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Ham and Eggs
The Hotch Potch Psephology of
US Poll
Anju Kaur
The media’s obsession to
report only the horse race and turn themselves into self- styled
soothsayers has backfired again – badly. Let’s not forget the media
hammered the nail into John McCain’s, R-Az., campaign coffin last
summer and buried him after Iowa. Then the poll results began coming
in
 This
is the most exciting presidential election of my lifetime.
Excitement tends to bring out the extremes in media. And in this
primary season, media organizations have produced one of the worst
public displays of yellow journalism to come around in a long time.
What that means for the voting public is they have to be more aware
of what is commentary and what is news. Ask yourself: what is the
source of my information?
The
media's obsession to report only the horse race and turn themselves
into self-styled soothsayers has backfired again – badly.
Last fall I had the opportunity to report on Sen. Barack Obama,
D-Ill., and Sen. Hillary Clinton when they were attending
fundraisers in Maryland, where I live, just outside Washington, D.C.
 Obama was electrifying in Prince George's County, a predominantly
black region. I watched as he moved a huge crowd of thousands of
young people ready to follow him anywhere. And Clinton was
incredibly knowledgeable and personable as she addressed questions
posed by national media in a telephone news conference before a
fundraising event in Bethesda.
Both are very impressive candidates, as are many other candidates in
both parties.
But
the media, emboldened by their prediction of Obama's win in the Iowa
caucuses and his final landslide win last week, many pundits acted
as if they were given a mandate to poo-poo on Sen. Hillary Clinton,
D-N.Y. Up until the New Hampshire primaries Tuesday, it was a
free-for-all Hillary bash.
As
The Washington Post's Howard Kurtz put it: "This was delicious. The
coverage had been so out of control there was speculation about when
Hillary might have to drop out. Polls giving Barack Obama an 8- or
10-point lead were accepted as fact. The news surrounding the former
first lady had been uniformly negative for days. She's done
everything wrong, Obama has done everything right. She got too
emotional in the diner. People just didn't like her. She campaigned
in boring prose and Obama in soaring poetry (to use her analogy).
Bill was hurting her. A campaign shake-up was on the way. An era was
ending. Some pundits were predicting a 20-point Obama margin."
Kurtz was referring to stories in The Washington Post, New York
Times, Chicago Tribune and Boston Herald.
Let's not forget the media hammered the nail into John McCain's, R-Az.,
campaign coffin last summer and buried him after Iowa.
Then the poll results began coming in.
The
media hams had egg on their face when Clinton and McCain actually
won the first primary. One of the few voices of wisdom and reason on
election night was that of Tom Brokaw, anchor of the "NBC Nightly
News."
As
MSNBC's Chris Matthews and others began scrambling for an
explanation, setting the media's agenda to explain their big blunder
as Clinton's emotional moment in Portsmouth having payed off or
questioning whether voters may have played the race card, Brokaw's
words rose above the chatter:
 "…There are a lot of issues that have not been fully explored during
all this. But we don't have to get in the business of making
judgments before the polls have closed. And trying to stampede in
effect the process… I think that the people out there are going to
begin to make judgments about us if we don't begin to temper that
temptation to constantly try to get ahead of what the voters are
deciding."
Dana Milbank of The Washington Post brought an egg with him the next
day on the "Countdown With Keith Olbermann" show on MSNBC. He said
he wanted to have it on his face but it would make his make-up run.
Milbank, like most other political reporters, was rather embarrassed
by his on-the-ground predictions from the granite state.
The
blame goes to the media more than to the pollsters. Following polls
is not a bad thing, but they have to be reported intelligently,
fairly and accurately. As Olbermann pointed out, between 20 to 30
percent of both Obama and Clinton supporters said they were not
firmly committed to their candidate. Meaning, they decided at the
last minute.
There's the answer, Olbermann said. And indeed, that is a
significant margin that makes the outcome unpredictable.
This was not the first, nor will it be the last media debacle. The
pundits are taking over the news media with their incessant
commentary, and reporters, increasingly addicted to the idea of
one-upmanship, are leaving behind the stalwarts of journalism: truth
and accuracy.
There is too much personality-driven political reporting. There is
too little reporting on issues and candidates, but you can find it
if you look for it.
(Anju
Kaur is the prime force behind Sikhnn.com where this article
originally appeared.)
16 January 2008
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