Opinion

News media failed the public in 2016 election

Thursday, November 17, 2016

The 2016 presidential campaign was characterized by a harshness and superficiality that made citizens cringe. Certainly, Trump and Clinton were unpopular candidates who tarnished the political arena in many ways. But the news media, particularly television, failed to provide civic leadership and buckled to the circumstances with an inane and destructive news agenda. In this regard, the media world must be held to account for degrading the political sphere and failing the obligations it inherited when the First Amendment was created.

The free press was established to be a surrogate for the public, to hold the powerful accountable and lead the conversation of democracy. Instead of guiding a thoughtful dialogue about the campaign, however, the news media largely focused on distractions, the frenetic and wonkish political mechanics. When citizens most needed focus on substantive issues, television news played small ball. Polls indicated that voters wanted most to know about the economy, education, healthcare and terrorism. Instead, the media covered tweets, insults and petty distractions. It is little wonder that confidence in the media is cratering at historic lows.

The nation witnessed three 90-minute debates featuring the major party candidates. The events were rhetorical muddles, to some extent because of ineffective moderating by television celebrities. The responsible discussion of issues that did take place was totally overlooked in post-debate coverage. The media frenzy after the first debate was about a beauty contestant from 20 years ago. The second debate sparked days of news regarding Trump’s boorish comments and behavior around women. The third debate’s news surge centered on whether Trump would accept the election results. Those matters do constitute news, but not at the exclusion of everything else discussed on the debate stage.

The major network nightly newscasts ignored issues and candidate positions. Media analyst Andrew Tyndall of the Tyndall Report tracks the content of each network newscast. He reports that issue coverage of this year’s presidential election dropped by more than 70 percent compared to 2012, and declined by 85 percent since 1992. As Tyndall points out, some of the blame for this void goes to the candidates, who themselves avoided issues while bashing each other with personal attacks. But the media failed to lead and thereby denied the electorate a more substance-based agenda.

Several polls confirmed the public perception that the media were biased against Trump. And this wasn’t just Trump supporters whining. A good many Clinton supporters also recognized the imbalance. Trump, of course, was his own worst enemy and deserved much of the negative press he received, but Clinton wasn’t exactly an unblemished candidate. The Media Research Center reported Trump received twice as many negative stories as Clinton and that 90 percent of Trump stories had a negative tone. It is plausible that Trump’s anti-establishment victory is partly a result of pushback against a mainstream media Trump tagged as unprincipled.

Clinton’s email problem was certainly newsworthy and deserved in-depth coverage. But, as the Shorenstein Center at Harvard reported earlier in the campaign, Clinton email coverage overwhelmed reporting of Clinton policy stances by a margin of 20 to one. It seems the media can focus on only topic at a time.

The broadcast media basically ignored the candidacies of Libertarian Gary Johnson and Green Jill Stein, even though Johnson was on the ballot in all 50 states and Stein was on 44 state ballots. News producers will rationalize that the minor party candidates had little chance to actually win the election. But their refusal to cover Johnson and Stein not only ensured defeat, it denied legally qualified candidates even a voice in the national discussion.

The public expects the media to cover an election fairly and has enough gumption to recognize imbalance. It is a given that newsrooms are inhabited by reporters who generally lean left, but that is no excuse for putting a thumb on the scales of reporting. Fairness is a skill, and professional journalists can, indeed, provide a news agenda that scrutinizes all candidates thoroughly. It does, however, take hard work and a willingness to put public interests first.

Noted 20th-century journalist and cultural analyst Walter Lippman once wrote, “When distant and unfamiliar and complex things are communicated to great masses of people, the truth suffers a considerable and often radical distortion.”

ndeed, the media’s challenge is difficult, but it is the news industry’s duty to serve truth and minimize distortion. The media’s failure leaves our nation’s civic dialogue in a state of chaos and confusion.

Jeffrey M. McCall is a professor of communication at DePauw University in Greencastle, and author of Viewer Discretion Advised: Taking Control of Mass Media Influences. Contact him at jeffmccall@depauw.edu. On Twitter: @Prof_McCall