THE NEW MATH: Sometimes journalists have problems with arithmetic–like the New York Times reporter (2/28/92) who noted that Bob Kerry had 8 percent in a poll and Jerry Brown “ranked next with 9 percent.”
More serious problems with arithmetic were apparent in the coverage of “Junior Tuesday.” On a day with six contests that produced four winners, the “Democratic presidential campaign moved decisively toward a two-man struggle,” according to a New York Times lead (3/4/92) that reflected the conventional media wisdom on the race. (USA Today, however, tagged the campaign “a muddle,” bemoaning the fact that voters hadn’t made up their minds yet.)
“FRONTRUNNERS”: Overwhelmingly, the media used Clinton’s single victory in Georgia and Tsongas’ two victories to vindicate the fact that they had been treating the race as a two-person contest since before New Hampshire. But what were the criteria media were using to designate front runners? In Georgia, Clinton won a regional contest that all other candidates had conceded to him. When Harkin did the same thing in Iowa, the win was completely discounted, not even making the front pages in most papers. Clinton lost another regional contest (Maryland), and in three of four non-regional contests scored unimpressively in the teens.
If it’s true that “news is the unexpected,” one of the biggest stories on Junior Tuesday should have been Brown’s victory in Colorado. And Harkin’s two wins, including Minnesota, the contest with the most delegates at stake, were legitimate events. Yet all these contests were covered as afterthoughts. The New York Times’ headline, “Kerrey and Harkin Lag in 3 Big Races as Brown Retains a Toehold,” summed up the media spin. To argue that Georgia and Maryland should have been given so much extra significance because the polls closed at a convenient time for media deadlines is not responsible.
WHO’S NARROWING THE FIELD?: Political reporters seem hellbent on narrowing the field, as if candidates are running against the media instead of each other. Journalists should ask themselves why a CBS/New York Times poll (3/2/92) shows that for each candidate, from half to three-quarters of the Democratic voters say they haven’t heard enough about the candidate to have an opinion. Are voters really rejecting candidates, or have they not been given a chance to do so because the media have decided that they’re marginal?
Editor: Jim Naureckas
Contributing Editors: Dean Baker, Steve Cobble
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