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Another Midterm Winner -- the Mainstream Media

1 year ago
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Steve Friess
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Steve Friess
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LAS VEGAS -- The big winners of the 2010 midterm elections were, in this order: the House Republicans, the unsinkable Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, the media.

Huh? The media? That "lamestream" crowd? Really?

Well, yeah. In a group of high-profile Senate races involving tea party favorites, the strategy was to vilify and freeze out the press, to speak selectively and only when absolutely necessary for the sake of fundraising to the local Sean Hannity wannabe or the real Sean Hannity if he'd have them.

Not only did it fail, but the campaigns of Sharron Angle in Nevada, Joe Miller in Alaska and, to a lesser extent, Christine O'Donnell in Delaware are case studies as to how not to treat the lowly wretches trying to communicate your views to the masses. Angle and O'Donnell lost; Miller got just 34 percent of the vote and is awaiting a count that will show whether incumbent Sen. Lisa Murkowski got enough of the 41 percent that were write-in votes to retain her seat.

Of course, plenty of conservative candidates get along with the press and the outcome of the three races is not simply the consequence of avoiding reporters. Still, the way these candidates behaved clearly impacted their image and their ability to reach an audience beyond their core supporters.

"There is this kind of message being sent out to a certain kind of true believers that the media is bad, you don't have to talk to the media, nobody believes the media," said Anchorage Daily News Executive Editor Pat Dougherty. "Well, people do believe the media. If you conduct your business thinking that the news media isn't a valuable part of this process, I think you will pay a price for that."

While the power and influence of the likes of CNN, NPR or The New York Times may be undermined by Limbaugh-esque attacks on "the liberal media elite," the notion that media credibility is in tatters in local journalism is false. Most people admire the cheery local news personalities they see at car dealership grand openings and on Fourth of July parade floats.

"If you've got someone like (Las Vegas anchors) Jim Snyder or Sue Manteris, these are people that local folks have trusted for 10 or 15 years," said Robert Stoldal, executive vice president for news for Sunbelt Communications, which owns NBC affiliates in Las Vegas, Reno and Elko, Nev. "That cancels out negative statements from folks like Glenn Beck or Sean Hannity."

Angle, Miller and O'Donnell all refused in-depth interviews with local newspapers and TV stations throughout their general election races, a peculiar approach given that all three ran in states with small populations concentrated around a precious few media markets. But it went further than that, with Angle providing so much footage of herself running from cameras that she may be ready for this weekend's New York City Marathon, and Miller's security detail actually handcuffing and detaining a journalist at the candidate's school appearance.

"I knew right away this is not going to be good for his campaign and this could become a big issue," said the handcuffed reporter, Tony Hopfinger, editor of the Alaska Dispatch. "As this was going on, his campaign spokesman was nearby and I said to him, 'Randy, this is not going to do anything for your campaign. Call the thing off.' He didn't say anything."

Hopfinger traces the Miller-Angle-O'Donnell approach to former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, who has managed to bypass traditional journalists via Facebook and Twitter and seems only to grow in influence by ignoring what she has termed the "lamestream media." Yet O'Donnell's refusal to discuss her personal financial history and Miller's refusal to address questions about a city job he held in Fairbanks only kept the stories alive and made reporters more aggressive. In Miller's case, his silence led to news outlets suing for his employment records and winning in the days before the election.

"The point is, if the campaign had recognized the situation in June, they could have dealt with it and it could have been over," Dougherty said. "Instead, it became a lasting story for months."

Intriguingly, the Reid campaign took the opposite tack. Writers for out-of-state publications did have difficulty getting time with the senator for in-depth profiles, but that was partly because the campaign staff knew that few Washington Post or Agence France-Presse readers were Nevada voters.

"The greatest percentage of people get their information from local news, so you have to talk to every media outlet that's available," said Jon Summers, spokesman for the Harry Reid campaign. "If you're missing out on local news, you're missing out on communicating with the audience that needs to hear it the most. You get more out of talking continuously to local media than by dealing with national media."

The degree to which the candidates actively distrusted any and all reporters and believed they could win without contending with them is clearest in Angle's case. After her June 8 primary win, she didn't even grant an interview to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, the state's largest newspaper and one whose management was so enthusiastic about her candidacy that the publisher actually applauded on his blog when the candidate deployed a decoy to leave an appearance without encountering journalists. And in a shockingly honest remark to Carl Cameron of Fox News, Angle bluntly laid out her media strategy thus: "We wanted them to ask the questions we want to answer, so that they report the news the way we want it reported."

Yet it was more than that, too. Repeatedly in the Angle and Miller campaigns, the candidates would deny having said things that were on video or audio, sometimes on rather minor issues that would otherwise not have mattered. Even this week, Dougherty said, Miller said an Anchorage Daily News report that he told his supporters to go home because the outcome would not be known on election night was false; the newspaper had video of him doing so.

Opponents pounced on such incidents, of course. Murkowski put out an ad intoning, "Joe Miller's answer to freedom of the press? Arrest the journalist." Reid forces crammed reporter e-mail boxes with headlines about Angle's avoidances, even deploying a staffer in a chicken suit to stalk her at events.

Did any of this sway the vote? In Delaware, where O'Donnell's views were far outside the mainstream, probably not. But in Alaska, where conservative voters had another choice in Murkowski, and in Nevada, where independent voters were a decisive factor, there's little doubt that appearing cagey and elusive when confronted with reasonable questions led some voters to wonder about the candidates' suitability.

"To the undecided voter, where something was going to push them one way or the other, it's not so much that they didn't talk to the media, it was that they weren't responsive to the public," Stoldal said. "This isn't running for dogcatcher. This is running for the United States Senate. You need to be able to take the heat."

The Reid campaign, not surprisingly, didn't mind Angle's approach one bit.

"I can't think of anything they actually did right in dealing with the media," Summers said. "They just didn't talk to the media at all. You're thumbing your nose at the voters because the media is the way you communicate to them."
Filed Under: Media, 2010 Elections, Campaigns, Analysis
Tagged: 2010 Elections, Christine ODonnell, Joe Miller, media relations, press, reporters, Sharron Angle
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51 Comments

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ettu

Yes,yes, and that is why FOX NEWS had the biggest viewship numbers of all media on election day. Mainstream media will never again be competitive until such time as they once again become "MAINSTREAM."

November 08 2010 at 10:28 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
The Ralle's

The headline says "Mainstream media" a winner but the descriptions following are not what I would classify as mainstream. Isn't main stream the national news? In my opinion, the national news has not recovered it's credibility nor is it attempting to. It is liberal, other than FOX, and intends to stay that way. I haven't watched it since 2008 but if I get any clue that it is changing I'll give it a try.

November 07 2010 at 7:23 PM Report abuse +1 rate up rate down Reply
John Vilvens

Lame stream media is there to report the news. But they attacked certain canidates and did not report anything that others did. The press did not win. They showed that what was once the greatest press in the world is no more than a rag. They took sides in an election and lost all ideas of reporting but became a politicial machine for liberal ideas. The press should not support or show bias for either side. They should reported boths sides fairly. The news should not win or lose they should report fairly.

November 07 2010 at 8:01 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
smitty

Fox News is a joke and anyone who believes their made up facts and vote on them should be walking around with a helment on their head to protect themselves. Since so many of you do this, I'm going to buy stock in a helment making company and clean up and then gladly pay 3% more in taxes.

November 07 2010 at 6:44 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
clarkonjordan

I disagree--these candidates suffered, not because they avoided the media, but because many of their views were indefensible when mainstream voters got a look at them.

November 06 2010 at 11:05 PM Report abuse +4 rate up rate down Reply
nama holston

When Peter Jennings was first on ABC he was just a newsman and since he was from Canada he didn't lean to the left or right, but Dan Rather was so left the I changed stations and listened on to Peter Jennings. Later he leaned too far left and I went with Fox which in commentary is right but doesn't seem to me to be biased in NEWS reporting which I can not say about MSNBC, NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN, or any other station. I give FOX the credit and watch them as well as PBS. That's all, Folks!

November 06 2010 at 10:56 PM Report abuse +7 rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to nama holston's comment
The Ralle's

I agree with you about Rather and Jennings and, in my opinion, Gibson and Curic. are also liberally biased.

November 07 2010 at 7:11 PM Report abuse +1 rate up rate down Reply
rosugill

Keep on dreaming. 2012 election is less than two years away>

November 06 2010 at 10:48 PM Report abuse -1 rate up rate down Reply
alosbornjr

The self-serving disregard of the truth in this article is an example of why many don't pay much attention to the "mainstream media" any longer.

November 06 2010 at 10:15 PM Report abuse +5 rate up rate down Reply
iraqwardeficit

Beck and Hannity could not cut it at a reputable news organization. Rants and conspiracy theories are not news or facts.....sorry

November 06 2010 at 9:57 PM Report abuse -11 rate up rate down Reply
iraqwardeficit

Katie Curick knows how to use the main stream media, along with simple questions to show us how unqualified candidates can not answering simple questions......LOL

November 06 2010 at 9:55 PM Report abuse -9 rate up rate down Reply

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