Blog-inspired TV turns political coverage into a horse race
When I was a journalism student in college, it was common to debate how bad political campaign coverage was, how it routinely turned serious issues into a horse race, and how we could do better when we got the chance.
Keep in mind, that was almost 30 years and seven presidential campaigns ago, and things are as bad now as ever out on the campaign trail. In fact, if anything, it's worse.
The quality of political coverage on TV this season has been appalling. Not that I have ever expected anyone but PBS' "NewsHour" to actually deal with substantive stands and parse speeches, but this year pundits on the major broadcast and cable networks have offered little more than flawed polls and political invective. Typical has been Tucker Carlson's hearsay attributing to John McCain aides this line on Mitt Romney: "Republican voters aren't going to eat that dog food. They just don't like the way it tastes."
Things came most clearly to a head in an on-air clash between former NBC News lead anchor Tom Brokaw and current "Hardball" blowhard host Chris Matthews during MSNBC's coverage of the New Hampshire Primary.
Like many know-it-alls, Matthews was totally flummoxed by how badly the polls had predicted what turned out to be Hillary Clinton's victory, saying, "We're going to have to go back and figure out the methodology."
"You know what I think we're going to have to do?" Brokaw responded.
"Yes sir?" said the chastened schoolboy.
"Wait for the voters to make their judgment," Brokaw said. What an inspired idea. Deliver voters what they need to know to make an informed decision, allow them to form a consensus, and only then figure out who won and what it means.
"We don't have to get in the business of making judgments before the polls have closed and trying to stampede, in effect, the process," Brokaw added.
Matthews only came off as churlish when he argued the reductio ad absurdum: "Well, what do we do then in the days before the ballot? We must stay home, I guess."
For Matthews, if it's not a horse race, what is it? It's as if the man had never read any of the Greeks or even the Founding Fathers in "The Federalist Papers" on understanding the basic tenets of democracy.
Allow me to boast that newspapers, God love 'em, still attempt to provide substance, even if it doesn't pad circulation figures or advertising revenue. At this point in time, however, it's ridiculous to expect TV pundits to do the same, because they're so obsessed competing with the blogosphere.
It's all about hits and eyeballs, and for someone like Matthews, who doesn't have the ability to deal with anything substantive and make it matter, being obnoxiously captivating is all he has to fall back on.
He was in rare form that night of the New Hampshire primary, going on to address Sen. Clinton by boasting, "I'll be brutal. The reason she's a U.S. senator, the reason she's a candidate for president, the reason she may be a front-runner is her husband messed around. That's how she got to be senator from New York. We keep forgetting it. She didn't win there on her merit. She won because everyone felt, my God, this woman stood up under humiliation."
Within days, Matthews was backpedaling and apologizing, but that's what passes for insightful political comment on TV these days, and the reason is pundits feel they have to compete with the even more dismissive discourse on political blogs.
It's no wonder in the days that followed Matthews got what little support he had from the blogosphere. First, in a backhanded, ironic column for Salon under the headline "Chris Matthews is right," Glenn Greenwald wrote: "Matthews' response to Brokaw is perfect in several ways. The very idea of discussing issues, examining the candidates' positions, or even analyzing voter preferences does not and cannot even occur to Matthews. That -- the most elementary nuts and bolts of standard, healthy journalism -- is way, way beyond the scope of what our media stars are able to do or want to do."
Jack Shafer was more problematic on Slate in the column "In Praise of Horse-Race Coverage," arguing: "During an actual horse race, nobody wants to hear the announcer drone on about the ponies' dietary regimes. They want to know who's winning, who's gaining, who's in the thick of it, and who can be written off."
True, but horse races also aren't determined by who gets the most votes. If that were the case, the favorite would win every time.
The awful thing is that current NBC News anchor Brian Williams was probably correct in what he said while wiping egg off the media's collective face in New Hampshire: "Give us a few weeks, we'll promptly forget the lessons of this debacle in polling predictions and primary politics. We will all live to screw up another day, though our performance in New Hampshire will be hard to beat."
Oh, but it can be done. Just remember the media on Election Day in 2000, and hope nothing of the kind happens again this year -- or tonight for that matter.
In the air
Remotely interesting: Jim Lehrer heads PBS' Super Tuesday election coverage starting at 9 p.m. today on WTTW Channel 11. Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. plays host to "African American Lives 2," tracing the varied ancestry of remarkable blacks, at 9 p.m. Wednesday on Channel 11.
Lisa Dietlin is the new charity expert at WBBM Channel 2, contributing reports the first Sunday of the month to the 6 a.m. newscast.
End of the dial: Former WMAQ Channel 5 political reporter Dick Kay and, ahem, Jerry Springer do a post-mortem on the Super Tuesday races and coverage from the 6:45 a.m. sign-on to 11 a.m. Wednesday on progressive-talk WCPT 820-AM.
Gwen Macsai, host of Chicago Public Radio's "Re:sound," and "Outfront" senior producer Neil Sandell discuss "Secrets, Whispers and Lies: The Art of Personal Storytelling" in a presentation at 7 p.m. Wednesday at the Theater Building Chicago, 1225 W. Belmont Ave. Tickets are $15, $10 for CPR members.