by Ron Kaufman

"In this election year, when so many important issues confront our nation, the media is just not doing enough to enhance our political dialogue. From the 1996 presidential race to the one in 2000, coverage of the presidential race on network evening news dropped by one-third. The average sound bite by a presidential candidate was down to 8-9 seconds.

"When you look at Congressional and local races, the situation is downright dismal. In 2002, over half of the evening local newscasts contained no campaign coverage at all. Some estimate that many Americans likely saw more prime time entertainment on a single night than election coverage during the entire campaign!

"What coverage we get focuses on handicapping the horse race rather than on issues we need to be discussing."

-- Federal Communications Commissioner Michael Copps in Broadcasting & Cable Magazine, September 26, 2004

The election of George W. Bush as president of the United States in November 2004 was a masterful display of media domination. The Republican Party did an outstanding job of working their ideas and messages into all available media channels -- especially television. As the most simplistic of all media, TV can only handle the most uncomplicated of ideas. TV thrives on breasts and beer so comments are short and concepts are brief. Because most people in America get their news from TV the Republican Party hammered down their message to one that was clear and cable-ready: "Terrorists could attack the United States at any moment. George W. Bush will keep you safe. George W. Bush is a good Christian." This was the message and it worked.

The George Bush-Dick Cheney ticket got 60 million votes (51 % of the American electorate). The Bush ticket had a majority in 30 states. The remarkably simple message from the Republican Party was repeated endlessly through traditional media such as television and radio and new media such as Internet news sites and blogs. Known as the "media echo chamber," the Republican message of simplicity was easily digestible for American couch potatoes.

Certain messages from Bush during the campaign even took on an Orwellian tone.

War Is Peace::: "Because we fight in Iraq and Afghanistan, America is safer."
Ignorance Is Strength::: "John Kerry and the Liberals in Congress' plan for medical coverage is too complicated."
Freedom Is Slavery::: "We need a constitutional amendment to protect the sanctity of marriage."
Two Minutes Hate::: "John Kerry is a flip-flopper. Flip flop flip flop flip flop."

The Democratic Party challenger John Kerry did not have a simple set of plans and did not "stay on message." The media, especially television media, did not portray Kerry positively. Kerry's persona was distorted and his political platform ignored. Bush was concise and unambiguous and used television to his advantage. In the end, it was the Republican message that resonated throughout the country. The Republican message became the "conventional wisdom" of the campaign. There was a pervasive opinion that, as the Dallas Morning News remarked in their endorsement of Bush, "we wish we knew where John Kerry stood." A newspaper with dozens of experienced reporters can't find out the political platform of a major candidate? Even respected papers such as this one echoed conventional wisdom rather than real wisdom (or facts).

Wikipedia defines conventional wisdom as "certain ideas or explanations that are generally accepted as true by the public. The term is only rarely used positively. Often conventional wisdom is portrayed as being incorrect. Conventional wisdom is also often seen as an obstacle to introducing new theories, explanations, or revisionism."

This online encyclopedia goes on to say in regard to politics, conventional wisdom is "often related closely with the phenomenon of Talking Points. It is used pejoratively to refer to the idea that statements which are repeated over and over become Conventional Wisdom regardless of whether or not they are true."

Though radio and the World Wide Web played an important role in the 2004 election, it was television that that spearheaded the promotion of conventional wisdom and talking points to the national audience. On television, it was the use of punditry and propaganda that propelled the Republican candidates to victory.

Television is all about pundits. "Television pundits are sometimes called talking heads," states Wikipedia. "By extension, the term pundit is also used to refer to individuals that express opinions in the media without necessarily being a recognized expert on a particular subject matter. Pundits are often accused of being politically biased and for using informal logic in fallacious ways."

A talking head is slang for a TV interview shot in what's known as a "locked down medium shot" of the person's head and shoulders.

The Project for Excellence in Journalism report "The State Of The News Media 2004" clearly shows how TV news programs are overrun by talking head pundits. "A detailed look at the content of network news reveals that the evening newscasts are still network television's front page . . . Nearly 30 million people still watch the nightly news, and the programs remain profitable," says the report. Though the big three networks, ABC, NBC and CBS, still have the largest ratings, cable networks are increasing their viewership each year. Cable news thrives on the talking head news format.

"Increasingly, anchors or even control room managers - but not correspondents -are the primary figures in cable. After CNN merged with AOL, it began to shed people and to imitate Fox's less costly live-chat model," says the PEJ report. "One of the most deeply held notions that journalists are taught, that they are telling stories, does not strictly apply to cable news. Instead, viewers often see newsgathering in the raw: live interviewing illustrated by unedited videotape, extemporaneous reporting with little time to write or consult sources. The traditional staple of television news, the produced, written, edited and taped package, has been sidelined."

In an effort to ensure continued profitability, news networks turn toward talking heads rather than investigative news reports. According to the PEJ analysis, investigative news reports account for only 11 % of cable news; the rest is a combination of interviews, standups, anchor reads, live events and banter.

"This emphasis away from edited stories and toward interviews and stand-ups has two important implications," notes the report. "One is it de-emphasizes the role of the reporter. Cable is increasingly becoming an anchor medium . . . Second, the majority of time on cable is something close to a first draft, or in the case of interviews, news gathering in the raw. Both live interviews and stand-ups are produced without any chance to edit, and usually with limited or no time to write."

On average, talking head/pundit segments last for around two minutes, which is a long time in the world of television. "Talking for that length of time without interruption, usually extemporaneously, says researcher Andrew Tyndall, tends to make talkativeness and telegenicity major virtues for cable correspondents," states PEJ. "Everything is filtered through the reporter since audiences cannot hear or see sources for themselves in soundbites." Network news anchors, reporters and pundits need to look good on TV -- whether they understand the issues or not is immaterial.

There is no way to escape from the punditry on television. Conventional wisdom is processed into short sound bites and regurgitated by TV news anchors in machinegun fashion. George Bush is a man of conviction. John Kerry is a flip-flopper taking different sides of every issue. These were the basic issues that came across through the TV screen.

Pundits, usually pushing a pre-packaged partisan agenda, only stick to simple messages and talking points. The presidential campaign of 2004 was a textbook example of punditry in action. Programs such as MSNBC's Hardball, CNN's Crossfire and Fox News Channel's Special Report all employ talking head pundits in order to boil down complex social and political issues into sound bite screaming matches. As comedian Jon Stewart remarked during his appearance on Crossfire in October 2004: "Shows with titles such as Crossfire and Hardball and I'm Gonna Kick Your Ass . . . are hurting America." Debate looks good on TV when it becomes heated back and forth ridicule -- those who wish to have civilized discourse need not apply.

The poster-boy of TV punditry is Bill O'Reilly on the Fox News Channel. O'Reilly's programs, one is actually called Talking Points, are catastrophically successful in ripping apart complex issues into short bursts of high-volumed banter. The O'Reilly Factor, one of the highest rated "news" programs on cable television, is about as intellectual as a screaming match between two drunks.

However, O'Reilly is extremely adept at using the techniques of informal logic and logical fallacies to produce arguments which sound good, but fail the "reality" test. Informal logic, like conventional wisdom, is constructing an argument with language and inference without actually using any real information. It is basically an "argument only" with no analysis. Informal logic uses the rhetorical patterns known as logical fallacies.

"The presence of a logical fallacy in an argument," states Wikipedia, "does not necessarily imply anything about the argument's premises or its conclusion. Both may actually be true, but the argument is still invalid because the conclusion does not follow from the premises using the inference principles of the argument." In most cases, squabbles between TV pundits lack any real-world logical connections between assertions.

For example, O'Reilly's Talking Points Memo for November 5, 2004 included the statement that newly-reelected President Bush should make his tax cut proposals permanent because the "private sector drives the American economy. And the easier it is for people to prosper, the more prosperity the people will have. President Bush is right in saying that no American should pay more than 35 percent of his or her income to the feds. And all investment income should be taxed at a low rate to encourage more investment. That's called capitalism."

This is a reasoned argument that makes no logical sense. First, in O'Reilly's opinion, he never defines "prosperity" and how a tax cut will create this rather fuzzy concept. The real argument should be what can be done to create jobs. Will income tax cuts create jobs? Don't people need to have high paying jobs to be prosperous? Second, capitalism is an economic concept based on the purchase of goods in a competitive free market. Investment of personal income is basically saving money in expectation of a dividend, not spending or purchasing goods. Third, since we're talking about capitalism, if demand for goods goes up, prices also go up which means inflation. Inflation could certainly negate this "prosperity." Finally, taxes exist to pay for societal goods such as road work, police, fire, education, libraries and defense. O'Reilly made this argument when the federal budget deficit was $412.5 billion. How would a tax cut or private sector investment pay down the deficit and simultaneously support needed social services?

Simple ideas and no debate -- witness the glory of TV punditry.

Another effect of the simplification of ideas by talking heads was the transformation of the presidential election into a day at the track. In fact, MSNBC called its coverage of the election the Hardball Horserace and had continuing updates of which candidate, Bush or Kerry, was ahead in the polls. With little mention of local races or issues, network news talked endlessly about campaign strategy and battleground states. (Editors note: in previous years, states that were too-close-to-call and could go either way for one political party or another were called "swing states." Perhaps the idea of states that could "go either way" or "swing" has become too sexually risque for television. Instead, all news networks in 2004 used the term "battleground" states which carries a more hard-hitting and warlike tone.)

A study completed by the The Norman Lear Center at the USC Annenberg School for Communication found that television news broadcasts did a pathetically poor job covering the issues in the presidential campaign. "In presidential battleground states, a half-hour of local news averaged almost six minutes of campaign advertising, but only three minutes of campaign news," noted the organization. "Ad watch stories, which truth-check the political commercials, made up less than one percent of campaign stories in the study’s sample."

USC researchers analyzed 435 hours of regularly scheduled evening news coverage from 5:00 pm to 11:30 pm aired on local ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox stations in 11 media markets from the period from October 4 through October 10, 2004. They found that, on average, a half-hour newscast included 6.4 minutes of sports and weather and 2.4 minutes of election coverage (the Iraq war only got 30 seconds of coverage). Researchers also concluded that:

• The average length of a campaign news story was 81 seconds.
• Nearly two-thirds of all campaign stories contained no candidate soundbites. When candidates did speak, their soundbites averaged just under 12 seconds.
• Only five percent of all campaign stories were about local elections.
• Forty-five percent of all campaign stories were about strategy or horserace, while only 29 percent focused on campaign issues.

Another study, performed by The Center for Media and Public Affairs (CMPA) at George Mason University, found that during the presidential primaries in January 2004, "only 17 percent of the stories covering the democratic race have investigated the candidates’ voting records, proposals or stances on issues as opposed to 71 percent of the stories focusing on poll numbers and behind-the-scenes tactics." CMPA researchers also found that by October 2004, with the presidential election one month away, sound bites from the candidates dropped to an average of 7.8 seconds.

Try and say anything of substance in less than eight seconds. However, just to be fair, this group also reported that in 1988, the length of a TV sound bite was around 10 seconds so its gotten worse, but not that much worse. Knowing how TV works, the Republican candidates repeated the word "terrorism" and ideas that the Democratic Party was weak over and over. Because TV news only grabs less than eight seconds out of hours and hours of speeches, what was repeated is what got reported.

In the end, turning the election into a NASCAR race created the inherently deceiving red-state/blue-state phenomena. Below on the left is MSNBC's official electoral map from the 2004 election. Like TV itself, this red-state/blue-state map is feebleminded and simple. States with a majority for Bush turned red and states with a majority for Kerry turned blue. Overall, the election was extremely close with Bush winning 51% of the nationwide popular vote and Kerry winning 48% of the vote. Only a few states saw one or the other candidate get a substantial majority in actual votes cast. The TV map on the left gives the obvious and incorrect impression that some states cast votes entirely for Bush while other cast votes entirely for Kerry. The map on the right, also using MSNBC data, shows an electoral map with color gradations representing the proportion of votes cast for the Republican or Democrat.

The "purple map" is much less striking than the TV map. Bush still wins the electoral count, but the purple map makes the real-world distinction that no state's residents cast votes 100% for one party or the other. The 2004 election showed America as a country nearly evenly divided along party lines. The TV map gives the unreal impression of Republican domination throughout the country and also does not take into account population disparities.

Every network used the red-state/blue-state map to help feed their addition on talking head pundits.

A survey conducted by Committee of Concerned Journalists (CCJ) found that during campaign 2004, only 3% of the surveyed journalists give the press an A grade, while another 27% give the news media a B. At the same time, 42% give the coverage a C and 27% say D or F. An analysis of the data by the Project for Excellence in Journalism found that journalists "give particularly low grades to television, be it local, cable or network, and much higher grades to newspapers and online coverage." In the survey, 88% agreed that the media covered "trivial issues" and 89% said coverage was "too reactive."

"When asked about ideas for how the press could improve," notes the PEJ, "respondents felt similarly that the political press has been made timid or reactive by growing public distrust and corporate cutbacks, that it is distracted by poor thinking or herd mentality or is plagued by a lack of professionalism and creeping bias."

Besides taking advantage of TV's pension towards infantile political concepts and eight second sound bites, the Republican Party used effective propaganda to influence the vote. Overall, the Republican message was to use fear as a strategy. Quite effectively and with much repetition, Republican politicians continuously mentioned the September 11th terrorist attacks, worldwide terrorist networks and Saddam Hussein as reasons to vote for reelection of the Bush administration. They portrayed Bush as strong leader with solid convictions who was not afraid to use the military to fight terrorists. Preying on a person's basic human desire for safety, the Republican propaganda system worked well using fear of a terrorist strike as a way to influence votes.

In addition to fear of terrorists, Republicans also peddled the idea of "moral values" as a campaign issue. In 11 states, referendums were on the ballots addressing the issue of gay marriage. The voters overwhelmingly passed these statutes; clearing the way for this issue to be used again in future political contests. Fear of gay marriage and a rejection of "liberal Hollywood values" was something Republican groups used in many states to encourage voters to support Bush. The Democratic Party, in comparison, did a poor job defining its platform for change and simplifying the issues for the voters. The propaganda machine working for Kerry failed to counter many Republican attacks. In some ways, the Democrats were effective in creating a distrust of the Bush administration's economic policies and dissatisfaction with foreign policy -- however, the TV-addicted public of the United States never truly identified with John Kerry or his running mate, John Edwards.

One constant between both the Republican and Democratic Parties was that they were spending lots of money on campaign advertising. More money was doled out during the 2004 election season than ever before in U.S. history. The Center for Responsive Politics, a non-partisan, non-profit research group that tracks money in politics and its effect on elections and public policy, found that politicians engaged in the presidential and congressional elections spent $3.9 billion on advertising. According to the Center, $1.2 billion was spent on the presidential races alone.

Overall, the Center found that those who spent the money, won. "The biggest spender was victorious in 413 of 432 decided House races and 31 of 34 decided Senate races," stated the Center in a press release. "In the race for the White House, President Bush spent a total of $306.3 million in private and government funds from January 2003," the organization noted. "Sen. John Kerry, who faced a tough battle for the Democratic nomination, spent $241.7 million."

Republican TV attack ads were incredibly effective and took on many forms:

The Democrat's TV ads were similar, but did not have the compelling imagery of their rival's:

Besides pure "attack" ads, both campaigns ran many "pro-candidate" ads which showed Bush or Kerry as a family man and proud American. Ultimately, both side's ads worked in a traditional sense. It was the Bush campaign, however, that scored the big "gee-whiz" ad of the campaign with its "wolves" ad.

The "wolves ad" narration: "In an increasingly dangerous world . . . even after the first terrorist attack on America. John Kerry and the Liberals in Congress voted to slash America's intelligence operations . . . by $6 billion. Cuts so deep they would have weakened America's defenses. And weakness attracts those who are waiting to do America harm."

The wolves ad was shown on nearly every TV talk show. The imagery that wolves (i.e. terrorists) will attack if Kerry gets elected was so unusual that it received a lot of media attention. At the time, the TV pundits laughed at the ad -- however, the ad got more exposure than any other and was effective in progressing the Republican agenda in painting the Democrats as weak in the "war on terror." As conventional wisdom notes, there is no such thing as bad publicity.

"The story this whole year has been the sheer volume of ads," Evan Tracey, president of TNS Campaign Media Analysis Group told the Associate Press. "This is an election that I think changes politics." (AP, Nov. 1, 2004)

With so much money spent on TV advertising by politicians, these attack ads were successful in influencing the media's focus. The Republican's campaign to make voters fear another terror attack and express their opposition to homosexual marriage was impressively influential. On election night, Republican TV pundits all shrieked with glee as their party not only retained the White House, but gained seats in both the House of Representatives and Senate. The Republicans won big in November 2004 and, most likely, the media will now succumb to the "Dallas Cowboys Effect."

The Dallas Cowboys football team gained the moniker "America's Team" because it was a perennial winner. Between 1966 and 1985, the Cowboys had 20 consecutive winning seasons. Throughout their history, they won the Super Bowl five times including 1992, 1993 and 1995. The sports media fawns over the Cowboys and the team has fans all over the country, regardless of geography. Once again, conventional wisdom loves a winner. The media will rally around the Republican Party concerning all political issues. Not only does TV rely on ratings, but for pundits, it's easier to support a winner.

Not only did the networks receive unprecedented amounts of money for on-air campaign advertising, they scored big on Election Night in the ratings as well. Around 15.2 million people watched anchor Tom Brokaw and professional pundit Tim Russert on NBC, which was the big winner. ABC's coverage was seen by 13.2 million people followed by the Fox News Channel with a viewership of 8.1 million. The CBS network had 9.5 million viewers and CNN had 6.2 million.

American politics is now embarking down a perilous road. Pundits and propaganda rule the airwaves and television is technologically unable to provide any semblance of intellectual discussion. As New York Times columnist Paul Krugman noted, TV news is now a battle between "Swagger vs. Substance." Krugman writes that with respect to media commentary, there "will be a temptation to revert to drama criticism - to emphasize how the candidates looked and acted, and push analysis of what they said, and whether it was true, to the inside pages. With so much at stake, the public deserves better." (NYT, Sept. 28, 2004)

Television, as it stands today, will never serve the public interest. Election 2004 will probably usher in a golden age of punditry and propaganda -- and in the end it is the television industry who will always win because it will continue to make lots of money -- regardless of the issues or who the voters elect.

© 2004 by Ron Kaufman at TurnOffYourTV.com

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