Analysis: Should the Media Handicap Political Campaigns?

"And sometimes, dear commenter, that means looking a second time at a candidate like Harry Davis and saying "why not?" Let's let the voters decide. As little as I respect their judgment, I will take it over the mainstream media and local elites any day."
~Aaron Wicks
.......................................................................................
Analysis: Should the Media Handicap Political Campaigns?
By: Aaron E. Wicks
Posted: Sunday, June 27, 2010 9:26 pm
http://www.smugtownbeacon.com/news.php?viewStory=524
......................................................................
Bronson said he doesn't think it needs to be a campaign issue. "I don't think we need to go there,"
http://www.harrydavis2010.com/node/307
......................................................................
"And sometimes, dear commenter, that means looking a second time at a candidate like Harry Davis and saying "why not?" Let's let the voters decide. As little as I respect their judgment, I will take it over the mainstream media and local elites any day."

June 28, 2010 What would happen if candidates for political office were treated as equally electable by the media? Would voters receive more information about "also rans"? Would it change the outcomes of some races? Or would it render political reporting toothless -- forcing reporters to ignore a major part of the dramatic tale they are covering (which candidate is David and which Goliath)? As petition season comes to a close, the Smugtown Beacon considers how to cover the rest of the campaign.

Beacon readers are a sharp bunch. On more than one occasion they have caught the publishers/authors in various states of journalistic undress. Other times, they can provide provocative counter-points -- some almost as brilliant as the published material.

Recently, a commenter wondered aloud if a Beacon story was serious in listing Harry Davis (candidate for the 131st Assembly District) as a candidate worthy of people's votes. The story itself made no endorsement in the race, but did observe that in addition to Harry Bronson, there were three other candidates worthy of consideration by voters -- specifically, the story observed: "Voters still have good choices in the 131st: Evans, Powell and Davis remain straight shooters, opponents of mayoral control and offer some hope that politics can be conducted differently."

The commenter, evidently not a fan of Mr. Davis, questioned this statement -- and whether the author truly believed it. The short response should come as no surprise to Beacon readers: I stand by my statement. To wit, I believe that voters do have at least three good choices in the 131st and that the three descriptors used for these candidates "straight shooters", "opponents of mayoral control" and "offer some hope that politics can be conducted differently" do indeed hold for all of them (though not necessarily to the same degree).

But the real point of the commenter, I believe, is that a credible journalist should look at the field and treat some candidates as "credible" and some as something less. In this case, the commenter appears to believe that Mr. Davis is not worthy of treatment as a credible candidate. This is an intriguing proposition: what responsibility do the media have to tell voters which candidates are "credible" and which are not? Should reporters come out and say when they believe a candidate is a total nut or that a candidate is almost certainly going to win? Aren't those key parts of the story that should be told?

What is a "credible" candidate? Some objective measures

Before addressing these questions, one first has to consider how journalist might decide some candidates are credible and some are not.

Qualifying for the ballot is an obvious measure. Anyone can announce "I'm running for office." But if they do not secure a position on the ballot, their only avenue is via write-in -- and that route has very long odds. So, one way a reporter could decide which candidates to cover and which to ignore would be to focus on the ones who survive petition season and will appear on either a primary or general election ballot.

At this point it's worth noting that qualifying for the ballot reveals only one thing about a candidate: they are able to collect signatures and submit them in accordance with fairly arcane election law requirements. A credible candidate for City Council from last year -- Diane Watkins -- failed to reach the ballot through an error in her petitions. Some argue, "well, if she can't even follow the rules, she couldn't be a very serious candidate." Possibly -- but that's an argument for another time, one worth taking up. But let the record show that this standard of "credibility" is a fairly low one.

Another objective measure of credibility is fundraising. The logic here is that a 'credible" candidate is one that is supported by voters strongly enough to encourage them to give money. This is comparable to a corporations' stock prices raising or falling on exchanges based on who is buying or selling their shares: credible candidates are in demand and receive investments; non-credible ones are avoided by investors and their fundraising languishes.

There is some logic to this measure. Indeed, it is often reported in mainstream media coverage of elections. But any casual observer of politics is keenly aware that there are excellent candidates who go underfunded (for a variety of reasons) and there are some candidates who can self-finance (Michael Bloomberg), making their fundraising ability irrelevant.

Polls are also used to identify the candidates who are more likely to win -- and therefore receive a higher level of media scrutiny. The media love to report on campaign polls because it relieve them of the tremendous burden of having to prove why they are covering some candidates and not others. In fact, the Commission on Presidential Debates (the bipartisan group that sponsors Presidential debates every four years), uses poll standindgs to determine who can participate in the debates. Local television stations did the same, to some degree, in 2005 when they hosted debates of Rochester mayoral candidates Wade Norwood, Robert Duffy and Tim Mains, but excluded Chris Maj who had also qualified for the Democratic primary ballot (note, however, that some stations included Maj in their debates and candidate profiles).

The use of polls to determine coverage, however, seems a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy. "Voters have heard of candidates A and B, but not C, so C finishes far behind in a poll in August. That means we will cover only candidates A and B." Given that logic, is it any surprise candidate C finishes third in the primary in September? Perhaps that was their destiny -- but the media decision could also be part of the equation.

Finally, one last measure of a candidate's quality is their past record. Consider the 131st Assembly race and the judgement by the commenter noted above. The field consists of Harry Bronson (twice elected to the County Legislature and selcted by his peers as Minority Leader); Willa Powell (twice elected to the Rochester City School Board), Malik Evans (twice elected to the Rochester City School Board and selected by his peers to be Board President) and Harry Davis (briefly candidate for mayor in 2009, candidate for City Council in 2009 and 2007). Of the four, based only on this information, three candidates have been elected to office (two of them in citywide elections; one candidate has run twice and failed to be elected.

On this basis, one could argue that there should be a hierarchy among these four candidates in terms of the media coverage -- but why? Is running for office unsuccessfully an indication that one is unworthy of office? Several very successful politicians have lost elections. Is newsprint so scarce, airtime so limited, that only three -- but definitely not four -- candidates can be covered? Hard to make that case.

Credible candidates -- the subjective indicators
The measures above are commonly cited by the media as their justification for focusing on certain candidates at the exclusion of others. The reality, though, is that subjective indicators also play a major role in media decision-making.

Consider the role of party designating caucuses. Parties abhor primaries -- primaries, they argue, deplete party resources, weaken candidates going into a general election and divide the party. For those reasons, and others, parties have a vested interest in promoting their "designated" candidate as THE party's candidate in the primary (if there is one). While this might seem an objective measure, it is actually quite subjective. Yes, a person either is or is not the party's designee -- that is clear enough. But the question is whether being the party's designee is an objective measure of a candidate's viability as a candidate. In other words, does being the party's designated candidate "mean" anything?

Well, recent history suggests that being the designated candidate certainly helps. In 2009 all 5 designated city council candidates and all three designated school board candidates won their citywide Democratic primaries. But in 2005, the party's designated candidate for mayor, Wade Norwood, lost to Robert Duffy in the primary. And other designees have lost city council and school board races in recent years. The designation is not a lock, but statistically, it helps.

What makes it a questionable measure of candidate credibility is the process by which a person becomes designated. In Monroe County, a very small number of party committee members weigh in on the decision. In many cases, committee leaders -- often themselves politicians -- exert influence over the process. In short, designation reflects what a small group of insiders want in a candidate -- hardly a bona fide measure of candidate quality.

Related to this subjective measure is a more amorphous "word on the street" reputation that some candidates develop. Some candidates are seen as "promising", others are dismissed as "cranks", "rubes" or simply as not serious candidates. These judgments often come from insiders with experience and knowledge -- but also often with an agenda of their own. And while one would like to think the media would not be sswayed by these voices, they clearly are. One of the most difficult things to overcome with the media is a reputation as being an "also ran" -- unless you can show a change in fundraising, poll numbers or some other obvious indicator of support, the media will stick with their view.

The real question: how SHOULD the media decide which candidates are credible -- or should they do so at all?
As someone who openly views media coverage as a political act (not some naive objective "just the facts" reporting role -- come on, the media are political players) -- there is one clear justification for consciously marginalizing some candidates in political coverage: dangerous political extremists who clearly propose anti-democratic principles. It is on this basis that one could legitimately paint David Duke as a marginal extremist (who nevertheless nearly won election in the state of Louisiana despite being an unrepentant Klansmen) or, going back further in history, Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Party as extremist thugs. In both cases, it could be argued that media coverage may not have harmed them -- indeed it might have helped. Such cases are difficult -- but very rare -- calls for publishers.

Beyond such cases, it is difficult to imagine how a media outlet who claims to be objective (as virtually all mainstream outlets do) could justify excluding candidates who will appear on a ballot from receiving equal coverage. The Beacon, of course, excludes itself from this argument as the publishers make no claim to objectivity -- we try to provoke and prod, and we do so by explicitly taking positions, not pretending to avoid them.

There are at least two reasons mainstream media should get out of the business of picking winners in campaigns:

1. The picking of winners does nothing to inform the electorate -- presumably the raison d'etre of the media. But the fact that they do go ahead and name winners shows that their mission is not to inform, it is to maximize audience share for their advertisers. How does reporting on frontrunners and excluding also-rans do this? It sends a signal to the more educated readers/viewers/listeners: "We know who is REALLY worth following, and we will not waste your time with kooks." Consumers of information appreciate that -- despite the fact that it might not be good for a health democracy (ironic, huh?). Nevertheless, media outlets are happy to oblige.

2. The picking of winners reinforces decisions made by elites -- decisions that may not be very good in the first place. Presumably, the purpose of elections is to provide people with a competitive forum to consider candidates and select the leaders of one's choice. But when the mainstream media push some candidates off the page or outside the camera lens, voters only get part of the picture. Again, this lines of perfectly with the incentives of most media outlets: as commercial ventures, their interests often align with other community elites who are whispering their ears that this candidate is worth watching, but that one is marginal. The whispering does not even have to be audible; most of this occurs without much active contemplation.

The bigger question is this: if a reporter is claiming to report "the entire story", is it accurate to cover a campaign knowing with some confidence, that one or more of the candidates simply has no chance? Is it misleading the audience to say "Here's Bob Jones, longtime town Board member running for re-election, and running against him, Zippy the Pinhead, who is campaigning on a platform of no tax breaks for Martian invaders." Do both of those candidates truly merit equal time? Most reporters will say no, rather, most reporters will say their editors will say no. People don't want to watch or read it -- we will lose our credibility and our audience if we cover that race giving the candidates equal time. Viewers/readers will think we simply have no political sensibility and that we have wasted their time.

Conclusion: the media are a business. Period. You get what you pay for
Perhaps this is true. But for once it would be nice for the mainstream media to own the fact that they do nothing that is not consistent with their financial interest -- even it costs the public information they might use to elect their community's leaders. Making money is a perfectly fine use of one's time, and a legitimate reason to run a media outlet. But if that is the dominant interest (and it is), then it will influence everything that outlet produces. Sadly, that means campaigns are covered not as exercises in public deliberation, but as "news stories", dramatic snippets that will only draw cameras if there are images, sounds or words that will put people in front of their tv's or sell more newspapers.

Here at the Beacon -- also a business venture -- we have a different agenda. Yes, making money is part of it, but also high on the agenda (perhaps higher) is the goal of provoking debate and discussion on topics that too often go undiscussed, holding people and institutions more accountable than the mainstream media (who often have conflicting interests).

As noted in the lede, we do not always get the details right, and we do not studiously work to provide equal coverage for candidates, but we will continue to try to shine a light in a few places the mainstream media choose to leave dark. And sometimes, dear commenter, that means looking a second time at a candidate like Harry Davis and saying "why not?" Let's let the voters decide. As little as I respect their judgment, I will take it over the mainstream media and local elites any day.