New Hampshire, The Horse Race, and The Sound Byte

The Nightly News Nightmare has provided much insight into how network television coverage of presidential elections has change since the rise of alternate forms of news, mainly cable news and the Internet. This part of the book focused largely on what they refer to as the horse race and the sound byte.

However, what really interested me is the importance of the New Hampshire primary. Being the first in the season, the candidates spend a disproportionally large amount of time canvassing the state. In fact, according to Farnsworth and Lichter, approximately 20 percent of registered voters will have at least seen one of the candidates in person before they vote in the primary. It is difficult to continue as a candidate if you do not do well in this primary. In order to be seen as viable by donors, which are clearly necessary in order to continue as a candidate, a first or second place finish is necessary. It seems strange that one state should wield so much power. New Hampshire narrows the field from a crowded six or seven candidates for each party to two, possibly three major contenders that will compete in the rest of the primaries across the country. I suppose that someone has to go first, however, it seems as if we trust a small state with the very large task of significantly narrowing our field of presidential contenders.

But back to the horse race. One of the problems that Farnsworth and Lichter feel with network news coverage is their obsession with the horse race coverage of who is leading in which polls. The thing about this is that it is completely worthless. If the polls show a candidate is doing well, but he performs poorly in a primary contest, his campaign will likely suffer because of the artificial perception that the media created that he was going to win. The opposite is also true. If a candidate is trailing in the polls, but wins a primary by a landslide, the increased media coverage after this could create the appearance of an increase in support, when in actuality, the support was always there, the media was just wrong.

I do not necessarily think that reporting on polls is a bad thing. What seems to be the problem is that it is the media’s favorite thing to report on, and because of this, issue based reporting suffers. The citizens repeatedly say that what they want is issue based reporting. And alternative media shows this. Shows where citizens can call in and ask candidates questions, or debates in the town hall style continually feature more issue-based questions. What are you going to do for me? How are you going to increase my standard of living? What are you going to do to protect my city? Instead of questions about draft dodging, a 25-year-old DUI arrest, whether they ever smoked pot, and who designs their suites.

Network news has gotten better. The two elections in the new millennium have featured slightly more coverage of issues compared to the other elections since the introduction of cable news. However, there are still signs. Many more Americans choose newspapers, cable news shows, talk radio, and the Internet as their main means of getting information on the elections. The question of how long the nightly news can survive is complicated because there will always be people who only do not have access to anything else. If I live on a farm in the middle of Illinois, I probably can’t get the New York Times, cable TV, or the Internet. This leaves over the air broadcasts. For this reason I do not think the question is about longevity, but credibility.

The other thing addressed is the sound byte. The nightly news has reduced candidates to an average of an eight second sound byte. If they speak longer than eight seconds, they risk not receiving coverage at all. As Farnsworth and Lichter put it, “Expressing an idea, even a relatively simple one, in eight seconds or less is a considerable challenge. The standard television commercial, which usually has a single, simple message along the lines of “buy these pants,” uses twenty to thirty seconds to make its case—about three to four times as much times as a presidential candidate has to say “here is why you should vote for me.”” We spend more time hearing about the merits of a pair of jeans than the merits of our leaders. Clearly, this is a problem. However, until journalists care less about advancing themselves personally with mindless commentary, the nightly news will continue to provide the candidates with eight-second intervals to speak with the electorate.

I plan to finish The Nightly News Nightmare and move on to Political Parties, Interest Groups, and Political Campaigns. I have not made any progress on finding an archive of print or button ads.