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Since the days of President Jimmy Carter, incumbent presidents angling for another term have had a 50 percent success rate. Not so with candidates further down the ballot. For Congress members, re-election has increasingly become as sure a thing as death and taxes. WNYC's Bob Hennelly reports from New Jersey on the ways media coverage and redistricting have stacked the deck against challengers.
A few weeks ago, a British newspaper kicked off a campaign to win hearts and minds in the swing state of Ohio. The Guardian asked concerned Britons to write directly to voters in a hotly contested county, and implore them to vote for Kerry. Ohioans were less then impressed. While it remains to be seen how they'll vote, their passionate letters make it clear that after more than 200 years, the spirit of anti-colonialism lives on in Clark County, Ohio.
The conflicting methodologies of the various pollsters, from ABC to Zogby, have resulted in election forecasts that are all over the map. But the media are unswayed by the lack of certainty, and continue to shower us with more polls. Philip J. Trounstine, director of the Survey and Policy Research Insitute at San Jose State University, compiled a polling primer for the LA Times. He joins Brooke to shed some light on the way polls work, or as the case may be, don't.
Election polling will soon come to an end, and the public will once again be free to keep its opinions to itself. Pollsters will likely use the quiet to recalibrate their methodologies in preparation for the next big race. But some skeptics aren't convinced that progress lies in creating a better poll. They want to get rid of polls altogether. Bob chats with Arianna Huffington, one such skeptic, about her Partnership for a Poll Free America.
Two weeks ago, Sinclair Broadcasting Group unleashed a hornet's nest when it ordered its 62 local TV stations to air a documentary attacking John Kerry's anti-Vietnam War activities. Advertisers pulled out in the face of a boycott threat, and Sinclair's stock plummeted. This week, Sinclair appeared to backtrack, announcing it would only air segments of the film as part of a larger documentary about…political documentaries. Brooke talks to Legg Mason managing director Blair Levin about the dubious wisdom of Sinclair's politically-oriented business model.
There's more than a week left before the election, but many have cast their votes already, including Americans abroad, shut-ins, and newspapers. Editor & Publisher senior editor Joe Strupp has been tracking editorial endorsements in a daily roundup, and joins Bob to discuss the backroom process through which editorial boards arrive at their endorsements.
Another weekend, another round of endorsements. But in the end, how much influence do the editorial pages have over voters' choices on election day? The answer depends on the candidate's position on the ballot. The further down you go, the more voters depend on their trusted dailies. But where presidential hopefuls are concerned, editorial boards might just as well be shouting into the wind. Bob examines the influence of endorsements.
Have you ever watched the candidates slip up at the stump, and concluded that if given the chance, you could do better? Whether it's Bush talking about the "hard work" of the presidency or Kerry invoking the phrase "global test," many of us have imagined ourselves in the driver's seat of the campaign. Imagine no more - a new crop of Sims-like video games allow players to run their own White House campaign. Slate.com contributor Clive Thompson reviews the games for Brooke.
Highlights from Past ShowsThroughout the last few weeks of hotly-contested presidential debates, a quieter debate has centered on the media's role in covering the stage shows. Slowly but surely, journalists have started checking the candidates' claims against the facts. But are all misrepresentations born equal? A recent internal memo at ABC News urged staffers not to "reflexively and artificially hold both sides 'equally' accountable when the facts don't warrant that." Conservatives saw the memo as proof of liberal media bias, but others, like Washington Monthly's Kevin Drum, took the advice to heart. Drum and Bob discuss the measure of mistruth.
Bush and Kerry spent most of the week preparing for their first big showdown, leaving the campaign press with little to do but spin their wheels in anticipation. “Spin” being the operative word. The net effect of a week’s worth of prognosticating pundits and campaign talking points was an overall lowering of expectations, resulting in a surprising level of surprise in a lot of the post-debate analysis. Brooke reflects on the pre- and post-debate spin.
On the Media is funded by The Bydale Foundation, The Ford Foundation, The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and the Overbrook Foundation.
