|
Big Media
The Winner Take All Media: the Fourth Estate Sells Out
by Steven Hill
The following is an excerpt from Steven Hill's new book, Fixing Elections: The Failure of America's Winner Take All Politics (Routledge Press, www.FixingElections.com).
"And a people who mean to be their own governors, must arm themselves with the power that knowledge brings."
-- James Madison
In a mass democratic society where millions of people ostensibly take part in voting and governance, unbiased information is the lifeblood. Without clear, accurate and reliable information, collective decision-making becomes disjointed and breaks down. Thus American media organizations are one of the Archimedean fulcrums on which the health of our political system pivots, akin to a feedback loop of an organism's immune system. If the feedback loop goes awry, if the information received is tainted, flawed or incomplete, then the organism misdiagnoses or reacts inappropriately, perhaps even dangerously.
Taking a look at the state of our media today, we see a system that routinely ignores messages, and indeed bars political candidates that are judged by editorial boards and TV producers to be non-viable, even if those candidates have sound ideas and legitimate credentials. In the process, voters are robbed of opportunities to hear stimulating political debate, since they only hear from the media's anointed candidates.
"The editor wanted me to drop out of the race."
When Carol Miller decided to run for Congress in 1998 from the third congressional district in New Mexico, she felt she was fulfilling a public service. Miller had spent much of her adult life as an advocate for health issues, particularly for the inhabitants who lived in the sparse rural areas of northern New Mexico where she lived. Miller had seen the issue from many angles. She had been a Commissioned Officer in the U.S. Public Health Service, appointed in the Reagan Administration, and an appointee to the White House to serve full-time on Hillary Clinton's Health Care Task Force. She had been a lobbyist inside the "hall of mirrors" of Washington D.C., dedicated to keeping underfunded local health clinics open in the poorest, smallest communities. Running for Congress seemed like a logical step as part of her advocacy work for health care on behalf of the rural poor.
But instead of running as a Democrat, which had been her political affiliation since the mid-1980s, in a congressional district that had elected Democrats like Bill Richardson for the past 20 years, Miller decided to run as a Green Party candidate. Frustrated with what she had seen from the Democratic Party as a lobbyist and as a health-care advocate -- under Clintonism "health care for all" had gone from being a central part of the Democratic Party platform since Truman to barely a footnote -- Miller forsook her Democratic roots and ran on the firmer principles of the Green Party.
"The Democratic Party had sold out," she says. "I watched them sell out, throughout the '90s. It turned my stomach."
Miller met enthusiastic supporters wherever she went in her district. "People seemed overjoyed to have another choice, for a change," she says. "The Democrats had taken so many people for granted for so long." The one place where she did not always find a warm welcome was from the media. After winning a remarkable 17 percent of the vote as a Green Party candidate in a 1997 special election to fill a congressional vacancy in her district, many claimed that Miller's votes had caused the Democratic candidate to lose a close race. So when she ran again in November 1998, the broadcast and print media of New Mexico closed ranks and excluded Carol Miller from congressional campaign news. In fact, they tried as hard as they could to pretend the campaign wasn't happening.
Why? Here was an accomplished, articulate, respected public servant spending her own time and money and those of her supporters in an effort to emphasize issues of health care, the rural poor, grazing rights that were hurting agriculture, native treaty rights, and other issues important to her northern New Mexico district. Already she had demonstrated a degree of electoral viability by pulling 17 percent of the vote in a special election. And the media was acting like she was some sort of pariah.
"So I called up a somewhat friendly editor of the local daily newspaper, the New Mexican," says Miller. "And I asked him: why aren't you guys covering my campaign? I almost wish he hadn't told me."
The editor told her the campaign was not being covered because he was supporting her Democratic opponent. "He wanted me to drop out of the race." The only coverage she would be "allowed" was one op-ed. But when Miller wrote the op-ed, the editor then informed her that he had received it a couple of hours too late for the deadline and refused to print it. Yet this was a daily newspaper with deadlines every day.
"My teeth nearly dropped out of my jaw when he told me that," says Miller. "It shattered what little faith I had left in the free press, so-called." Editorial boards of the state's two largest newspapers, the Albuquerque Journal and Albuquerque Tribune refused to meet with Miller for an endorsement hearing in 1998, saying they hadn't been asked on time. But Miller's staff records show phone calls made early and often, requesting the meetings. What was particularly odd was that both of these newspapers had previously endorsed Miller in 1997 for the special election. But after her 17 percent showing apparently had spoiled the electoral outcome for these newspapers -- and for the Democratic Party -- they refused even to grant her the courtesy of an endorsement interview.
Miller's experience as a third party candidate is not uncommon. Every election cycle, hundreds and sometimes thousands of independent candidates as well as third party candidates from the Libertarian, Reform, Green, Working Families and Natural Law Parties run in races all across the country, fighting an uphill battle with a lack of resources. But what's even more damaging to their efforts is the lack of media coverage. In 2000, the Libertarian Party ran more than 1430 candidates nationwide. They fielded candidates in 255 of the 435 House races, as well as 25 of the 33 U.S. Senate seats up for election, the first time in eighty years that a third party has contested a majority of the seats in Congress.
A Pattern of Exclusion
Yet an informal e-mail survey of Libertarian Party candidates revealed an appalling pattern of exclusionary treatment at the hands of the media, particularly television broadcasters and daily newspapers. Libertarian candidates were routinely excluded from media campaign coverage, televised debates, and editorial board interviews, with reasons that ran the gamut from "sorry, we don't cover third parties, it's just our standard policy" to a cavalier "maybe next time." For instance, in Colorado's sixth congressional district race the daily newspapers printed dozens of daily reports about the Democratic and Republican candidates day after day, but found not a single column inch for any third party alternatives. In New Hampshire, the state's largest newspaper not only gave zero campaign coverage to the Libertarian Party's candidate for U.S. Senate, but also the editorial page editor kept postponing publication of an op-ed from the candidate (a tactic similar to that foisted on Carol Miller). In Seattle, KING 5 TV and KIRO Radio 710, two of Washington state's largest media outlets, excluded Libertarian Jeff Jared from broadcasted U.S. Senatorial debates, even though Jared arguably was the kingmaker in the race; his vote totals ultimately spoiled the tight race for the Republican incumbent, Sen. Slade Gorton.
In Ohio, the Dayton Daily News listed all candidates running in various elections, but refused even to mention any third party candidate. When the Libertarian Party candidate called and asked for an explanation, he was informed, "We are only including Republicans and Democrats, because they are the only ones with a fighting chance of winning." In Pennsylvania, the Knight-Ridder owned Centre Daily Times refused even to accept paid advertisement from the Libertarian Party candidates, specifically $4600 for about a dozen political advertisements which touted Libertarian candidates as well as prison reform and medical marijuana. In New Hampshire, the Libertarian Party's candidate for governor in 2000 was excluded from all debates, both televised and in public, and during one event when he tried to protest his exclusion he was escorted out by the state police. The specter of law enforcement officials silencing political candidates should give anyone pause, regardless how non-viable the candidate is or what one may think of their opinions.
The smaller, alternative weekly press tends to be somewhat better than the dailies and the TV broadcasters. But the public broadcasting stations, both television and radio, despite their broader mandate to be a public resource, can be just as rigid as the for-profit media. They routinely snubbed third party candidates and excluded them from debates. In Iowa, the public broadcast station chose to bar a Natural Law Party congressional candidate from their televised debates because he was not considered "newsworthy." A PBS station in Illinois, WILL-TV, barred a Libertarian Party candidate because, he was told, "it would be too confusing for the voters." NETV public television in Omaha, Nebraska hosted a congressional debate for Nebraska's second district -- a strongly Republican district that the Democratic candidate could not possibly hope to win -- and barred the Libertarian Party candidate. In recent years, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Arkansas Educational TV v. Forbes that a public broadcast station can legally bar certain candidates from participating in a debate, prompting many First Amendment supporters to ask, "What happened to the 'public' in the Public Broadcasting System?"
The media's ostensible reasons for these exclusions vary, but most often the reason cited is that these candidates are not viable -- they can't win. But as research from the Center for Voting and Democracy has demonstrated, gerrymandered legislative districts resulting from the redistricting process ensure that most races across the country are safe seats for incumbents of one major party. Most races are not competitive for either the Democratic or Republican candidate either, and if viability truly were the criteria for coverage the media would only cover the obvious winner in each race. But they don't do that; in every district across the country both Republicans and Democrats receive most of the media coverage, however locked up the seat and whether or not the challenging Republican or Democrat has a chance. Only the independent candidates and minor party candidates are excluded.
What can we conclude from such a persistent pattern? It would seem that most TV producers, editors and reporters are in the thrall of a sometimes unconscious and other times appallingly conscious loyalty to the two party system. Yet because they also see themselves as having a warm and fuzzy affinity for some Jeffersonian vision of the free press, and perhaps some journalistic standards of objectivity, they cannot come right out and say they are card-carrying members of the duopoly. So they concoct their transparent ruse: "We don't cover these candidates because they can't win."
A Classic Catch-22
The media's dissembling can reach absurd levels. In 2000, Medea Benjamin, a Green Party candidate for the U.S. Senate in California, was being shut out by the California media in typical fashion. Like Carol Miller, Benjamin was an articulate, respected and accomplished public servant, executive director of a $4.5 million nonprofit organization called Global Exchange with over 40 employees that was respected around the world and in the halls of governments for its education and advocacy work regarding the impacts of globalization on the Third World. Her organization had spearheaded the high-profile, anti-sweatshop campaign against Nike and other corporations, and prior to her Senate campaign Benjamin had appeared regularly on major national media, including the Lehrer NewsHour, ABC, NBC, CBS and CNN news shows. She also was frequently quoted by California media like the Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle and various National Public Radio affiliates. In other words, Benjamin was a public personality, a visible leader, and a credible candidate. Her campaign raised several hundred thousand dollars, she knew the issues, excited audiences wherever she went, and already was familiar to major media outlets and numerous reporters. But she was unprepared for the media blackout that she was about to experience.
"We tried everything," she says. "When some reporters told us to do a bus tour like all the major candidates do today, we did that, traveling up and down the state. But still they didn't cover us. We jumped through lots of hoops for very little."
Benjamin was told by one San Francisco Chronicle political reporter that his newspaper wasn't covering her campaign because "you haven't bought any TV ads" -- their sole measure of viability. Benjamin asked -- and then demanded, even to the point of committing civil disobedience in the lobby of the television station -- to be included in the televised debates sponsored by KRON-TV between her two opponents, incumbent Senator Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat, and Republican Congressman Tom Campbell. All the polls showed Feinstein with a huge lead over Campbell, at least 60-40, so Campbell's campaign was not viable either, he had no more a chance of winning as Benjamin. But he was included in the televised debates -- Feinstein couldn't very well debate herself. When Benjamin's campaign asked why she was being excluded, KRON-TV officials had a different line than the Chronicle's. They told her that the Senate debates were applying a standard similar to that used by the commission running the presidential debates, which invite only candidates polling above a certain percentage in public opinion polls. That might have seemed somewhat credible, except for one problem. The Field Poll, the state's most prominent voter survey, as well as other California pollsters, had not even included Benjamin in their opinion polls. It was a classic Catch-22.
"They kept moving the goal posts," says Benjamin. "First -- not viable. Then -- no bus tour. Finally -- no TV ads. It became obvious that no matter what we did, they would find more excuses. It was very discouraging."
Unlike Benjamin, the Libertarian Party candidate for U.S. Senate in Massachusetts actually did buy television ads. The "Carla Howell for Senate" campaign spent hundreds of thousands of dollars for approximately 80 television ads on CBS, NBC and ABC affiliates. They spent another $100,000 on radio ads all over the state, including major stations like WBZ, and $25,000 more on movie screen ads that previewed before major motion pictures on 29 screens for four weeks. According to the campaign, they posted over 10,000 yard signs, had 721 volunteers, and raised and spent $820,000. They used a pollster, a slick web site, paid staff, and many other hallmarks of a modern-day professional campaign.
The Republican Party candidate, meanwhile, had few volunteers, no yard signs, and raised only $100,000, too little to prevent his campaign staff from eventually quitting. The Republican campaign was nearly invisible, with little support from the national or state Republican Party organizations because they knew they had an impossible job -- unseating Ted Kennedy from his seeming birthright as Massachusetts Senator. Nevertheless, a Lexus-Nexis search reveals that the Republican Party candidate received five to six times the coverage the Libertarian Party candidate received from daily newspapers and television broadcasters.
Apparently even when a third party candidate outspends and out-organizes a major party candidate, and is no more nor less viable, still the Winner Take All media marginalizes the third party effort. It is as reflexive as breathing for the media loyalists of the duopoly. Despite the obstacles, Carla Howell finished within one percentage point of the Republican Party candidate.
The Perils of "Bottom Line" Journalism
The railroading of articulate and highly-qualified candidates like Benjamin, Miller, and Howell is a great loss for our democracy, as well as a great loss for voters. Lacking news coverage of a range of political viewpoints, voters do not have the opportunity to hear from candidates who may excite them or bring fresh new ideas into the political arena. Is it any wonder that voters are so turned off to politics, with the media ignoring fresh political alternatives, the campaigns substituting poll-tested blandness for real stances, and the resulting dearth of stimulating political debate?
In fact, the Winner Take All media's refusal to cover political alternatives should be reasonably viewed as an in-kind donation -- an independent expenditure -- to the Democrats' and Republicans' campaigns, subject to campaign finance disclosure laws. As it is, the disturbingly tight relationship between the Winner Take All media and the Democrats and Republicans is crushing all political dissent and opposition in a way that is not altogether different from the relationship between the Soviet Politburo and its communist propaganda machines. In fact, a highly respected British think tank, the Electoral Reform Society, observing American elections in 1998, noted this cozy relationship between the American media and the duopoly. Their report, called "State of American Democracy," found that "the media pays little if any attention to third party or independent candidates...On all counts, the voter is restricted in the number and diversity of ideas expressed to him or her, thus negatively impacting the quality of representation a voter receives...A vicious cycle is created, alternative parties cannot get their message to the voters, and the voters cannot expand their limited options."
Clearly, the American political system is badly in need of some kind of perestroika -- an "opening up" -- of the Winner Take All media. But where is the American Gorbachev who will cast off his "Winner Take All eyes" and pave the way?
Steven Hill is author of the groundbreaking new book, Fixing Elections: The Failure of America's Winner Take All Politics. He is executive director of the Center for Voting and Democracy and can be contacted at shill@fairvote.org.
comment on this article >
back to top ^
|
