There is no doubt that the 2012 United States presidential race between President Barack Obama and Governor Mitt Romney will be hard fought. Is this an election that requires close scrutiny and a careful combing through the facts? Absolutely. However, it doesn’t take a lot of time looking at the statics and state polls to figure out that the election is not as close at the American news media would have us believe.
I am currently working on a documentary series that explains the American election process for Al Hurra viewers in the Middle East. I have had the opportunity to interview politicians, voters, pollsters and various other political pundits. The vast majority of these people say that the numbers favor President Obama no matter how you slice them and have since this summer.
But let’s face it. A story in which Obama looks to be leading continuously just isn’t that sexy. Where’s the tension? Where’s the drama? Where does that leave the bottom line for the news outlets? The conventional wisdom in news seems to be that drama sells better than truth. Newspapers and news shows are ultimately about turning a profit. With the inundation of outlets in print, broadcast 24 hours a day on cable channels and available all the time online, journalists and their bosses work extra hard to entice news consumers to spend time (and money) in their camp.
Visit statistic star Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight.com political forecast where he calculates that President Obama currently (as of November 2) has a 79% chance of winning. At no point since June has Romney led. Serious gamblers are betting big bucks based on Silver’s number crunching. Why? In the 2008 elections, he correctly predicted how 49 out of 50 states would vote in the presidential races. He nailed all of the senate race calculations. Princeton Election Consortium gives Obama a 90% change to win. I see no reason to disagree with Silver or the other statisticians out there.
The candidates also benefit from faux close polls because they can both claim a slight edge (read “join us, the winning team”). A close race gives supporters on both sides hope but not so much hope as to keep them from voting on Election Day.
And the closeness of the race is not the only element of the presidential elections that is being sensationalized. News outlets comb through every single thing the candidates or anyone remotely connected to them say and so. While I agree that the electorate does need to know enough about the candidate to understand their character as well as their thoughts on policy, we do not need to hear countless news reports on who wore their American flag on their lapel or not.
The American public loses out when elections are sensationalized for the sake of news. The horserace ends up taking center stage forcing candidates to rely on on-line jabs to cut through the clutter. Three months of back-and-forth zingers do nothing to expand the political dialogue or educate voters on the actual stances of those running. Because the candidates don’t have to articulate their policy stances, they are less likely to take a clear path when it comes time to lead.
During this last week before elections, I now read, watch and listen to the news with my hand ready to turn the page or change the station at the first mention of the elections. Perhaps the very valuable undecided voters find the hype of the election informative somehow. I don’t. But then again, I’m not undecided. As a producer, I’m sure glad I got out of the news business a long time ago.
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