What the Media Elites Should Know About New Media, but Don’t Seem to Get Yet
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| New Media is catching up with Traditional Media in Market Value |
Throughout much of the history of the United States, the agenda was most often set by those who could talk directly to the American people. Now new media has made it so people no longer get the opinion of a few elite commentators, there are an untold number of people who have a voice.
It didn’t used to be like this. There were a few people who had the ability to reach people. This included the politicians, and more often than not, the traditional media personalities. Newspapers taught people about their political leaders, to the extent that most people knew what to believe. It was the journalist, reporters, publishers, and editors; all had a large part to play in what news people received. They controlled the context of this news. By in large, they had an almost unchallenged ability to persuade public opinion, although that doesn’t mean it always worked out the way they wanted it to. The conservative Ronald Reagan was able to break through this media created narrative, but only through being a superior candidate.
How does a new medium break through the MSM’s narrative now?
New media involves anything that deals with interactive forms of communication that use the Internet, which includes by not to limited to podcasts, RSS feeds, social networks, text messaging, blogs, wikis, virtual worlds and more! New media has a few different qualities than traditional media, and one of those is the ability of anyone to create it. Because of new media, the country’s political agenda is starting to be set not only by politicians, and traditional media personalities, but those that are adept at using this new media to translate into a political advantages. Sites like Red State and The American Thinker have a large influence on the bases of the Republican Party; Huffington Post has the same effect on the Democratic base.
It is clear that those who still work with traditional media are slightly perplexed at how much influence new media is having on the electorate. Throughout the last few weeks, many of these traditional media personalities have claimed that Mitt Romney’s campaign is done. However, during this time, not only has he made more mistakes, his polls numbers compared to President Obama’s have seemed to steadied some. Right now Real Clear average has Obama up by 3.3 points, but there have been a few outliers that have caused this average to spike, such as Pew Research centers +8 for Obama, when everyone else seems to have him +1 to +2.
The gaffes, the supposed setbacks, they have not changed the trajectory of this race, at least not a whole lot. Obama has a small advantage, but no different than he has had this whole cycle.
The lefties in the MSM are trying to make this race about Romney’s incompetence. They will do anything to make it seems like Romney is Sarah Palin, although this time on the top of the ticket. They know very well that every campaign has hardships, unless they are part of a wave election, such as the one Obama had in 2008, and the Tea Party generated in 2010. Politico wrote about Obama’s campaign troubles and the press buried it.
One thing you will hear from the enlightened few in the press is that Romney is losing in the two major battleground states of Ohio and Virginia. Ohio is a state every winning Republican nominee for president has won, and the other has been a traditional Republican state. If Romney loses these states, his road to the White House is narrow, maybe too narrow for anybody to overcome. The reason the President may be doing well in these states is that both of their economies are rebounding faster than is the case nationally. However, what the media is not telling people is that both of these states have Republican governors, which have implemented friendlier business policies. This little piece of information would seem to indicate that it is Romney’s, not Obama’s policies that would help nationally. Because the press refuses to put these states in full context, many people do not know that Republicans have turned around economies all over the country.
The base of the Republican Party already knows this to be true. However, it is the independent voters that do not search out blogs, who do not have the full story. Not surprisingly, they sure will give Obama credit for the aspect that deals with the automobile industry, which has its roots back to the Bush administration. Part of Romney’s problem is he opposed the auto bailouts, even though he had the correct policy, it does likely hurt him.
Moreover, you must have noticed the increased media scrutiny on Romney’s words over the Obama administration’s handling of the newest Middle East crisis. For two days the press had slammed Romney for criticizing the president while protesters had been destroying an embassy in Libya.
Victor David Hanson stated that “Last week, Muslim mobs took to the streets to murder the American ambassador in Libya and three of his staffers. American embassies were attacked from Egypt to Yemen.”
“Embarrassed White House press secretary Jay Carney and U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice insisted that these assaults were just reactions to an insensitive video that disparaged Islam and was circulating on the Internet. As embassies burned, we were assured that there was no animosity directed at America in general, or at this administration and its foreign policy in particular.”
As it turns out, this was not at all true. Obama and his foreign policy team have clearly gotten this wrong, but we do not hear the opinion makers telling their audiences that Obama campaign is over. Romney makes a candid statement about an embassy statement emphasizing the fact that they shouldn’t have attempted to appease the protesters, and its over for him. Additionally, the Obama administration also condemned the statement. The media says this could bring Romney down. Now that we know that this attack was not only planned, but we are hearing that the Obama administration could have had advanced knowledge that this embassy was under threat, the media should be saying the same thing about Obama, but it is not doing so. The news of Obama missing his briefings has come to light before these attacks, and the possibility of the advanced warnings.
This does not sit well with people like R. James Woolsey, who was the CIA director under President Clinton:
“Mr. Woolsey recalled those days during a panel discussion at George Mason University on Thursday. He said he never gave Mr. Clinton his intelligence briefing in person and had only one private meeting a year with the president. ‘We had very little access, frankly,’” said Mr. Woolsey who is now a critic of Mr. Clinton and other Democrats.
The point is, the media is chastising Romney for true statements, ones that both parties agree with on substance, but they seem to have little will to allow Obama to take knocks for his clear failures; both domestically and with foreign policy. Where would Obama be if the media did its job?
We have seen the same thing with the new secret Romney tapes. They are chopping this tape up to make sure Romney sounds bad. His point on the 47% is being taken out of context. Romney was not saying he does not care about the 47% that will vote for Obama to get free stuff. What he said was he had to focus on those that he has a chance of reaching, because some will not vote for him. This is not only smart politics; it is what all campaigns do. At least the good ones.
The press is also trying to make a big deal out of Romney’s comment saying that the Palestinians are not a willing partner in seeking Middle Eastern peace. Take his statement in full context, he was actually saying that right now the Palestinians are not a willing partner, but if America shows strength, they will be forced back to the negotiation table. Romney was saying American needed to project strength, and enemies will think twice about making a move on us.
Obama’s media protectors have thrown down the gauntlet this week. We all know that they will back him no matter how bad things look.
What will the media do?
They know the economy is dragging Obama down, so they will make statements such as this list provided by Rush:
Stephanopoulos: The big headlines on the economy this morning: are we on the road to recovery?
Vargas: There's great news out this morning on the economy. Are we really turning a corner?
Golodryga: Great news. It looks like this recovery really has legs.
O’Donnell: The economic downturn may have bottomed out.
Westhoven: It was like machine gun fire of good economic reports.
Kosik: We finally hit a bottom, that you're seeing this recovery really take hold.
Costello: Breaking news into the newsroom, another sign that the real estate market could be improving.
What planet are these people living on? The economic conditions have not turned the corner. These just so happens to also be the Presidents talking points.
Even the conservative elites are trying to cover their behinds by admonishing Romney.
Rush Limbaugh pointed out “Bill Kristol says Romney was ‘stupid and arrogant,’ and every Democrat under the sun is retweeting it. On the tape, talking about the 47%, Kristol says Romney was ‘stupid and arrogant.’ Every Democrat under the sun's retweeting that all over the place, Donna Brazile and others.”
“You know what struck me about this? During the primary, all these people — not all of them, but a lot of the people — who were telling us, ‘Romney's the only guy. He's the only chance we've got! Romney's the one,’ they've bailed. They've bailed on him. Now they're running around saying, ‘He's not the candidate we thought he was gonna be. He's stupid and arrogant,’ and all these things. And those of you, you and me, who were said to be problematic during the primaries? We're the ones supporting Romney!”
This is just more of the same, except coming from the so called Conservative media elites. For the record, I like Kristol. However, Rush is right, these people sold Romney has the one, out of the field we had. Now they want to protect their position has a top conservative commentators. Romney means little to them. Beating Obama is an added benefit of being an agenda setter. If Obama wins, they want to be still thought of as the ones to come to for political analysis. However, their time is coming to an end. No longer will people have to have limited viewpoints from a limited group of political commentators. This is now a world where Glenn Beck can make it on his own, no help from the big dogs of media.
A side effect to this has been increased polarization in the electorate. People know longer have to hear the other side’s views, they can stay at the echo chambers they love and feel comfortable with. However, this is better than people being limited to the views of some people who often have personal agendas.
President Obama still may win this election, and much of it would be due to the political media class, who have bought into his campaign, often times literally by giving money to the campaign. If Romney wins, he will owe a lot to the new media landscape. He will win despite the tradition media’s push to help Obama. However, the traditional media’s influence is waning. There will soon be a time when these guys won’t have such a large voice. The country will be better off for it too.
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