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November 29, 2010 11:49 PM UTC

An anti-election media bias

  • 18 Comments
  • by: Jason Salzman

( – promoted by Colorado Pols)

Why do I feel like a freak in America for loving elections?

Because most people feel the opposite way about them. That is, happy that the election is finished, the ads gone, the polls stopped, the metaphorical litter off our doorsteps.

How should a journalist deal the reality that, on one hand, most Americans seem to hate politics and modern elections, but on the other hand, there are plenty of reasons some people love them: Because they’re so important. Because they’re such a spectacle, especially this year in Colorado. Or for the challenge they present in deciding how to vote. Or, actually, for their depth and complexity.

It’s obvious that a reporter should cover what people hate and love about politics-to air out the anger and the issues involved.

But one thing political journalists should not do, IMHO, is make broad interpretive statements about how much Americans hate the political season, in the course of reporting stories that aren’t focused on people’s attitudes about the election process.

And, unfortunately, it isn’t hard to find evidence of Colorado journalists doing this:

For example, during a news show before this month’s election, a Fox 31 anchor turned to a political reporter and asked:

“Don’t you think there’s going to be a collective sigh of relief when this is over, not only for the candidates but for all of us?”

Similarly, during its 10 p.m. broadcast the night before the election, 9News concluded its piece on the next day’s voting with a shot of snowy mountain peaks and orange leaves falling in Denver, while the voice over stated:

“After tomorrow we can get back to why we love Colorado, but I’m sorry to say that the 2012 election and those images we’re sick of (image of ad with clip ‘billions of new job-killing taxes’) are not so far away.”

The Denver Post’s Spot blog lobbed a subtle and unnecessary salvo in mid-October, when it reported on a Michael Bennet event in Estes Park, stating that on a beautiful fall day, politics is found toward the bottom of local concerns.

The underlying assumption in each of these cases is that if we don’t hate politics, we certainly don’t like it much, and, especially in the TV examples I found, we want the election to go away as soon as possible.

Maybe that’s mostly true about Americans today, but even so, why should a reporter reinforce this anti-election attitude, in such broad terms and in news stories that have nothing to do with analyzing the election process?

Doing this amounts to an anti-election bias.

Ironically, journalists who report in this one-sided way are undermining their own jobs by turning more people off to politics and helping to convince them to change the channel when the news comes on.

It’s also not in the public interest.

Asked about this via e-mail, 9News Political Reporter Adam Schrager pointed out a few of the ways that 9news’ networks’ election coverage serves the public interest.

He listed the “thousand-plus voter questions” posed to candidates, the series of hour-long commercial-free debates, the more than 50 “long-form analyses of political commercials,” other election-related coverage, and more.

He also wrote that “voters, myself included, are frustrated because they’re not shown the respect I’d argue they deserve in this process. I share that with the candidates and campaigns themselves so I don’t feel like I’m being two-sided in any way.”

Schrager thinks candidates and the public want elections to focus on a candidate’s “merits rather than on someone else’s demerits.”

He wrote:

Am I frustrated with how campaigns are being run? Without question.

Am I disappointed that candidates are being taken out of context in order to make a political point? Indeed.

Most importantly, am I saddened with how Colorado voters continue to be treated without the respect they deserve by candidates and interest groups that hide in the shadows peddling half-truths, empty rhetoric and outright falsehoods? Most definitely.

I always sign my latest book, ‘Democracy needs to be a participatory sport.’

There is nothing I do, either professionally or personally, that in any way turns people off to voting or ‘trashes elections.’

If I may be so bold, the folks who are paying you to blog and others on both edges of the political spectrum are already accomplishing that goal nicely.

Asked about his reporting from Estes Park, Denver Post reporter Michael Booth wrote:

“I’d have to say that of all the things I worried about with my reporting on politics, this was not among them. I agree that politics is policy, and people should care, and that it’s silly to continue bemoaning the nastiness of elections all the time. A good fight over policy and positions is exactly what makes these things interesting. But it’s also true that every time I met someone from outside the politics/journalism field, friend or new acquaintance, the first thing they said to me was, ‘I’m so sick of all the ads and I just want this to be over, don’t you?’ So there’s a benefit to occasionally let readers see in print that we acknowledge their pain, and that we understand not everyone is thinking about these things 24/7. Many, many of our readers would rather know it was a beautiful fall day in Estes Park, and keep that image in their heads the rest of the day, than to know Michael Bennet was up shaking hands in an Estes Park jewelry store.”

I acknowledge that my point is nitpicky, when you look at the enormous body of election coverage in, for example, The Post, and on 9News and Fox31.

And I know that journalists are right about people’s dissatisfaction with politics, and there’s plenty of evidence to back this up, like low voter turnout, hatred of Congress and political advertising, and a political culture that’s shallow and ill-informed.

And no one wants Suzy-Sunshine reporters running around saying how great the electoral process is and that everyone loves it, especially on sunny days.

We don’t want to hear a reporter say: “We know you’ll be sad when the election season ends tomorrow. But look on the bright side. The 2012 election is just two years away, and meanwhile Colorado is a great place to live.”

So news stories addressing the dark and unpopular side of politics should be aired early and often. I definitely agree that our election process is flawed.

But the public interest isn’t served when journalists make sweeping statements, in the course of covering election events, about how much we all dislike politics and the election and how happy we’ll all be when it’s over.

That’s a form of media bias, however subtle, that could cause more destruction than liberal and conservative media bias combined.

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18 thoughts on “An anti-election media bias”

  1. Blame the campaigns. Blame the media conglomerates who use campaign season to make an obscene amount of money. Hell, blame the voters for taking Democracy for granted in one breath, and then bitching about the consequences of their apathy in the next.

    But I don’t think you can or should blame the reporters for sharing in the fatigue of election season. If people who couldn’t care less about the election are sick of the ads, how do you think the people who have to analyze and report on the ads–and the campaigns that air them–feel?

    To go off on another point entirely, I love Adam Schrager, and I agree with 90% of what he wrote, but I have to take issue with his sanctimonious conclusion:

    If I may be so bold, the folks who are paying you to blog and others on both edges of the political spectrum are already accomplishing that goal nicely.

    Those are the same people paying him, it’s just through a third party. See: media conglomerates making obscene amounts of money off of election season.

      2. He deals only in partisan snark.  You are probably the most respected news reporter in the State, from both sides of the aisle.

        As soon as you travel the country with a diorama with a politician with his pants on fire on top of your car, I’m going to have to continue to take you seriously.

      4. Clearly, most of us thrive on election season because we think the issues are important… at least I hope so.

        Thank you to both of you, Adam and Jason, for all of your work in CO. Let’s turn our energies to something productive, shall we?

  2. Because one cute remark about a nice day in Estes Park undermines the hundreds of stories the Post did about the Senate race …

    Wait, I lost track of who was making the sweeping statement here, Jason.

    Seriously, you’re an incisive observer most of the time, but this is just silly.

    1. I just meant, in this very narrow aspect, the public interest isn’t served when a reporter says how bad the whole election banana is. Trash the ads. Trash the polls. Whatever, as long as it’s specific.

      1. Sure doesn’t seem like it.

        The first few times I went door-to-door, I was taken aback by the number of people who said they were sick and disgusted with politics.

        That reaction doesn’t surprise me any more. The vast majority of people are sick and disgusted with politics.

        Are reporters supposed to pretend this overwhelming public consensus simply does not exist?

        Pravda is not a good business model.

        1. Reporters should definitely cover the widespread disgust with political campaigns.

          but like Allyncooper wrote below, they shouldn’t act “apologetic about having to endure an election cycle.”

          Our elections still have a lot going for them, if you consider how bad they could get–and might get. there are many aspects that are still downright great.

          So reporters should be specific about the problems, and report on these, yes, as part of their election coverage, without dousing poison on the entire banana in the course of normal reporting.

          1. Oh no! The entire banana has been poisoned and everyone’s going to die!

            Jason, you cite three rather mild examples. Doubtless there were more, along the lines of anchors giving each other weary smiles introducing yet another gaffe or attack-ad story. But your scolding reads like nit-picking, which you acknowledge. I’m not sure what the point of your complaint is.

  3. our “system” of elections and the interminable campaigns leading up to them have become, for numerous reasons (mud-slinging, character assassination, calculated misrepresentation, etc., etc.), impediments to any real progress rather than a forum for producing any useful consensus.

    It is this feeling of relief (misguided hope?) that the nonsense is finally over, and now we can get down to some real and necessary business.

    This is why so many celebrate the end.

    (And, yes, absolutely — I do live in a fool’s paradise)

    1. I’m not saying it’s a good thing. But from the very beginning politics has been a nasty brutal fight. Jefferson and Hamilton said things about each other that Fox would consider going too far.

      The campaigns do what works best. The voters can be moved better by nasty attacks on the opponent than on positive stories about the candidate. Like it or not, that’s human nature.

      1. was shot by Aaron Burr in a duel.  

        Jefferson and Hamilton said things about each other that Fox would consider going too far.

         If that had happened today, Fox would have hired Burr as an analyst!

  4. Many of us here thrive on elections. While volunteering on campaigns, I spoke to a lot of people who said they couldn’t wait until the election was over with. When asked, they did not say it was the election per se that was irritating to them, but the negative ads. If we can somehow reduce negative advertising, people want to know more about candidates and issues. That is my experience talking to hundreds of voters this past election cycle.

    1. I have also worked on campaigns, mostly volunteering for candidates I believed in but in the last cycle also did some paid canvassing. About 5% are truly interested in the election, with the rest either indifferent or outright contemptuous of the process. Unfortunately this cynicism pervades the political system today.

      Right or wrong, reporters or newscasters  being apologetic about having to endure an election cycle is a manifestation of what the election process has become to many, if not most. It’s like getting a root canal or dealing with April 15 – one unfortunately has to deal with it although one wishes it would just go away.

      I watch very little TV and therefore little TV news, but I know TV news today (especially local news) is as much about “entertainment” as it is “news” (gotta maintain those ratings).  The newscasters  (performers) engage in “happy talk” or office water cooler type conversations to  engage the viewers, so disparaging the election process might very well be nothing more than a benign effort to relate to the viewers.

      So for me, who grew up watching guys like Cronkite and Brinkley, the issue is more of blurring the lines of straight news and commentary. Maybe I’m just getting old, but with the advent of cable news, Fox, the Becks and the Limbaughs, we have a generation that doesn’t know the difference.

  5. that election seasons in this country are way the hell too long. It’s a waste of everything: money, time, effort, energy. They’re now endless. Electoral campaigns have merged with issue campaigns. Where does the silly “Obamacare health care choice” campaign end and the Buck for Senate campaign begin? Elections should be confined to three months and paid for by the public with limited but free air time.

    America has become an Eastern Bloc style nation in that everyone sees a problem — health care, oil dependency, campaign finance, wall street abuses, arcane senate rules, etc etc– and no one can do anything to solve the problem.  

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