectivity and become active participants in the political process. The journalists are actively working on behalf of candidates rather than seriously examining them and giving the public an accurate picture of what is really going on. In some cases they actually seem to be distorting the truth for selfish ends.
There is no way the public can learn much about the candidates or their positions from such coverage. Worse while such media hype attracts momentary attention, sooner or later the public (which is far smarter than journalists believe) will see through it and start ignoring the media coverage of the campaigns. Or start relying upon campaign commercials, talk radio and what the candidates themselves say for their election news.
Political journalists had better learn their real role in the political drama and start performing it. For if they don't America; will have one of the most dangerous political situations around, a completely uninformed electorate.