Dec. 10, 2007 – Page 3642
Is this the American public we’re talking about?
Two-thirds of Americans don’t trust media coverage of the 2008 presidential race, according to survey results released last month by Harvard’s Center for Public Leadership. Nearly 90 percent of those polled agreed that “the news media focus too much on trivial rather than important issues.” And more than 90 percent said information on policy positions is one of the most important things the media provide to help them decide how to vote for president. As for negative ads? Well, 70 percent of those surveyed dismiss them as unimportant.
“I was a little surprised that people chose policy as the No. 1 issue they wanted to hear about,” said Seth Rosenthal, the study’s lead author. “But I was pleasantly surprised.”
Media honchos have long assumed that the public skips all the lengthy profiles and comparisons of policy positions in the papers and on TV — but perks up at the mention of a $400 haircut or a missing American flag lapel pin. The survey suggests that conventional newsroom wisdom is all wrong. “It does pose a challenge to at least try and do something different and respond to what people say they want,” Rosenthal said. “I think you’d hear the argument back, ‘We could do it, but no one would watch.’ But maybe they need to take a further step to try to give people substantive information that is engaging enough to watch.”
There have been few total mess-ups so far. The worst may have been CNN’s failure to check the background of the retired general who was allowed to ask a question about gays in the military during the Republican YouTube debate in Florida two weeks ago. But when the network found out he worked for Sen.
“I haven’t seen anything horribly egregious coming from the campaign press coverage so far,” agreed Elizabeth Skewes, assistant professor of journalism at the University of Colorado at Boulder, and author of this year’s “Message Control: How News Is Made on the Presidential Campaign Trail.” “Little stuff gets picked up about Edwards’ haircut, Obama’s lapel pin, and we say, ‘Are those really relevant?’ ” In the Harvard poll, only one-third said embarrassing incidents were relevant to their vote.
But there’s no dearth of the kind of detailed policy focus that people say they want. Just look on the Internet.
“There is more available information through news channels than there ever has been about a presidential campaign. And so much of it has been reputable,” said Kathleen Hall Jamieson of the Annenberg School for Communications at the University of Pennsylvania. “It’s never been more substantive. You could also say that it’s never been more trivial. There’s never before been as much junk.”
Jamieson faulted Harvard for not asking survey subjects their definition of the press, so it’s not clear how much “coverage” by bloggers, YouTube or Rush Limbaugh is reflected. In addition, she said, the poll suggests that the conservative campaign against the so-called liberal media may have paid off: 40 percent said they viewed campaign coverage as too liberal, 21 percent as too conservative.
For years, newsroom old-timers have been comforting cub reporters with this bromide: If both sides are complaining, it means you’re doing your job. These days, however, aggrieved news consumers have more avenues for venting than the letters-to-the-editor page. They have blogs, on the left and on the right, many of them well-read and respected enough to help topple the likes of CBS News’ Dan Rather and The New York Times’ Judith Miller.
The poll results may just reflect that we remain a deeply divided nation. Only there’s one point we — or you — agree upon.
“Progressives in the last eight years now feel almost as easily angry and disappointed with the press as the conservatives do,” said Eric Boehlert, a senior fellow at the liberal watchdog group Media Matters for America and the author of last year’s “Lapdogs: How the Press Rolled Over for Bush.” “The liberal or progressive media critic wants the press to do a better job,” he said, citing Miller’s flawed reporting on weapons of mass destruction as an example. “The conservatives’ . . . beef is that the press exists.”
On the right, the Harvard survey “confirmed that twice as many people see a liberal bias as a conservative bias,” said Brent Baker of the conservative Media Research Center. Baker cites examples of liberal bias in 2008 campaign coverage as “very positive, promotional coverage of
That is the same Al Gore who lost in 2000 in part, according to many stories in the mainstream press, because people were less likely to want to have a beer with him than with
For 2008, it’s still unclear which presidential candidate will win the bar stool primary. One thing seems certain: The voters don’t want to share a drink with any of us lousy reporters.
Elizabeth Wasserman is a Washington freelance writer. She can be reached at ewasserman@cq.com.