Of all the culprits involved in the current Democratic Party mess none has drawn more ire than the media. Many of Hillary Clinton’s supporters believe the media cost their candidate the nomination.

Admittedly the media have become America’s favorite scapegoat. Something goes wrong and we blame it on the media. It has especially become the favorite scapegoat of those who themselves depend on the media and even cultivate media attention–Hollywood types, politicians, public figures. Their whining about the media many times has the tone of someone who was spurned by their dream date.

The public also loves to blame the media, perhaps because they are the one scapegoat you can invoke around the Xerox machine and not worry about getting someone angry. Everybody loves to hate the media. They routinely come in near the top of least-trusted American institutions.

Being a hoops fan, right now the talk is all about how some shadowy inner circle conspired with the media to make sure that the NBA finals would feature a Lakers-Celtics matchup. Plays are dredged up from previous games that may have been dubious calls as prime exhibits in the case against the media as rigging the finals. After the Celtics remarkable comeback the other night, people I know were saying there was no way the media would let the series end at six games. These conspiracy types have this series penciled in for seven, because that will give the media the maximum take.

The Hillary Clinton-Barack Obama feud has provoked some similar comments. Partisans of candidates who dropped out of the race say the media wanted an Obama-Clinton contest all along. Clinton backers are saying the media inflated Obama’s appeal and cost their candidate the huge early lead she had piled up. Obama partisans are saying the media prolonged the contest after it was clear Obama had the momentum. Both think the media are contributing to the current mess.

At the epicenter of this earthquake are the debates. The media’s role in them can be broken down into several concerns: 1) the issue of the media hosting and controlling the debates, 20 the format of the debates, 3) the questions–who was asked what and how many times, 4) who was invited to the debates, and, 5) their fairness to each candidate.

Beginning with the first issue, in the past national organizations such as the League of Women Voters served as hosts and organizers of the debates with details about format and time being worked out with representatives of the candidates. This year marks the first time the media involved themselves so extensively in this role.

By doing so they crossed a line that has serious implications for our democracy. The media have now become the queen/king-makers of our government. This gives them unprecedented power. Add to that the growing media concentration plus the trend towards partisanship most exemplified by the nation’s first overtly political network–Faux News–and we have a volatile combination. If the media choose the candidates, then it behooves the candidates to be nice to the media.

The Constitution, of course, would prohibit Congress from forbidding the media to host debates, but the parties and candidates could put a stop to this ominous new perversion of our political system by refusing to participate. The problem is that none of them wants to bite the hand that feeds them.

The 2008 debates for both parties illustrate why we should be concerned about this unprecedented media power. The scripts for both parties were eerily familiar the way they played out with an early front-runner who lost support, a dark horse no one thought could win emerging from the pack, and the neglect shown so-called minor candidates in both parties. Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul were similar candidates in their outspoken views and both received little media attention.

This leads to issue number two–the format for the debates. The media decided the format, the questions and even screened the audience. In those debates that focused on audience participation, the questioners and their questions were carefully auditioned ahead of time, seemingly using the same criteria the media use for quiz show contestants.

Only the debate questioners passed through an even more rigid screening. You will see more diversity on the Price is Right than you saw at the debates. Questioners were inevitably white–except when a point needed to be made, such as with the stereotypical choice of a Latino voter to ask the immigration question. Questioners also represented the inhabitants of TV Land in that they tended to be young, photogenic and frankly more articulate than the rest of us. By the end of the debates the audience and their questions had become as predictable as the characters in a sitcom.

The format had another serious flaw we all recognized: none of them were debates. With an eye on their own news programs, the networks went for the soundbite answer, rarely permitting candidates to give detailed explanations. On top of this the candidates were rarely permitted to engage in real debates with each other. It is symbolic that the media controlled whether a candidate was allowed to respond and for how long. I remember Hillary Clinton was even interrupted for a commercial! The media made it very clear they were in charge.

Instead of a debate we witnessed the equivalent of Meet the Press, or at times the O’Reilly show. That the late Tim Russert moderated a fair number of these debates as if he were moderating his own program added to the impression. Just as Meet the Press has long viewed itself as a kind of Washington gate-keeper, so the media viewed the debates the same way. The candidates that emerged would have to pass their tests. The two parties, the American people and the candidates themselves had no so say in the process.

This leads to a second serious charge: the media controlled who was invited and who was questioned. From the beginning the so-called minor candidates received little attention. It was almost as though the media read the polls the day before and doled out questions in virtually the same percentage as the candidate’s percentage in the standings. Mike Gravel and Dennis Kucinich received the cold treatment during the Democratic debates. The press chose who was asked what question and who was allowed to follow-up.

Although this is a subjective impression, I believe Hillary Clinton’s supporters have a legitimate beef about this. The media appeared determined to make the campaign a horse race and in the early going seemed to be conducting auditions for who would take on the front runner. With those auditions the main focus, sometimes it seemed the front runner was neglected.

When Obama won Iowa, the media had their horse race. The Democratic contest now became a two-candidate contest, which for them is the easiest to cover. By then the so-called minor candidates could read the script. Money played a role in suspending their campaigns, but just as critical was the lack of attention the media paid them. The chief victim of this was John Edwards, who once was presumed to be Clinton’s main rival, but having been assigned to the role of number three suddenly found his debate time diminishing.

So the media helped to make the race a two-candidate contest. When they started excluding the minor candidates from the debates, they stepped over another line. At this point the political parties and Congress should have stepped in, but they allowed the media to write the script. Nowhere was the irrelevance and powerlessness of the two major parties better demonstrated.

Now we come to the most critical issue, the questions themselves. We’ll wait for the scholars to count the minutes and types of questions and weigh in with the real data–which curiously have been absent, but meanwhile it seems clear to anyone who watched the debates that all the candidates probably have legitimate gripes.

One interesting side light is that as far as I remember there was not a single question asked about the media themselves, especially not about major issues such as the politicization of the media, media concentration and the cozy relationship between the media and corporate America. In fact there were few questions about corporate America, especially corporate scandals such as Enron or the mortgage foreclosure fiasco. Of what I term the four cornerstones of Liberal America: social and economic justice, voting rights, media fairness and educational equity there was little discussion. I wager to say there was more about Reverend Wright than all these area put together.

The minor candidates were rarely asked substantive questions and when they were they were usually in response to questions directed at major candidates. Of the major candidates, Clinton seemed to suffer from being ignored early and then immediately after Obama’s Iowa victory.

This neglect carried over into the reaction shots the cameras often showed when a candidate was answering a question. Once the media had decided the race was between Clinton and Obama one rarely saw reaction shots of the other candidates, but instead if Clinton was answering, the cameras focused on Obama and vice versa.

As Obama surged ahead, the situation dramatically reversed and suddenly the media placed him on the defensive. Suddenly all of America was focused on Reverend Wright. Now the front runner, he attracted the feisty questions that formerly had gone to Clinton.

I remain convinced until I see data otherwise that the media played a significant role in deciding the final candidates by their control of the debate format and questions. Their neglect of the minor candidates said to voters, “We’re not going to waste our time on these people and neither should you.” The desire of the media to have a horse race and their long-standing tendency to nurture scandal also contributed to the rift between the Clinton and Obama campaigns.

At this point they would love to see the feud carried into the convention. Anyone can write the script: the reporters will be prowling for Clinton delegates who gripe about the contest, the pundits will try to stir up any controversy they can between the two no matter how tenuous, and, of course, they will dredge up Bill Clinton yet one more time.

While there were conflicts between the campaigns and both sides had questions about their rivals, the media fanned these sparks into a major wildfire that badly burned the Democratic Party. The role of the media has now shifted form serving as impartial, neutral observers to instigators and active participants in the process.

To me the ultimate symbol of the debates were those giant television screens that dominated so many of them, ominously looming over the candidates and the proceedings like something out of Brave New World. Those giant screens not only symbolized the media’s domination of the process but also how the reality was not what was going on on the stage but what was occurring on the screen.

Let us hope that before the next Presidential primary season, the political parties. Congress and the American people insist on having real debates and that the networks fulfill their proper role of covering them rather than running them.

Tags: Barack Obama, Boston Celtics, debate questions, Democratic Party, Democratic Presidential candidates, Dennis Kuncinich, fox news, Hillary Clinton, john edwards, League of Women Voters, Los Angeles Lakers, media, Meet the Press, Presidential debates, Reverand Wright, role of the media, Ron Paul, the Constitution
Tagged with: Barack Obama • Boston Celtics • debate questions • Democratic Party • Democratic Presidential candidates • Dennis Kuncinich • fox news • Hillary Clinton • john edwards • League of Women Voters • Los Angeles Lakers • media • Meet the Press • Presidential debates • Reverand Wright • role of the media • Ron Paul • the Constitution