The Shortcomings of Traditional Media in Covering Presidential Politics

Much has been said about the inaccuracies of blogs, Wikipedia, and other forms of collaborative intelligence. But traditional centralized institutions also have shortcomings. For example, a Nature magazine story reported that Wikipedia and Encyclopaedia Britannica are almost equally inaccurate.

We see similar shortcomings in coverage of the presidential race by centralized, conventional media outlets. I'll give two illustrations.

Presidential Fundraising Coverage: On Monday, April 2, 2007 the Washington Post ran a headline entitled, "Clinton Shatters Record for Fundraising," and described her totals as "record-setting." On Wednesday morning, April 4, American Public Media’s Marketplace (heard on many NPR stations) listed several candidates' totals so far, and reported Obama at $20 million (the 7:50 am show, at 6:26 into the program). Other traditional outlets made similar assumptions. Granted, many traditional media outlets noted that Obama had not released his numbers when they reported these stories (Marketplace failed to do so), and now many outlets are reporting that Obama may have raised over $25 million from twice as many people as Clinton without accepting money from lobbyists, and that his contributions for the primary may be higher than Clinton's. But Monday, April 2, the media didn't have the information to make sweeping claims.

Presidential Primary Coverage: Iowa and New Hampshire have led the schedule in past elections, but Nevada and South Carolina were added for 2008 to allow the schedule to better reflect the diversity of America. The new states have about the same number of delegates up for grabs as the old states (in 2004 NV & SC collectively had 69 delegates, and Iowa and NH had 67). The new states have also been integrated into the schedule. The new order is Iowa (1/14/08), Nevada (1/19), New Hampshire (1/22), South Carolina (1/29), and the "window opens" and other states may have contests (2/5).

But the traditional, centralized media seems to give much greater attention to the traditional states of Iowa and New Hampshire. I did a search in the "All News" Lexis/Nexis database for the name of the state and “(Edwards and Obama and Clinton) or (Giuliani and McCain and Romney) and date aft 12/31/06 and date bef 4/1/07.” The traditional states collectively had over twice as many stories as the new states (Iowa turned up in 2735 stories, New Hampshire 1947, South Carolina 1239, and Nevada 812).

I understand that the coverage disparity might not be caused exclusively by complacent, traditional campaign reporters who don't feel the need to look beyond their 2004 Rolodex of people, places, and political factions in Iowa and New Hampshire. Indeed, the schedules of the candidates could be facilitating the coverage disparity. But we've got a chicken-and-egg problem. The candidates are going to go to the states they think will be covered by the national media.

I'm not saying that reporters should stop covering Iowa and New Hampshire, and I'm not suggesting that reporters are intentionally discriminating against Nevada and South Carolina (or Southerners, Westerners, African Americans, or Latinos). And as an Obama supporter and a former member of the presidential primary commission that initiated the promotion of South Carolina and Nevada to the beginning of the schedule, I probably pay attention to these issues more than most Americans.

But it is important that traditional, centralized media outlets consiously make efforts to cover the money game and the primary process fairly and accurately. The money game and the early primary states both carry the potential for information cascades. In other words, primary contributors and voters around the nation base their opinions, in part, on the success of the candidates in fundraising cycles and in the early primary states. Perception of "success" is still largely framed by the traditional, centralized media.

Granted, centralized media outlets (as well as doctors and other professionals) are squeezed by corporate owners to cut costs, which can sometimes conflict with high professional standards. I also understand that traditional centralized media feel the competitive pressures of decentralized entities like blogs and You Tube that have minimal overhead and provide instantaneous, 24-hour, comprehensive, and customized "Long Tail" information.

But centralized media undermines its own future if it publishes misleading stories, relies not on facts but on conventional assumptions and information cascades (monkey see, monkey print), and props up status quo political forces.