the campaign-media nexus

Marc Cooper, who edited the piece on HuffPo that exposed Barack Obama’s Bitterness Gaffe, celebrates this as an instance of the brave new world of “citizen journalism” influencing the national conversation [e.a.]:

I, personally, would have written her piece much differently than the way she chose. It would have been less about me and more about Obama. But Mayhill has developed quite a loyal and appreciative audience and with her most recent work demonstrates that citizen journalism can do many, many things still inaccessible to the MSM. It’s also quite a bit of fun to see how a report like hers can actually set the agenda for the entire national press. I’ve also been impressed with the way that Mayhill has struggled with her own conscience, her own values and as well her hopes and desires. She was and remains an Obama supporter. And it wasn’t easy for her to write a piece that she knew, while truthful and accurate, would nevertheless be used by his political opponents. Not an easy task, I assure you.

I’d say the national “conversation” wasn’t influenced so much as hijacked. In his lede, Cooper confirms this; and he’s proud of the scoop:

Writer Mayhill Fowler’s story – now with more than 2500 comments on it — was picked up by The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, CNN.com, the Associated Press, Fox News, Reuters, Politico, the Lou Dobbs Show, Hardball, Olbermann’s Countdown, The Atlantic.com, The DailyKos, TalkingPointsMemo and myriad other outlets.

McCain and Clinton quickly jumped into the fray. And Obama released a video to respond to the controversy (posted below).

I’m not saying the HuffPo crew shouldn’t be proud of the scoop. But I’m still trying to sort out the ramifications of the blogosphere being both a source of information for news consumers and a catalyst of viral gossip—because that’s what this “story” was: the blogospheric equivalent of “psssssst! did you hear what Barack said?”

And it caught fire. I haven’t seen this much heat in the blogosphere in a long time—and it’s Saturday night. (Sweeney Todd is playing in another room; I’m not in the mood for buckets of blood.)

By the way, I don’t think it does us any good to deny that we get hooked on these sensational stories because they’re sensational. All we can do is step back from time to time and marvel at how we’re being entertained by current events (or by, more properly speaking, current pseudo-events—because nothing actually happens in these media storms, except some trash-talking back and forth, and then there’s a lot of color commentary, and then things calm down … or not).

This seems to confirm that the “contest” between Clinton and Obama will have nothing to do with political triumph and everything to do with personal survival through all the elimination rounds [just as Andrew Tyndall said, and, yes, a little bit like the Tonya Harding story---except that Hillary didn't kneecap Obama, much as Andrew Sullivan would like to blame her and her style of politics.

Obama has no one to blame for this debacle but himself; let's see how good he is at sucking it up and moving on].

Is this any way to elect a president?

Um, probably not. It certainly doesn’t sound like a very responsible way for “journalists” to present information about presidential candidates to voters, or a very informative way for voters to get information about the candidates’ positions.

But for now, it’s the media-campaign nexus we’ve got.

And I also have to say that it’s an open question as to how much information voters actually need in order to choose the candidate who best represents their (self-perceived) interests. (We can argue about whether this is the best use of democracy; but we have to cede the right to individuals to vote even their frivolous whims rather than their most thoughtful choice. See P. G. Wodehouse, who I quoted here last October. Freedom of the sort we enjoy in the West means the freedom to be frivolous, too. I’m not endorsing this behavior; I’m just sayin’.)

In 2006, the political scientist Matthew Baum published a paper  about the impact of “soft news” on low-information voters. It was called [e.a.]:

The Oprah Effect: How Soft News Helps Inattentive Citizens Vote Consistently

Do the news media provide voters with sufficient information to function as competent democratic citizens? Many have answered “no,” citing as evidence the proliferation of entertainment-oriented “soft news.” Yet, public affairs-oriented “hard” news is often unappealing to politically inattentive individuals. We argue that news “quality” depends upon how well it enables citizens to determine which candidate best fits their own preferences. In this regard, for politically inattentive citizens, we argue that soft news is more efficient than traditional hard news. Drawing on the logic of low-information rationality, we derive a series of hypotheses, which we test using the 2000 National Election Study. We find that politically inattentive individuals who consumed daytime talk shows (a popular form of soft news) were more likely than their nonconsuming, inattentive counterparts to vote for the candidate who best represented their self-described preferences. This suggests soft news can facilitate voting “competence” among at least some citizens.

The paper was published long before Oprah endorsed Barack Obama; it had nothing to do with Obama and everything to do with the effect of soft-news (like daytime talk shows) consumption on otherwise completely politically disengaged individuals. And Baum found that even a little bit of information is better than no information at all when it comes to helping voters choose the candidate who’s the closest fit for them.

Interviewed a year later, after Oprah had endorsed Obama, Baum predicted that it would have its biggest effect on Oprah, not on Obama (although he did say that Oprah’s audience is not particularly partisan and is persuadable) [e.a.]:

Political science professor Matt Baum, who published a research paper “The Oprah Effect” for a 2006 study, described Winfrey as a “nonpartisan, above-the-fray, trusted source for women” who politically “has been difficult to pigeonhole,” which Baum said, “furthers her ability to come into it now.”

Acknowledging the power of Winfrey’s glitter, Baum believes that ultimately she’ll have little effect on whether or not Obama can harness the numbers necessary to seize the Democratic presidential nomination.

“By virtue of having endorsed Obama, she’s no longer above the fray — she’s in the fray,” said Baum, a decision he said could erode Winfrey’s capital, since she probably has “more credibility than any other celebrity that lives.”

A piece published recently indicated that Oprah’s popularity has (supposedly) declined since she endorsed Obama. Meanwhile, we don’t know what impact, if any, her endorsement has had on him (beyond helping to launch him, which is of course a huge leg up—not at all to be discounted as a factor in his rise). She hasn’t appeared with him in public for many months now—since the rallies in California in early February.

Interesting times indeed.