Stop the Press! It’s the Free Publicity, STUPID!

[FrenchieCat]

I often wonder why there are only three Democratic presidential Candidates being discussed 24/7 by the media, day in day out; Hillary Clinton, Barak Obama, and John Edwards. Anyone who watches the news would dare think that there are no other candidates running! But yet, Joe Biden, Dennis Kucinich, Chris Dodd, Bill Richardson, Tom Vilsak, and that guy Gravel are running too.

Ditto on the Repug side. You hear about Giuliani, McCain and Romney. You don’t hear about much at all from Brownback (who?) Or Duncan Hunter (what?). Hell, they may have others running, but my point is...I have no clue as to who they are.

So why do we only hear about the “popular” three 90% of the time, while one or two of the others are mentioned maybe 10% alternatively?

What it is about those top three in either party that makes them so popular?
It’s the Free Publicity, Stupid!

Yes sir, free publicity is what any political candidate lives for and sometimes dies from. It can elevate one’s name recognition to household level, which in turn will automatically make one poll higher (cause who wants to say that they will vote for the candidate they don’t know anything much about or one that they rarely hear about). Higher poll results then turns into more press buzz, which will, by Gawd, bring in the money needed to run a campaign.

And what does one do in large part with enormous money gained by contributions to one’s campaign? Well in large part.....one buys air time for paid advertising. And with California now in play, we are talking about obscene amounts of money!

So who receives the advertising dollars? The same media who allocates the free publicity.

Yes they decide.....those 5 media conglomerate. We are talking about (1)Time-Warner (owns CNN, Time Magazine, other numerous publications and partners with (2) Disney (who owns ABC, ESPN, and countless radio stations), (3) General Electric (owns NBC, CNBC, MSNBC, Telemundo TV, Universal Studios and partners with the Washington Post who also owns Newsweek and the Gazettes publications), (4) Rupert Murdock/News Corp. (Fox TV, Fox affiliates, The Sun Newspaper chain, Harper Collins, Times Newspapers, etc...), and (5) Viacom (who owns CBS, MTV, Paramount, Simon&Schuster publishing and Infiniti Broadcasting).

How do they choose? That, I am unsure of. Sometimes it may be because one is newsworthy. One might say something earth shattering, or one might be a “first” in reference to the candidate race, or one might be someone the corporate media is “comfortable” with; or one might be too qualified and perfect for the position and the media is compelled to promote such (yeah...right!).

Or maybe, the media has its own plans. Plans that they will make apparent at some point. Because as we all should know, the media doesn’t play favorites for nothing. There’s usually a catch.

What I do know is that this publicity game played by the corporate media and the candidates is undemocratic. It is so, because it only allows us to know information about the candidates who are constantly reported on....the others, not so much.

So just remember the next time you are wondering who to choose as a candidate to support, that what begins as never ending Free publicity one day, may be never-ending negative Free Publicity the next. Just ask Howard Dean. He’ll tell you about never-ending free publicity and how it affected his campaign.

Sources:
Media Ownership- Does it Matter?
http://www.lirne.net/resources/netknowledge/meier.pdf
1996 article - Merger Mania in the Media: Can We Still Get All the News We Need?
http://www.scu.edu/ethics/publications/iie/v7n1/mediacon.html
Media as Big Businesses
http://faculty.washington.edu/baldasty/JAN11.htm
Who owns What
http://www.cjr.org/tools/owners/
What you can do
http://www.mediademocracyday.org/tiki-index.php?page=What+is+Media+Democracy

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0305/29/cf.00.html
CrossFire Interview with Ralph Nader, Fred Smith
aired May 29, 2003 - 16:30 ET

NADER: It's amazing. What he keeps ignoring, you can have 1,000 channels and a 1,000 radio stations. But five major corporate conglomerates run by five men make those decisions. By the way, I'm amazed. Don't you believe that you are part owner of the public airways? This isn't a market situation.

NOVAK: Let me address your contention that there's no difference between the corporate entities. I feel constrained with pounding Fox. Fox is a competitor of -- and Mr. Murdoch is a competitor of this network. Paul and I are both paid by AOL-TIME Warner, which owns CNN, WB Network, HBO, Cinemax, TBS, TNT, 64 magazines, including "TIME- LIFE" and, "People Warner" books, "Little Brown," "TIME-LIFE" books. Now, why is there no attack being made on AOL-TIME Warner, is it because people of your ilk don't consider it conservative and they do consider Murdoch conservative?

NADER: No, we criticize all conglomerate rats.

NOVAK: I don't see a commercial on AOL-Time Warner?

NADER: Wait, you can see the more control of more radio stations all over the country and TV stations, the fewer local reporters, the less local news on radio and more music being dictated by companies like Clear Channel.

NOVAK: You don't see a difference between AOL-TIME Warner and Fox?

You don't see a difference?
NADER: Tweedle Dumb, Tweedle Dee.

BEGALA: The CEO of our company was a Bush appointer to a commission on social security that called for dismantling social security. The CEO of G.E. tried to influence the election night reporting over at NBC. I mean, this is across the board these five corporate conglomerates do exercise a lot of political influence.


SPECIAL NOTE:

General Electric also owns:

GE Aircraft Engines

GE Commercial Finance

GE Consumer Products

GE Industrial Systems

GE Insurance

GE Medical Systems

GE Plastics

GE Power Systems

GE Specialty Materials

GE Transportation Systems
http://www.cjr.org/tools/owners/ge.asp

[loyalsister]

1. The problem with your thesis is this

Part of being a good candidate is having the ability to get the attention of the press.
Hillary is well aware of the fact that a contributing strength to her candidacy is the inevitable fascination of the press with her unique candidacy.
Obama is the first truly viable candidate of color. And the first who has lived such an international life. It engages the press. He has a young family who are bound to interest them as well.
Edwards' does a pretty good job getting their attention. although he screws it up occassionally, too.
The other candidates just have not been able to grab the attention of the press.

Richardson was on to something with the Darfur trip. But, haven't heard any big splashes since.

What else can you do with a bunch of generic white guys who are doing nothing to distinguish themselves? They aren't interested in writing and rewriting the clone candidacies of every year until now.

What has Kucinish done that is not utterly predictable based on his history?

The press go where the interesting stories are. A candidate who makes themself into an interesting story gets the free coverage and the advantage.

[rodeodance]

2. i think the media wants a limit----makes life easier for them

[FrenchieCat]

5. I disagree with what you say here.....

Part of being a good candidate is having the ability to get the attention of the press."

It's the "who" decides what is good that you are ignoring.

"Grabbing" attention entails what, exactly?
Standing upside down on your head in the snow, in the middle of Winter?

I gave some of what you stated as examples of possibly why candidate X gets more reportage and not Candidate Z, i.e., being a 1st of sorts (Obama is not a first, however) as a possible reasons...but I still believe that it is too subjective a matter and what I hear from you is just a way of rationalizing and covering the media's ass for them.

Biden could get much more coverage as the chairman of the Foreign relations committee in a time of war, but he doesn't. Bill Richardson is Hispanic (which is a first) and qualified up to the yang-yang...and yet, to date, he's not made as big a splash as I believe he could....because, as I said, at the end of the day, you and I don't get to decide. The media does.

In reality what have Obama, Clinton and Edwards really "done" that would warrant the type of attention they get? Obama went on a book Tour, and gives nice speeches and is Black? Does that really justify the 24/7 media above at the cost of many of the others? You see, I don't think so, and I am not the only one. There should be room for broad Free publicity coverage for all, even if some get a bit more than the others...but as it is, it is ridiculous and near obscene in how it is all targeted towards the few.

If you don't understand what I am saying, then you are part of the problem that assists the media in tearing down our democracy by providing justification and saying somehow, it's just the way that it is based on "good" reasons. In otherwords, you choose to deny all of the sources that I have provided that state clearly that media conglomeration is never good for Democracy.

Maybe your preferred candidate is one of those in the top three. If that's the case, then maybe this is why you choose not to grasp the point I make in my op......although you most likely understand exactly what it is that I have stated.

[loyalsister]

6. The "it" happens to be people

Journalists cover what interests them. They don't after a Biden story because they sit and review the tapes and see that he is a talking points guy who never seems to change his tune.
Who wants to report a story that has already been reported over and over again?

Say they film all speaking events?
Would it be "fair" to show the contrast in turnout and excitment, or is it better that viewers assume they all have their fans and this guy just cought them on the right day?

They naturally want to go where the positive upward action is. That is where things like the scream happen.

BTW: This whining ignores the real problems you pointed out.

[FrenchieCat]

7. You can justify the 5 conglemorates if you want....

It is afterall your choice.

Me, I don't get a choice.

But thanks for playing.

Whining is also relative.

[loyalsister]

8. You were talking about conglomerates

I was talking about something you did not address
Thanks for playing.

[Jai4WKC08]

9. "Who wants to report a story that has already been reported over and over again?"

You're joking, right?

[loyalsister]

22. Do you know any young journalists?

I know several who are actually in Journalism school. They want to go where there is actually something new or interesting happening. "NEWS"

A story about white guy like Biden or Vilsack running for president is tandard stuff. A lackluster white male senator or governor running for president.

Kucinich never says anything that isn't predictable. There is no story in any of those three. Bill Richardson hasn't veered off the path of what one might expect from a candidate who senses he is on the second tier. He's good and solid but never daring and sadly never shakes anything up.

[Jai4WKC08]

24. Irrelevant to the topic (for a couple reasons)

To begin with, what you describe only supports my contention that no one cares whether they are reporting the same thing as everyone else. You may justify the phenomenon by saying guys like Biden and Vilsack (and pretty much everyone but Obama and Clinton) don't deserve the coverage, but the fact remains they still don't get it.

What's relevant in my opinion is that you and I might think candidate X, Y, and Z are too uninteresting to bother with, but if we (and by "we" I mean the voting public, not just on-line activists... not that we're better, but we do tend to inform ourselves) never get to hear them, how do we decide who's interesting? Instead, the media decides for us. And the decision itself becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy, because all we have to go on is the what the media feeds us, and we have no interest in what or whom we know nothing about.

And more to the point of my previous post, because the media decides what or who is interesting, what happens instead is that they ALL end up reporting on Obama or Clinton, and pretty much the exact same things about them, over and over again, because there's just only so much there there to fill a 24/7 news media.

Maybe if the big media were more interested in investigative reporting, hunting down new stories and trying to get a real scoop (instead of something silly like being the first with a different video of the latest dead blonde), it might be different. But that sort of thing is expensive, and risky (look at CBS and Dan Rather), and the news is just another part of entertainment anyway, and not a particularly profitable one, so why bother? They go with what's cheap, easy, and safe, and it all comes out vanilla.

It's also irrelevant, I think, to talk about what "young journalists" want. Young journalists (or older ones either, for that matter) don't make the decisions on what or whom the public gets to see. Except for journalists who freelance, they are assigned stories by their producers (or editors, depending on the medium), and whether they freelance or not, they must make those producers/editors happy if they want to get their stuff on air or published. I suspect the pressure to please the producer/editor is even greater for the freelancers.

The question raised is, where do the producers and editors get their marching orders? Do they rely solely on their own sense of what the audience wants? Or are they pushing an agenda? There is no doubt whatsoever in my mind that Fox News, right-wing talk shows, the Wash Times, NY Post etc have an agenda. I think it's naive to believe that the GE-, Viacom-, Time/Warner-, Disney-, etc-owned media outlets don't have their own. Lord knows they seem to when it comes time to pony up for political campaigns.

[loyalsister]

26. Some do have a RW agenda

To assume ALL do is more than a little extreme.

Journalists learn how to work a beat, find and pitch a story. If it isn't interesting to the editor it is not going to be produced or given space. Yes the people at the top have veto power, etc. But there are reporters who learn how to pitch their stories, to guage what the public might find interesting, etc.

Investigative reporting is for things that are hidden. Candidates are in plain view.

Candidates are in plain view, they just need to make themselves interesting.
I never said they didn't "deserve" coverage, I just said they hadn't done anything particularly newsworthy.

Before they run for their first office, most Candidates receive training in how to get the attention of the press. Apparently Obama still remembers. The guys who have been there for a long time have forgotten or feel a sense of entitlement- that the press should just come to them because they exist.

Pick the candidate you want, but hating someone who gets a lot of media coverage isn't entirely rational considering that a person who is good at getting media coverage during the primary probably will be during the general as well.

[BootinUp]

13. its mostly about money. Money interests them.

[Pilgrim4Progress]

3. Self-fulfilling prophecy

The media has created the Hillary phenomenon. They haven't stopped speculating about her for the last couple of years. If they all say is that she's the front runner and do stories & commentaries about her enough, then the folks who don't spend much time on politics don't ever hear of alternatives.

It's the same media that give us Anna Nicole Smith 24/7 (no disrespect to the woman intended), while soldiers are dying every day. Where's the coverage of each of their lives?

If someone could calculate the cost of the free media. . .

Given all the media Hillary gets anyway, it's beyond me why she needs such an obscene amount of money beyond that.

Frankly, I'm old enough to remember the "equal time" era. Would love to see each candidate get the same amount of free media. . .

Sigh. . .

[beaconess]

20. Sen. Clinton is a former first lady who is running for president

That IS interesting - she is not a media creation or even a media darling. She's a fascinating story.

It's not all one big conspiracy.

[Adelante]

4. "one day, may be never-ending negative Free Publicity"

Truer words were never spoken.

[FrenchieCat]

10. It's as I said......in the op

"free publicity is what any political candidate lives for and sometimes dies from."

[Pithy Cherub]

11. Let me tell you a story... Corporate news uses one template

and the same one size fits all resources. The corporate mainstream press uses their resources in a narrow limited way thereby ensuring the killing of two dodo birds with one dumb rock.

Let's review how newsrooms amd bureaus are staffed. Usually a generalist - they are living high if there is something called an investigative unit within 500 miles - so they have a over-reliance on wire services that have the same resource constraints. They parse the wire stories everyday seeing if there is a story that can be told in pictures or guarantee directing traffic there way. It's why nespapers drive what is said on TV. T

That means the efficient way to decide how to allocate resources is seeing how little cash can be used to the greatest effect. Original reporting is "outsourced" and networks need pictures. TV Pictures are expensive because its another crew member salary plus expenses. Flipside of the same coin is revenue or income. Politics sucks cash out and ratings decrease killing a cashflow cow. If politics on TV could have an Anna Nicole equivalent well that increases the number of eyeballs which increase the chargeable ad rates over a sustained period that allows them to charge the highest possible rate for the longest period of time.

Now, there are 10 candidates each side. The news people have approximately 3 or so seasoned reporters. They look at the polls and then say with pompous justification this is where the people's interests are and our "regular" reporters will cover these. The rest have to fend for themselves as they don't have poll numbers that justify discussion. So, they discuss what the polls say thereby justifying that they are discussing what the people picked - see the polls. This is a very chicken and egg thing that will turn into fried chicken and an omlet only when the case can be made for revenue being produced by candidates upsetting the dynamic. Case in point bling bling or money attracts coverage so if a candidate is seen as attracting eyeballs then it serves the dual purpose.

This is a condensed view of what happens as the bottom line dictates how resources are allocated to handle the things that affect our lives. :puke:

[BootinUp]

12. In the case of the early leaders

the money came first, then the media buzz, then more money then the ad buys then the selectee is selected.

[FrenchieCat]

14. I disagree in what comes first.....

The Buzz comes first (see Obama Book Tour/Oprah), then the money, then more buzz, then poll numbers, then more buzz, then the media buys by the selectees selected....usually more than one, cause if there's no competition, then there's no need to advertise.

Even Hillary was getting Buzz as far back as 2003. The money was there for the pick up once the buzz had been whispered into the ears.

[BootinUp]

17. I concede in one way

that the money may not be in the coffers as Jai put it. But its not hard to see who will have it easy bringing in the early cash.

[Jai4WKC08]

15. I dunno Jim

The media has been hovering around a possible Hillary Clinton run since, well, 2002 or so. I don't know that she had all that much money back then, altho certainly the potential to raise it.

Likewise, how much money did Obama have in his senate race coffers before "people" started talking him up for a potential presidential run?

Maybe I'm wrong. I haven't checked the FEC reports. But I do get this feeling that something starts the buzz. Whether it's the media or whether the media just picks it up is hard to say, but they absolutely make it happen from the point they get into the act. And more importantly, they decide whose buzz goes nowhere.

[BootinUp]

16. Well

I don't really wanna debate against my fellow Clarkies tonight...

OK, you forced me. <G>

Obama is elected to the Senate.

Connections, influence, money, its there baby.

I'm a man of few words. :)

[Donna Zen]

18. That's the way the game is played

Want a war? Need to swiftboat someone? Want to pretend to have a primary?

Those are jobs for the MSM. Absolutely.

[FrenchieCat]

19. Nice sum up! And unfortunately some pick and choose in what they

"think" they are having an actual say about. I've got news for them on that.....but I ain't no newspaper...so I guess I'm not a reliable source! :(

[saracat]

21. Obama and Edwards are telegenic. Hillary is a legend and a woman

This is NOT a conspiracy folks but networks and cable selling soap, so to speak.The reporters cover the interesting stories. I have freelanced as a TV journalist and these are the people I would cover. I was once forced to cover Kucinich in 2004 at a time I would have much rather covered Edwards, but there ya go.Dennis was not good for TV.
I have always said, if a candidate does something interesting , they'll get press. If a candidate has charisma, like Clinton, they'll get press.But just running for office doesn't warrent coverage as it doesn't sell soap! That is why smart pols stage "photo ops".The candidate who gets covered has to "create' his own coverage!And the ones with charisama who know how to "create" news about themselves often win!

[FrenchieCat]

23. Ok.....so none of what I said is so.....

Fine. Go for it! :eyes:

John Kerry has a few story he could tell you.

[saracat]

25. No there are elements of truth to your post.It is largely a corporate controlled media

but many times choices in story coverage are based on the simplistic reasoning of who will sell more soap. The corporations need to use the air time to benefit themselves and often the candidate whp proves the "eyeballs" as another poster called it gets the coverageAnd yes, sometimes it is the preess that "manufacters the story" as in the "Dean Scream". You have to admit, many people were facinated with that fabrication.Right now "Obama Rock Star " is the fabricated srtory of choice. That one is a media fabrication that the candidate is escalating. (And no I don't dislikee Obama for it.It is what a candidate shoud do.)Edwards tried to control the media with his announcement of his bid from NOLA and he got better than expected results on a weekend an ex-president died.
Hillary is in the enviable position of "always being "news" because of her past position and gender.But in her case that might not be as beneficial as repeated exposture may not cause the heart to grow fonder, and she isn't charasmatic enough to survive repeated looks into her personality.But if she handles it well, it could work for her.Again, it depends on whose exposture benefits the corporate entities and that is why they position the candidates they do. It is also why you are correct but for slightly different reasons.
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