Money in Politics Research Action Project

Friday, January 12, 2007

Should media cover elections better, or leave advertisements to inform?

Elaine Shein
Capital Press Executive Editor
Editorial

Friday, January 12, 2007

What will it take to get better election coverage on TV? Different projects have examined just how much - or little - TV stations covered elections, politicians and the issues compared to how much they just allow political ads to influence voters.

Statistics as well as the attitude of broadcasters show that unfortunately the TV stations feel little responsibility toward helping voters be more informed on who and what gets their votes.

Various reports that came out about this were initially largely ignored or buried in mainstream media coverage, but it might be tougher to ignore them.

A public interest law firm called Media Access Project has begun to file petitions with the Federal Communications Commission in different parts of the country asking that certain television stations not get their licenses renewed.

In Portland, a group called the Money in Politics Research Action Project filed such a petition to the FCC.

The reason? The pathetic lack of political coverage by TV stations means the stations aren't serving in the public interest, as the law requires, according to the Oregonian newspaper story on the topic.

A study by the Center for Media and Public Affairs found "the four top stations each devoted more than 100 hours to local newscasts in October 2004, but spent less than 2 minutes of that time covering campaigns for the Oregon Legislature, it found," said the Oregonian.

The Oregonian story quoted a response by Bill Johnstone, Oregon Association of Broadcasters' president: "Very few politicians can tell the truth," he said, adding they also are very negative and that the mudslinging quotes by them would not serve the public interest.

"Our coverage is certainly adequate, given everything else that the public has access to - the Internet, the ads they see and hear, the billboards, the unwelcome calls from candidates," Johnstone told the Oregonian.

His remarks are troubling. Does the media hold no responsibility to serve as a filter to ensure this information is unbiased, fair and factual?

The study done on the Portland market found that of 520 hours of local news from Oct. 4 to Nov. 1 of 2004, election coverage filled 5 percent of newscasts, mostly on Bush-Kerry battle, and 1 percent was spent on state and local elections.

Out of those 520 hours, of all those stations together in their newscasts, "there was a total of 25 hours and 29 minutes of campaign news of 4.9 percent of all recorded air time," said the report from the Center for Media and Public Affairs that came out in August 2005, but which now serves as the basis for the petition.

Ballot measures attracted 130 stories, or 9 percent of all the campaign stories, said the center.

Most prominent? The one to do with gay marriage. Looking back, perhaps Measure 37 about land use should have gained a lot more coverage.

The center found 37 percent of the stories had to do with strategy in the race, 24 percent with issues, and further down the list was personal character at 1 percent of the coverage, despite the politicians often using their ads to attack the character of their opponents.

Another study that was released this fall gave another perspective on political coverage by television broadcasters, and unfortunately shows the Portland market probably is not alone in how it handles elections.

The study was quite fascinating, but also disturbing: It showed people mainly got their political news and information prior to an election by television broadcast and the majority of that was paid advertising.

In other words, the coverage was probably quite biased, not very in-depth, and may have even been loose with the facts or context as political opponents are tempted to slam each other and integrity and honesty are usually ignored.

The University of Wisconsin-Madison did the analysis as a project. Funded by Chicago's Joyce Foundation, the UW-Madison's NewsLab project is called the Midwest News Index and is doing an ongoing study on content and effect of local television news in several Midwest states: Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio and Wisconsin.

While the study focused on the Midwest for a month prior to the mid-term elections, probably the public here in the West Coast can relate to some of the findings.

"Local newscasts in seven Midwest markets aired 4 minutes, 24 seconds of paid political ads during the typical 30-minute broadcast while dedicating an average of 1 minute, 43 seconds to election news coverage," reported the university.

"The analysis also shows that most of the news coverage of elections on early and late-evening broadcasts was devoted to campaign strategy and polling, which outpaced reporting on policy issues by a margin of more than three to one (65 percent to 17 percent). These findings come amid studies consistently showing that voters look to local television newscasts as their primary source of information about elections."

Some of the fascinating things the study found:

"From Sept. 7 to Oct. 6, local television stations devoted an average of 36 seconds to election coverage during the early- and late-evening newscasts captured in the study. The new findings show that 2,392 election stories aired in captured broadcasts on the stations in the seven markets while 8,995 political ads aired during the same period."

"The average length of a single story devoted primarily to elections was roughly 76 seconds. By contrast, a similar national study conducted by NewsLab during the 2002 mid-term election found the average story ran 89 seconds."

"Forty-one percent of the election stories were aired in the final week before Election Day."

UW-Madison political science professor Ken Goldstein, who directed the project, said "Scholars, reformers, policy makers, and broadcasters may hold different opinions on the responsibilities of broadcasters and the relative effect of different sorts of campaign communications, but the data here are unambiguous - local television news provides less news on politics than many other topics and the coverage is overwhelmingly characterized by stories on strategy, horse race, and the game of politics. Any intelligent debate needs to begin from that starting point."

This leads to a few cautions and conclusions that can be sobering: First of all, are the media truly serving the public the best in preparing potential voters for making wise voting decisions?

In the interest of selling expensive advertising space and filling airtime with other news such as what is happening in the entertainment world, has the media lost its direction in being more responsible in preparing people to vote?

Secondly, would voters even listen if the media tried to do a better job in explaining issues and covering political candidates more in-depth? Would the public care or just tune out if the media expanded their coverage time of politics?

Thirdly, if political ads are the main source of information influencing voters, should there be higher standards in truth, integrity and context in political advertising, although some people would argue that goes against Freedom of Speech within current legal lines.

And lastly, if there are so many political ads on television, and people are mostly influenced by these ads, does this mean that only those with deep financial pockets can afford to run for politics and make their case to be elected?

Will this restrict potentially great leaders from being involved in political campaigns or cause them to lose because they couldn't match the millions of dollars spent by political opponents and special interest groups?

Goldstein made a good point about how this should be a starting point for an intelligent debate.

Hopefully, people will take up the challenge and hold that debate before the next election to help strengthen this country's democracy rather than allow 30-second soundbytes to help them choose who represents them at different levels of government.

Elaine Shein is executive editor of the Capital Press. Her e-mail address is eshein@capitalpress.com.