The Nielsen Primary
it's television that won in Texas and Ohio
2008-03-05
By Eric Easter

Contrary to popular belief, there is already a clear winner in the Democratic primary. Not Obama or Clinton, and definitely not the American people. The winner is major network television and its 24-hour cable offshoots.

Texas and Ohio was their victory and they wouldn’t (and won’t) have it any other way. This lengthy primary is as much a creation of the collective media as it is the result of having two strong and in many ways, equal, candidates.

It’s been 28 years since we saw a primary season with such drama, when Sen. Edward M. (Ted) Kennedy and sitting president Jimmy Carter battled until the final speech of the convention. But 28 years ago there were only three networks, one fairly indistinguishable from the other.

Today’s a different ballgame, of course. We know the choices that Americans have in news outlets and the competition those outlets face for our time and attention against multiple platforms. But the real battle is not which outlet we watch, but whether we watch or care about news at all.

All data points to the fact that increasingly we Americans don’t care, and when we do we want it in short, highly digestible bites. And despite their protestations about fairness and objectivity, the
networks are heavily invested in making us care about this race.

That’s because the partisanship of a campaign provides  an opportunity, above all,  for media outlets to build their “brands”.  Each moment between real news items becomes an opportunity to solidify those brands, whether it be through groovy graphics (CNN), tart commentary (Fox), wink and nudge humor (MSNBC’s Morning Joe), real humor (Keith Olbermann) distant impartiality  (BBC) or boasts of having “the best political team on television” (CNN again).

For evidence, contrast the approach to the presidential campaigns with say, the shootings last year at Virginia Tech or the fires last fall in California.  Serious news stories provide very little wiggle room. When lives are at stake, and the emotions of families are in the balance, networks largely stick to fact, with the only competition being the rush to go live with those facts.

But facts don’t advance the concept of brand, and they certainly don’t build the ratings needed to sell to advertisers. Opinion builds brand. Hot, young pundits with inflammatory pontifications build brand.

Had Clinton lost Texas and Ohio, the race would have been fundamentally over. With party authorities such as Bill Richardson suggesting Clinton end it in the face of those losses, the pressure to jump would have been too great. It would have been the second worse thing that could happen to the networks right now.

Of course the worst thing would be for real authentic news to break out. God forbid all this exciting fuss should be interrupted by war on the border of Venezuela, confusion over Russia’s elections, deepening of the home mortgage crisis or a sighting of Osama bin Laden. That would be a return to actual fact and boring detail, which would mean lower ratings.

The effort to extend the race goes beyond the news divisions. It would be a mistake to see last weekend’s Saturday Night Live skits as anything less than a gift from the New York media elite to the Clinton campaign. Fred Armisen’s portrayal of a feckless, robotic Obama was about more than Armisen’s lack of talent. It was a an intentional effort to raise doubt and shift the campaign’s momentum, something all but admitted by the skit’s writer in a recent New York Times article.

But let no one confuse this drawn-out process with a “victory for democracy”. It certainly affords Democrats in all states and territories to have a say in the nomination. But if Democratic confusion in the face of Republican unification and a formidable head start on the general election is the result, it will be a hollow victory indeed.
In their zeal to create and promote the Obama/Clinton story, the networks have created the world’s most successful reality show. Except, if we vote someone of the island, no more show. Stay tuned for the next episode, Survivor: Pennsylvanvia.

Eric Easter is Chief of Digital Strategy for Johnson Publishing. He writes about culture, politics and technology for Ebonyjet.com