Does Media Spend = Media Bias?
Does how much the media spends covering the candidates imply there was a bias in their coverage?
Even now, more than a month after Election Day, people are still debating whether the media was biased in favor of Barack Obama. The latest ‘evidence’ was the amount of money the media spent to cover the Obama campaign, compared to what it spent to cover John McCain’s campaign.
According to an analysis of campaign finance reports posted on Politico, “media outlets paid $8.5 million to fly Air Obama compared to $5.8 million to ride the Straight Talk Express during the general election, a difference of 32 percent.” The spending gap reflects higher overhead costs that Obama passed along to the press (such as a larger plane that was more expensive to fly), the article notes, as well as divergent accounting techniques. “But the numbers also corroborate studies – and Republican gripes – positing that the media was more focused on Obama than McCain.”
Does it really?
The article notes that the Obama campaign had more newspapers, magazines and radio and television stations paying to travel and more journalists from outlets that covered both campaigns. That makes sense — Obama’s candidacy was historic for several reasons, and because of the intensity of the campaign (he did more events than McCain) it required more people and more energy to cover. That, in itself, is not a slight of the McCain campaign — though perhaps it could be perceived as a strategic failure of the McCain campaign to create a campaign that the media could be used to amplify better.
Meanwhile, the article listed a few news outlets that paid only to travel with the Obama-Biden campaign. The list included the Chicago Sun-Times, ESPN, the Columbus Dispatch, Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart,” Extra, US Weekly, Men’s Health, Men’s Vogue, Essence, and Ebony and Jet magazine. Again, this seems to make sense — the Sun Times is a local Chicago paper, Ebony and Jet cater to an African American crowd, The Daily Show is, well, The Daily Show… they aren’t expected to be balanced in their interest, and don’t claim to be.
News is a business. The papers and networks covered the campaign with the goal of making money. I’d like to say that they had the public interest in mind, but it is hard to claim that in most cases. Clearly, the media thought Obama was a bigger story and his campaign was likely to generate more interest and more revenue for their parent companies. It turns out they were probably right. So, I don’t think the amount of money the media spent to cover the different candidates suggests bias in one direction or another. Rather, it suggests that we need to come up with a better way to run, and to cover presidential campaigns so that the public can get information and access without money getting in the way.
Brian is Managing Director of little m media which provides strategic guidance and support to organizations around the use of the internet and technology to facilitate communications, engagement, education, and mobilization.
