Posted on 11/10/2015 1:09:53 PM PST by cann
There's no question that Trump has played the earned media game masterfully. We can quantify just how masterfully by comparing the news coverage data with polling data over the past year, as compiled by Real Clear Politics. It's clear from the data that TV news coverage over time tracks largely, but not entirely, with candidates' relative positioning in the polls. The better a candidate is polling, the more air time she or he tends to get.
Some candidates, though, get more coverage than their poll numbers suggest they should. Some candidates get a lot less. The outliers raise interesting questions about media fairness. Those questions go well beyond Trump; lately, he's not even the biggest overachiever on the air.
Also, Ted Cruz has real cause for complaint.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
I’m glad this analysis was done, I kept thinking that there is no way he’s in the media as much as the others.
TV is run by ratings. They cover the people who will bring in viewers.
That is certainly one of the driving factors, but I doubt it’s the only one.
The we'd in there shows its cluelessness, because Fox News is all we'd-we'd up-for yeb. Perhaps soon to be transfered to rubio.
But Fox rattles off a list of names of Republican candidates and frequently omits Cruz and this somehow increases ratings?
That’s part of it. There is also the fact that Ted Cruz comes across as polite, articulate and likable. If he really was the mouth breathing scary right winger which the MSM tries to claim, they would be falling all over themselves to give him MORE airtime, not LESS. Think about it.
Well that’s his job to make the noise and force them to cover him.
I keep telling people that the media machine is a major force in 2016, and if a candidate cannot control the news cycle, and write their own narrative, they will be obliterated.
Fix this now, because if Cruz os the nominee, I seriously don’t want to see 10,000,000 whiny posts about how the press is so unfair to him.
They aren’t going to enamored with him like too many believe.
Could we really be turning our backs on the vaunted monolith?
Yes, that is just what is happening. We are tending to ignore the media.
And the effect on the GOPe is equally alarming. They have lost their hold on the voters.
Remember when they would offer up a candidate and we would grumble and hold our nose?
Those days are quickly slipping by.
They can play the poll game and wax eloquent about how crafty the media is and they can ignore the candidates that the people really prefer, but they have lost their hold.
They just don't realize it fully yet.
Interesting choice of selection of data to plot. Certainly there are a multitude of reasons why a candidate would get airtime not commensurate with their polling: big scandals, media preference, ideology, name recognition, where or how he campaigns, issues raised, etc. Not sure how one would qualitatively demonstrate this.
No doubt the media, as a group or individually, picks candidates to highlight.
Yes, that’s my point. If Cruz wants coverage he needs to do something to get it. It’s not the media’s fault, the coverage given to politicians, good, bad or indifferent when voluntary is solely driven by ratings/money. They cover what they think will get people to tune in.
I've noticed that. They DETEST him. They hate him with a blue purple passion.
This is why it is a crime against Democracy to allow all the information systems to be under the control of one party. This is one reason among many why the existing media structure needs to be pulverized with a sledgehammer.
They undermine our democratic process by manipulating the coverage based on what is best for the left wing extreme of the Democrat party.
Does ideology play no part in their decision-making process?
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No sh't Sherlock... Who'd guess something like that?
Now tell me who's been leading the polls? Cruz is rising into the low double digits thus more
air time maybe coming his way. Now it's up to him to make some splashes to get some of it.
Maybe another outburst like at the last debate may garner his some air time. He's got
a good ground game in some locals so maybe something from that could be used.
I doubt it :)
If Cruz wants coverage he needs to do something to get it.
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How about sky diving into a crowd at one event? How about an outside event and landing in a chopper?
Lots of things can be done for media attention.
Doing outrageous things to get noticed just makes one a media whore. I have noticed they will list candidates names and leave him out. That is malpractice i my book.
The disproportionate coverage of Bush, then, is driven by ratings and people’s desire to know more about him?
And he’s surging in spite of them. That’s one of the reasons they’re studiously ignoring him.
Yesterday O’Reilly’s man on the street was asking passersby what they thought about Trump on SNL. For some reason he mentioned Ted Cruz to a woman but the woman didn’t know who he is.
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