Posted February 1, 2008 by Meredith McGehee
The Media Got it Wrong 
The following appeared today on the Free Press Action Network as part of a week-long forum on media coverage of the 2008 elections.
The media got it wrong in New Hampshire. They and the pollsters predicted the wrong winner in the Democratic primary. As we move to ”Tsunami Tuesday,” it is worth taking a few minutes to look at what the New Hampshire debacle says about the way the television covers politics and elections and what is wrong with it.
First, as Jim Carlson has noted on this blog, television is obsession with polls. Why? In large part it’s because as the networks and local stations have become more concentrated and corporatized, the actual number of reporters in the field doing real reporting has decreased. The polls also dovetail with the main framework used by television to report on campaigns and elections -- the horse race angle.
Second, just like their fellow reporters in print, the burning desire of television pundits to be the first to break a story is dominant. That desire to been seen as insightful if not prescient has been further heightened in large part due to NBC’s Tim Russert who at the climax of the presidential election in 2000 predicted on a “white board” that Florida would be decisive. Others, wanting a similar affirmation of their political prescience, continue to fall all over each other to emulate Russert’s “called shot.”
Of course, criticism of television’s coverage of elections is nothing new, but there are some things that can be done to avoid another New Hampshire.
First, television newsrooms should make a specific effort to place greater emphasis on reporting rather than predicting. Predictions have a place in coverage of any election but broadcast coverage has become the equivalent of a paper written entirely by columnists rather than reporters. And television must get over its horserace addiction. It is lazy and irresponsible to oversimplify vastly complicated policy discussions into breathless around-the-clock reports on who is up by a nose, or a neck, or a length at that moment. The campaign for the presidency should not be covered like the Belmont Stakes.
Second, the media companies should reinvest in political reporting. It has been a common casualty in the media conglomeration. Talk to an average political reporter and they’ll often tell you they got into the business because of their interest in politics. But today most are handcuffed and frustrated by corporate demands for “if it bleeds, it leads” stories. Given greater freedom, opportunity and encouragement to report more creatively on politics, they will.
Third, and most important, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) must cease to be the lapdog of broadcasters, and enact meaningful public interest obligations for digital broadcast licensees. For more than 20 years now, the FCC has been caught in the stranglehold of an ideology in league with businesses’ self-interest that claims any effort to ensure appropriate payment for the free use of the publicly owned airwaves is a violation of broadcasters’ First Amendment rights. Other public resources like mining rights, grazing rights, and drilling rights are operated under a regulatory regime that charges private interests for the use of those resources.
When it comes to the nation’s airwaves, however, all bets are off. Broadcast licensees get to use the public’s airwaves for free and decide for themselves what their payment should be. Nice work if you can get it.
There is a failure of will in Washington at the FCC and in Congress to take on the powerful interests who are used to getting their way in Washington. And yes, it showed on New Hampshire primary night.
