Election spin and what you should do with it!
As I sit here contemplating the two most recent caucuses/primaries, I’m struck by how the media seems hell bent on creating the news rather then reporting the news. And, yes I know that its probably not news to many of us how our Nation’s media seems to confuse educating the public’s mind with manipulating the public’s mind.
One of my fondest memories of my childhood in France was reading the morning newspapers with my father. France’s news media, unlike American news media has had a long history of making their bias clearly known to its reading public – for example Le Monde is known for being center-left, Le Figaro is known for being center-right, and Le Canard enchaîné is known for its willingness to hit all politicians of all ilk equally hard, and so forth. However, in the US with the exception of a few, such as the LA Times, the New York Times, Washington Post (known for their left lean), it can often be hard to ferret out the lean of US Newspapers because they like to put forward the image that they are “unbiased” in the way they choose to report the news. This can make it somewhat of a challenge at times to decipher a newspapers “spin”, it used to be that all you had to do was read the editorial section and the bias was quickly revealed; now one had to scrutinize the headlines and the best way to do this is to read several of the papers and compare. How they title the piece, where they place it and how large the photo and headline are will often give away the paper’s bias.
Another way to ferret out what the media bias is -- is to pay attention to an election year, such as this Presidential Election. Prior to the Michigan Primary, one would have thought that Gov. Romney was running a losing campaign, that all he had done was come in second place twice. However, what the media failed to report with accuracy was that he had already won one primary, albeit not a big one, in Wyoming. So contrary to so many of the pundits he was already ahead of the game, and his win in Michigan gave him his second – first place win compared to Gov. Huckabee and Sen. McCain. When you factor in that the media had continued to promote how McCain had won Michigan in the last Republican Primary only four years earlier makes McCain’s loss by 9 points interesting.
Of course Gov. Huckabee’s win in Iowa appeared unexpected and thus was news worthy, but again he beat Romney by a mere 9 points, yet when Romney won the Nevada Caucuses this week by 37 points ahead of Sen. Paul, 38 points ahead of Sen. McCain and 43 points ahead of Huckabee you would have thought the headlines would have characterized his win with at least the same amount of enthusiasm and excitement as they did for Huckabee’s win in Iowa and McCain’s win in New Hampshire. So much for fair and accurate reporting on the part of our illustrious press. I stress this because of all the caucuses and primaries to date the Wyoming primary and the Nevada caucuses had the most impressive point spread between the first and second place choices of the Republican Party.
Now, I don’t pretend to be able to predict the outcome of the Florida primaries, but it is my hope that my candidate of choice (that would be Gov. Romney if you haven’t been keeping track) does well, placing first would be perfect. However, having lived for eight years in the South, I know how Yankees are often perceived by the good people of the South, therefore I was pleased to learn that Romney was in a four way tie in Florida. Then it’s on to Super Tuesday. So as the media begins to beat the “it’s the economy drum” I think that we should all take a hard look at who among the potential candidates has the skill sets to help what has been characterized as a distressed economy, and of all the candidates Romney’s the only one that has a track record turning around distressed enterprises and organizations.
So, I encourage everyone to take a moment and really scrutinize how the press chooses to report election happenings and results, and remember that they are a business as well and as of late far too many of them have their eye on the bottom line and the ratings and not on necessarily providing “just the facts” and allowing us the freedom to interpret those facts. So my advice would be read the newspapers, talk with friends, family and those whose opinion you value, do your own research and then draw your own conclusions.
In closing, if you haven’t already done so and you are eligible to do so register to vote, and if you are already registered be sure to vote on election day and if you vote by absentee ballot be sure to mail it in on time!
