Intrusive Coverage: Media Meddling in the Republican Race

As a Canadian, I had two main reactions to Rick Santorum's "trifecta" in the Colorado, Missouri, and Minnesota caucuses. (Here in Canada, we'd use a well-known hockey term, and say that he scored a hat trick.) In particular, I was horrified by the media's role in giving his campaign a much-needed nudge.

Are the Media Shaping the Narrative?
CNN is my information source of choice, but I must admit I have some qualms and reservations about its methods of gathering and sharing information.

CNN is obsessed with technology, pushing buttons and resizing images in a manner eerily reminiscent of Tom Cruise in Minority Report. CNN show countless pie charts, breaking the electorate down into various different segments (including religion, which would be verboten here in Canada). CNN is also fond of exit polls as a finger-in-the-wind indicator of how events will play out.

In Canada, public opinion research firms are not above "push polling", that is, asking survey questions worded to elicit a predetermined answer. I can't help wondering whether media coverage of the Republican primaries and caucuses is similarly shaping the narrative.

We've already seen the trial by public opinion of Herman Cain and Newt Gingrich for their private failings and transgressions. This media moralizing had a direct impact on their respective campaigns. Cain fizzled and faded. Gingrich went into attack-dog mode and garnered public sympathy (in some quarters, at least), which probably helped him in South Carolina.

CNN was clearly spoiling for a story last night (February 7, 2012) and kept raising the specter of an upset. When the numbers came in from Missouri and Minnesota, favouring Rick Santorum, CNN couldn't wait to post the first trickle of results from Colorado, which indicated a similar win for Santorum in that state.

Figures less than 20 translated into percentages ... It was kind of pitiful to watch, actually.

Lights, Camera, Distraction!
That brings me to my second major concern about CNN's coverage. What was with the roving reporter in Colorado -- Stillwater or Castle Rock, I can't remember which -- roaming around and butting into the proceedings in the caucus room itself? I'm pretty sure that, in Canada, he would have been unceremoniously escorted from the premises, if not told outright to take a hike and get lost.

But no, this guy blithely asked those attending the caucus how they intended to vote, and looked over the shoulders of those counting the ballots. Where I come from, that's a no-no on both scores.

Both the reporter and Wolf Blitzer waxed lyrical about how this was "democracy in action". Excuse me, but I thought the secret ballot was the rule in conducting election procedures. The privacy of the voting booth and the polling station, free of political influence -- and, I might add, media meddling -- is a right hard won over the course of history.

To violate that right of privacy is, in my view, "democracy in traction". Shame on CNN for poking its nose where it doesn't belong.