Although, this time I’m going to approach the topic from a completely untapped angle.  We have heard about the liberal media bias, the conservative media bias, whether journalists can even avoid a bias and what should be done about said bias if it does indeed exist and cannot be eliminated.

But what about the monetary media bias?  Here’s the theory – the media isn’t biased to the left or the right.  Sure, some anchors, hosts and pundits are biased, since that is their job, but when it comes to the producers, the owners, the decision makers, they are neutrally biased.  Sounds nice, right?  What better than having a media that is obsessed with always giving a perfect 50/50 representation of each side of the story?  Besides, it only makes sense that a business would pursue profit over political motives.

“I think there’s somewhat of a media bias; I think it has more to do with making money, though,” said Trevor Grigg, president of the Boise State University College Republicans student group.  “I don’t think it’s totally deliberate.  I think it’s what is going to sell the most newspapers and what is going to get the most viewers.”

Grigg said he’s worried that the chase for money has serious implications when it comes to the content reported by the news outlets.

“I think it distorts the truth.  Whatever they can do to make the most money,” he said.

Justine Cook, administrative coordinator for BSU’s college democrats, agreed with Grigg.

“I think in general there is a media bias because you have to have an audience to support your revenues,” she said.

Here’s the problem – in real life, not every story is balanced 50/50.  Think about it – with any fight, there’s almost always a “right” and “wrong” side, though the mass media isn’t allowed to take a side.  But because the media wants to appear as balanced as possible, they will go out of their way to bolster the weaker side of an argument to keep the story 50/50.  Furthermore, controversy increases viewership, which in turn increases ad revenue, which in turn makes company executives happy.   This is amplified by the fact that in political campaigns, the tighter the race, the higher the viewership.  For example, ABC News’s broadcast of the January 5 New Hampshire debate pulled in 9.4 million viewers, according to Multichannel News.  Similarly, ABC News’s pre-Pennsylvania primary debate pulled in 8 million viewers, and even cable news channels are setting records, with CNN’s January 31 California debate raking in 8.3 million viewers.

Some examples of overly-heavy coverage:

Reverend Wright

It is more or less common knowledge these days that Sen. Barack Obama does not agree with Rev. Wright on the contentious issues brought up in his speeches.  After all, why would Obama be interested in running for president if he had such a pessimistic, negative and sometimes hateful outlook on society?  But the coverage of Rev. Wright has exploded throughout March and April, reaching its pinnacle with Rev. Wright’s latest media blitz with his Bill Moyers appearance, his NAACP speech and the pursuant press conference/media debacle.

But Obama denounced Wright’s remarks a month ago, and yet the media is still infatuated with Wright.  Every speech he gives and every question he answers is live on CNN, and even the old video clips from YouTube – denounced by Obama specifically – appear on television every time Wright’s name is mentioned. 

“I think that because there has been so much attention, they are desperate to keep it as long as possible because the audience has responded,” said Cook, who is also the chapter president of BSU students for Obama.  “So now they’re trying to keep those viewers.  I think it’s kind of low and childish, but because the media sets the agenda, people are going to focus on those issues.”

So why is Wright still in the media?  Obama has repeatedly denounced his remarks, Wright has retired from Obama’s church and until this week, he had been more or less shelved by the media.

There’s one explanation.  Obama is still in the lead in every way to measure the race – popular votes, elected delegates and states won – and he’s likely to win half of the upcoming contests, North Carolina, Oregon, Montana and South Dakota, meaning he is in every way still the frontrunner in the race.  The Wright controversy is the last thing hanging on Obama’s ankle that is keeping him from breaking loose and storming directly to Denver with a fresh pile of confident superdelegates hanging on his coattails.  Should this controversy go away, there will be almost no way for the media to keep people tuning in until the general election campaigns begin later this year.  I don’t believe Obama would have any reason to respond to Hillary’s attacks, large media markets would lose some ad revenue from the millions of dollars spent on television ads and it would begin the end of conversations about future debates between Obama and Clinton, which haul in millions of viewers to whichever network is airing the debate.  This explains why it takes a new event to knock old events off the front page, regardless of the significance of either story.

“I’ve stopped paying attention to this junk,” said Shawn O’Neal, adviser to the University of Idaho student newspaper, the Argonaut.  “Now we’ve really just got ourselves into a bare-knuckled brawl.  It’s like watching a guy get beat up in a bar.  There’s nothing else to write or report on, so [the mass media] is all over this.” 

Hillary Clinton circa 2007

Anyone who can remember back to 2007 can effortlessly recall a full-swing media blitz against Hillary Clinton that lasted almost the entire year.  In every debate, she was assaulted with question after question, some stupid and relatively unimportant, in an attempt to throw her off message.  After all, frontrunners and controversy bring viewers, and nothing makes viewers happier than a healthy dose of drama wrapped around a national household name (see: Paris Hilton, Eliot Spitzer, Larry Craig, Britney Spears, etc.).  Hillary weathered the storm and the assault continued until she came in third place in Iowa, which is when the Obama blitz began. 

The Rev. Wright comments have been around since long before Iowa, yet none of them mattered.  They arose in a big way after Super Tuesday, though they didn’t get much coverage until Obama put himself decisively in the lead with his twelve wins that covered most of February.  Even then the videos didn’t get much airtime.  It wasn’t until Clinton pulled herself out of her slump and won Texas and Ohio that the media realized Obama was still within striking range for Clinton, making the Wright videos, finally, worth unleashing.

So what is this doing to the race, and more importantly, to the country?

Well, the first thing is that it’s stopping any candidate from ever really accumulating any momentum, which is needed to achieve the nomination and rally the party.  We would have seen a similar effect with John McCain and Mitt Romney if Romney didn’t take the high road and drop out early, although the different rules for the GOP nomination, such as winner-take-all contests, make such a tense scenario less likely.  The media will try to keep the race even as long as there are candidates left in the running, which is both why Hillary Clinton has made such a strong showing despite the depressing mathematical reality of her campaign and why the media has been gushing over every Clinton “comeback,” after New Hampshire, after winning Massachusetts, New Jersey and California on Super Tuesday, after Ohio/Texas and after Pennsylvania.  Few reporters are pointing out that Obama’s run of twelve consecutive wins in February were all wins by larger margins than Hillary’s largest margin since then, other than Rhode Island. 

Obama’s smallest victory between February 9 and March 4 was 17.3 percent, while Clinton won with an 18 percent margin in Rhode Island, with her next biggest showing a 10.4 percent win in Ohio.  Interestingly, Obama’s average margin of victory in his 31 wins is a stunning 30 percent margin, while Clinton’s average margin of victory in her 15 wins is 13.5 percent (Florida and Michigan results not included in averages).

Not to repeat my “fun with math” blog from a few weeks ago, but as of right now, there is no legitimate way to count the votes or the delegates that put Clinton ahead, and it is unlikely this will change after the last several contests.

Yet watching CNN, MSNBC, ABC and Fox, one would believe Clinton still has a good chance at winning the nomination, which is their justification for making such a huge fuss out of the back-and-forth mudslinging between the two Democratic rivals.  If the media told viewers the news as it is, it would be hard to justify any coverage of this race at all.

In my opinion, this is badly damaging to the democratic process.  Instead of the media reporting the most relevant news (who is winning, why and in which ways), the media has become an all-powerful third party that controls the outcome of this race in virtually every way via the choices they make on what to cover.  Many Americans get their news from either broadcast or cable news channels, which then trickles down through the Internet and into the papers, meaning the choices each news outlet makes ultimately matters more than what any candidate actually does.  If a person gives a speech but the speech isn’t broadcast and the only thing people hear about it is endless spin from televised pundits, there’s no way for the broader public to make a truly honest and educated decision. 

But the media isn’t interested in controlling the outcome of the race.  The media is a pile of private businesses, and in journalism, we are taught one thing about the media: the first priority is to sell product.  And thus far, this priority is moving ahead nicely.  For the first quarter of 2008, Time Warner, Inc’s network division, which includes CNN, shows a 13 percent boost in advertising sales on television alone. 

“The networks sold more ad units, had solid audience growth and were able to command higher cost-per-thousand ad rates,” reports Advertising Age, an online advertising publication.  The quarter ran from January 1 through April 30 and was laden with heavy political coverage from Obama’s Iowa victory to Clinton’s most recent Pennsylvania win and all the scandals in between.

Readers and viewers speak with their eyes, and since controversy generates headlines which generate viewers, controversy is a high priority for the media.  With nothing forcing Clinton out of the race before Denver and Rev. Wright acting as if he has a legitimate claim to the public microphone, there’s no reason to believe the media will change course any time soon.  After all, their highest priority is to stay in business, which may or may not be directly in line with reporting all of the truth, all of the time.

What it ultimately comes down to is the tighter and longer the race, the bigger the coffers and advertising buys … damn reality, damn the voters.