Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are not the only players in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination. Members of the national media have ventured into uncharted territory along with the candidates, and their decisions about what to print and how to cover the race are tremendously influential. New and varied sources of news, citizen and journalist blogs, and the continued role of the mainstream media have combined to form an overarching narrative of the most interesting primary fight in decades.
The consensus? Nobody knows how this one will turn out.
An article from the uber-blog Politico on March 21 brought the media's shaping of the campaign into focus. In "Story behind the story: The Clinton myth," Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen assert that "the notion of the Democratic contest being a dramatic cliffhanger is a game of make-believe," and that the media has an interest in preserving a close race because "it's more fun and it's good for business."
The delegate math, the authors argue, is too much for Clinton to overcome: "Her own campaign acknowledges there is no way that she will finish ahead in pledged delegates. That means the only way she wins is if Democratic superdelegates are ready to risk a backlash of historic proportions from the party's most reliable constituency."
The article continues on to lay out the mathematical case against Clinton while arguing that the press is benefiting from the prolonged struggle, and therefore playing up Clinton's chances. The idea that the Clinton campaign has an uphill battle and that Obama will likely win the nomination is not original to VandeHei and Allen, however. It is the "conventional wisdom," and something virtually all political reporters and observers accept as current fact. VandeHei and Allen's audacity did not lay in their conclusions; instead, they stirred up controversy by presenting conventional wisdom explicitly on one of the most widely read political blogs on the Internet.
The gauntlet having been thrown down, this article spurred furious debate in the blogosphere about the nature of the media's influence on the presidential race.
Marc Ambinder, blogger for The Atlantic magazine, posted a lengthy response to VandeHei and Allen's provocative thesis shortly afterward, in which he took a more nuanced view. After asserting that their thesis was unremarkable and rather common within the journalistic community, Ambinder points out that the race has resulted in little appreciable increases in newspaper ad revenue and that "the television networks are not at all happy about the cost of the elongated nomination."
Ambinder also makes the rather obvious point that politics-centered, heavily-trafficked sites like Politico have the most to gain from a prolonged nomination fight. A quick visit to Politico shows that campaigns buy most of their ad space, and give them no short supply of blog posts and site content. The mainstream media necessarily has a more comprehensive range of possible news topics, and every minute spent on the election takes away from another area of their coverage.
If the math is so clear-cut that Obama will be the next Democratic nominee, and the media has no appreciable advantage in helping to prolong the fight, then why does the battle persist? Ambinder concedes that the Clinton camp has been good at managing expectations and "moving the goalposts," but the major factor in the duration of the race is simple: indecision on the parts of party leaders, superdelegates, and voters (in that order).
As Ambinder puts it, "John Edwards, Al Gore, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid - if these folks came together and threw their weight behind the nominee, Hillary Clinton would probably drop out by the end of the week." Superdelegates have refused to gather en masse behind Obama (which would also end the race), and Clinton's high polling in the remaining 10 contests shows that voters have not made up their minds, either.
So what role does the media play on this unprecedented electoral landscape? Responding to Ambinder's response, TIME's Michael Scherer picks up the idea of media motivation, but stays out of the political fight to make a broader point about "the dynamics of the news business." Scherer's point is that VandeHei and Allen had a much simpler objective: hits on their Web site. "If you say something provocatively, in a new way, or with unexpected spin, you will succeed online."
The emergence of political blogs as primary sources of information means that different sites will compete on a "story-by-story" basis: Whichever story gets the most links from other blogs, especially the ubiquitous and heavily trafficked Drudge Report, is the most successful. Scherer views this as "a blessing and a curse. It is forcing better writing, quicker responsiveness, and it is increasing the value of actual news-making and clear-eyed thinking. But it is also increasing pressure on reporters to push the boundaries of provocation."
The blogs are my primary sources for information on the election, since they are much more up to the minute, informative, and interconnected than any mainstream media source. The big players like CNN, MSNBC, The New York Times, and The Washington Post know this, and all of them now have a regularly maintained blog. They are responding to the new wave of news in politics: timely commentary accompanied by instant analysis. There are some downsides to this new process: Rumors can fly across the Internet with little time for fact-checking, and one can get the impression that the elite bloggers are forming their own clique of information. I agree with the basic conventional wisdom behind VandeHei and Allen's story, and it can be refreshing to read reporting on the ins and outs of media psychology. It would border on conspiracy, however, to believe that the media has so much control over the outcome of any race, especially one as complex as the current battle for the Democratic nomination.
Ambinder makes another point in a later post that gets to the heart of media's purpose and role in the race: "What I don't know, and what I can't predict, is how Obama will [win] the nomination and what effects the end of the race will have on his general election viability … Willing the future does not make it come any more quickly." The endpoint of the race may be clear to reporters, writers, and bloggers, but that should not minimize the role of the journey to that conclusion. Clinton's perceived viability is an important factor shaping the final primaries and the general election match-up, and should not be ignored simply because she probably won't win. It is reflected in the minds of voters, superdelegates, and party heavyweights as well as the media.
Journalists are the storytellers in this historic race and shape the race only insomuch as they report the current back-and-forth between these two determined campaigns. Despite Scherer's assertion that blogs are only out for attention and hits, the diverse perspectives and checks on the mainstream media provided by bloggers' constant analysis are invaluable resources.
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