Newspapers don’t vote
Thursday, Oct 25, 2012 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Will Caskey has an insightful post about “earned” vs. “paid” media. He doesn’t think much about media coverage of campaigns and uses the Cook County Assessor’s race between Joe Berrios and Forrest Claypool as an example…
Now it would not be accurate to say the Chicago press does not like Berrios very much, because it doesn’t really do justice to their intense, singular hatred of the man. They were really, really [angry] that Berrios was running for anything at all and super duper jazzed that he had a credible, well-funded challenger. The details are mundane and boring, as details tend to be. Suffice to say Berrios for Assessor did not face a very pleasant earned media environment. […]
Going into election day if there was one thing any remotely interested Chicago pundit agreed on it was that we [the Berrios campaign] were toast, gone, finished.
Except that didn’t happen. We won, and not by a little. And of course, this is just an anecdote, and the jokes write themselves about the two-party system or Chicago-style politics, but that doesn’t change the facts: The narrative was downright apocalyptic, and it didn’t change the election. It didn’t even make it close. Because newspapers don’t vote, and actual people who do vote don’t make up their minds based on what some goof on tv says will happen. That’s just another version of crying about press bias.
The truth is that from a campaign perspective the press is just earned media, and you get what you pay for.
If you get your preferred, poll-tested message into print, great! Whatever else that’s said on top of that is a distraction. If it’s flatly impossible to get your message into earned media, c’est la vie; buy more paid media and move on.
For the most part, he’s right.
Media coverage can have an impact on very close races. The Tribune’s endorsement of the hapless Andy McKenna in the 2010 GOP gubernatorial primary probably cost Sen. Kirk Dillard the 200 or so votes he needed to beat Sen. Bill Brady. But there were other reasons for Dillard’s loss.
What reporters cannot usually do is elect a candidate against long odds, or even impact a race separated by more than a point or so.
There are caveats, of course. Sometimes, big revelations are reported by the media which sink candidates. But, usually, the other side has to put those revelations into TV/radio ads and/or direct mail and robocalls to burn that message in. So, even then, earned media is only part of the game. Moving real numbers is almost always accomplished via advertising. [Adding: Earned media is important, however, to paid media attacks or praise because it adds a level of authority to the attacks/praise.]
Just something to keep in mind.
- Dave Victor - Thursday, Oct 25, 12 @ 11:44 am:
You need look no further than the 2008 election of a well protected Obama to see how wrong that theory is. Local races may be a different story.
- Lil Enchilada - Thursday, Oct 25, 12 @ 11:44 am:
The local newspaper up here in the QC won’t even print endorsements, press releases or events for certain candidates. I know newspapers make endorsements but I have never seen them manipulate races like this. I volunteer for a candidate so I have seen this myself.
- Rich Miller - Thursday, Oct 25, 12 @ 11:45 am:
Dave, that’s idiotic.
- Will Caskey - Thursday, Oct 25, 12 @ 11:48 am:
Lil Enchilada: To clarify, I’m not throwing myself (or Berrios) a press bias pity party here. I just don’t care that much about (or for, as Rich notes) press narrative one way or another. It’s worked out well so far.
- Dave Victor - Thursday, Oct 25, 12 @ 11:50 am:
If your theory is that media has no impact on elections, that’s idiotic.
- Anonymous - Thursday, Oct 25, 12 @ 11:51 am:
Oh, about 20 years ago I looked at judicial retention races in Cook County. They had higher visibility than they do now, because of Operation Greylord. The newspaper endorsement from the Sun-Times and the Tribune each moved about 5-6% of the vote, as did the endorsements from the CBA and, at that time, the Council of Lawyers/IVI.
Those percentages have declined over time. I didn’t check the last election to see where they are.
- Rich Miller - Thursday, Oct 25, 12 @ 11:52 am:
Nice knowing you, Dave.
- wordslinger - Thursday, Oct 25, 12 @ 11:56 am:
–You need look no further than the 2008 election of a well protected Obama to see how wrong that theory is–
Yeah, they were all in the tank for Obama. Fox (the most watched cable news channel), WSJ and other News Corp properties, Rush (the number one talk radio show) and the rest of talk radio.
- soccermom - Thursday, Oct 25, 12 @ 12:01 pm:
If these comments made anyone else curious about the derivation of “In the tank,” you may find this article interesting.
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2008/10/explainer_goes_in_the_tank.html
- Dave Victor - Thursday, Oct 25, 12 @ 12:02 pm:
So you’re the dude that believes the MSM adequately vetted Obama in 2008?
- Rich Miller - Thursday, Oct 25, 12 @ 12:05 pm:
Dave, you really need to get a grip, man.
- cermak_rd - Thursday, Oct 25, 12 @ 12:07 pm:
soccermom,
I did not know that. I thought it had something to do with Dukakis and his tank.
- dave - Thursday, Oct 25, 12 @ 12:17 pm:
**If your theory is that media has no impact on elections, that’s idiotic. **
Who said that?
- Happy Returns - Thursday, Oct 25, 12 @ 12:28 pm:
Can’t help but hear the headline for this post in a Robert Duvall/LTC Kilgore voice…
- Newsclown - Thursday, Oct 25, 12 @ 12:34 pm:
Blago was the undisputed King of Earned Media. He flogged every little thing he could into a press opportunity, and what bugged me about it at the time was that relatively few TV reporters would seem to challenge or confront or parse what Blags was putting out, they didn’t work very hard to find the “flip side” of the story, so most of those press pops worked as free campaign commercials running on the news every night.
- Cincinnatus - Thursday, Oct 25, 12 @ 12:48 pm:
Dan Rutherford is a good recent example of creative use of earned media. And he may have a check for YOU! Of course, Pat Quinn gets quite a bit of earned media too, but not always wanted, I’m sure…
- Coach - Thursday, Oct 25, 12 @ 12:55 pm:
=== a well protected Obama ===
Oh, the “liberal media” that so adores Obama and is ruining this nation with its pro-Democrat, welfare-loving, God-hating, liberal policies: Drudge, Wall Street Journal, Fox, New York Post, Washington Examiner, Rush, WLS, Chicago Tribune, Coulter and dozens of other syndicated columnists, RedState and Illinois Review and thousands of other “news” sites and blogs, Daily Caller, Cato and Heritage and IPI and other “think tanks” that self-publish and promote tons of “news” content online, etc. They don’t really count, do they?
- Robert the Bruce - Thursday, Oct 25, 12 @ 12:56 pm:
In primaries, earned media can also help darkhorse candidates with fundraising, by showing that they are legitimate contenders.
- wordslinger - Thursday, Oct 25, 12 @ 1:04 pm:
–So you’re the dude that believes the MSM adequately vetted Obama in 2008?–
Who would the MSM be? Why are they all-powerful?
- soccermom - Thursday, Oct 25, 12 @ 1:15 pm:
What, exactly, did the MSM not vet?
His birth certificate? If anything, the MSM failed to pay much attention to the true ambiguity of McCain’s birth in Panama. (I want to say, I think any child of U.S. military personnel born on a U.S. military base counts as a natural born citizen, but there is a real legal question.)
The whole Rezko thing? I think I seem to remember one or two stories on that one….
His true secret identity as an Islamicist terrorist? That would be a bit harder to prove — because it is logically impossible to prove a negative.
- Carl Nyberg - Thursday, Oct 25, 12 @ 1:17 pm:
I was calling for Carl Wasco last night and I had a woman 60+ in Rockford tell me there was nothing I could say to her, she’s voting the newspaper (Rockford, not Trib) endorsement in the race.
- Rich Miller - Thursday, Oct 25, 12 @ 1:23 pm:
===tell me there was nothing I could say to her, she’s voting the newspaper===
Probably because it already matched up with her preconceived notions.
- soccermom - Thursday, Oct 25, 12 @ 1:32 pm:
I think Rich raises a good point — newspaper endorsements probably don’t change minds, but they may help to convert soft support into stronger support.
- ZC - Thursday, Oct 25, 12 @ 2:28 pm:
I don’t think newspaper editorials have many sudden electoral impacts, no, but the Tribune’s continuing editorial laments that IL is turning into fiscal Madighanistan look to me like they’re having some enduring effects on the suburbs.
- OneMan - Thursday, Oct 25, 12 @ 2:30 pm:
The Obama birth certificate thing…
As someone once pointed out
If Allan Keys didn’t bring it up, it obviously is below the crazy threshold…
Also with due respect to Rich, I don’t think the media is bright enough for a MSM conspiracy…
- D.P. Gumby - Thursday, Oct 25, 12 @ 2:52 pm:
The irony is that the “msm” spent years trying to rise above its yellow journalistic past and its check-out lane colleagues. Now, the ghosts of “journalists past” have returned in the form of Faux News and Limbaugh/Hannity/etc. and the 24 hour news cycle are resulting in the diminution of the quality of the MSM and the financial ability to maintain quality. Quantity of media is not equaling quality.
- hisgirlfriday - Thursday, Oct 25, 12 @ 4:19 pm:
I don’t think quantity of media is the problem D.P. Gumby so much as the way that the Cult of Objectivism infected journalism and journalism schools. Journalists simply stopped believing there is such a thing as a non-partisan truth or fact when being objective became about BALANCE and not TRUTH. Balance is troublesome because it gives us the sort of false equivalencies, bias conflict, he-said/she-said journalism that creates more heat than light and doesn’t really serve democracy.
So instead of msm journalists being TRUTH tellers they aspire to be narrative setters and thus wind up typically acting as stenographers or spinmeisters or gotcha-getters rather than sentries of the Fourth Estate.
- Carl Nyberg - Thursday, Oct 25, 12 @ 4:21 pm:
==Probably because it already matched up with her preconceived notions.==
I got the impression she didn’t even know if the newspaper had endorsed yet.
Believe me, I get your point. When I helped Karen Yarbrough run against Eugene Moore in ‘98, Yarbrough got endorsed by Pioneer Press, Wednesday Journal, Sun-Times, Tribune, Defender and I think one other. Yarbrough lost that race.
I’m sure there’s poly sci research that shows how influential newspaper endorsements are.
FWIW, I’d do newspaper endorsements completely differently.
- wishbone - Thursday, Oct 25, 12 @ 9:12 pm:
“Nice knowing you, Dave.”
We will miss Dave. Not!