Partisan National Media is Our “New Normal” - Horowitz
Tuesday, May 18, 2021
An in-depth analysis of the coverage of the first 60 days of the Biden Administration confirms that we continue to live in a media environment in which the overall point of view of the cable network, online site or old-fashioned newspaper provides the frame that shapes individual news stories, giving the viewer the opportunity to self-select and watch the news that reflects their partisan affiliation or sympathies. With a Democratic administration now in power, MSNBC and CNN’s news coverage of the White House, for example, has become more positive, while Fox News coverage has become markedly more negative.
More broadly, as the Pew Research Group analysis details, “Outlets with right-leaning audiences presented a primarily negative view of the new Biden administration. In all, about three-quarters (78%) of their stories offered a negative assessment of the administration and its actions, with only 4% offering a positive assessment. Among outlets with a left-leaning audience, the assessment was a little more positive than negative (29% of stories vs. 19%), while 52% of stories were neither positive nor negative. In outlets with a more mixed audience, the coverage of the Biden administration was also mixed: 25% of the stories had a positive assessment, 24% had a negative one and 51% were neither positive nor negative.”
In contrast, the early days of the Trump Administration was covered quite favorably by right-leaning media outlets and very negatively by left-leaning ones. News stories on right-leaning outlets were “twice as likely to offer a positive than a negative assessment (31% vs. 14%),” according to Pew. On the other hand, news stories on left-leaning outlets or ones with ideologically mixed audiences were “far more likely to offer a negative than positive assessment.”
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTThe mix of issues covered in the initial phase of the Biden administration also varied by outlet depending on the “ideological leanings of their audiences.” Outlets with right-leaning audiences focused heavily on immigration, while ones with left-leaning or mixed audiences focused more heavily on the economy and health care, Pew found.
Like it or not, partisan news is here to stay. In today’s niche media system with a seemingly endless array of viewing options at everyone’s fingertips, producing news and information that appeals to an ideological slice of the audience is a proven strategy for success. Tucker Carlson and Rachel Maddow have highly profitable, successful shows that reach only 3 million people or so nightly in a nation with more than 200 million adults. News shows that aim at a mass audience, stripping out a strong point of view in an attempt to reach people of all ideologies and partisan sympathies tend to fall flat in the ratings. Former CBS President Leslie Moonves’ famous words still very much apply, “There are no more single voice of God anchors.” People, by and large, prefer to watch or read news that reflects their own views and reinforces what they already believe.
This fact of life has some unfortunate consequences for our democracy. Research shows that when people are exposed mainly to information that confirms their own views, they become more certain and extreme in their opinions and less open to seeing the merits in the arguments of people with whom they disagree. But far more dangerous is when news and other sources of information present falsehoods as facts as has been too often the case among right-leaning outlets in amplifying the former president’s false claims that the election was stolen. That is when we move from news with a point of view to propaganda.
That is the trend that accelerated during the Trump era that we must fight hardest to combat. “Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts,” said Daniel Patrick Moynihan. While news with a point of view is the “new. normal,” deliberate disinformation is poisonous to our democracy. That is where all Americans --no matter their point of view or partisan affiliation-- must draw the line.
Rob Horowitz is a strategic and communications consultant who provides general consulting, public relations, direct mail services and polling for national and state issue organizations, various non-profits, businesses, and elected officials and candidates. He is an Adjunct Professor of Political Science at the University of Rhode Island.
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