October 6, 1976

Debunk Television Political Impact

The Great Debates of this political campaign have created quite a stir among the television anchormen, but mostly yawns from the viewing public.

The polls have pretty well concluded that the first TV confrontation between President Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter changed no minds even though a slight majority felt Ford had "won" the contest.

Now comes Political Observer Benjamin Shore with some cogent thoughts on television as it influences voters.

"Modern political candidates accept as gospel the concept of television news coverage being the most powerful way to make an impact on voters," says Shore.

"But, television falls far short of this image," he states.

It is widely believed that television news reports of a candidate, regardless of what he or she is saying or doing, are perceived as objective.  If a big crowd is shown, the candidate must be generating deserved excitement among the masses.

Television commercials generally are thought of in many quarters as less effective than getting on the news because American viewers are becoming increasingly cynical about all advertising.

Newspapers?  Since the advent of television, the conventional wisdom goes, most voters now get their political input from television, so a candidate shouldn't worry about what the papers print.

Campaign strategists, then, advise their candidates to cater to TV news reporters.  Campaigning is scheduled to fit the time demands of TV coverage, plenty of visual action is provided for the cameras, remarks are kept short to help the editing.

But now, on the eve of what could be a closely fought presidential election, plus hundreds of other federal and state campaigns, comes a report likely to give pause to candidates who thought they had the media all figured out.

"The Unseeing Eye," a book by two Syracuse University political scientists, is a study of voter reaction to the 1972 television exposure of presidential candidates Richard Nixon and George McGovern.

This just-published book by Thomas Patterson and Robert McClure, whose researchers interviewed 2,000 voters in-depth several times during the two-month fall campaign, completely rearranges all the "myths" of media impact.

Regular newspaper readers, they found, got more information about the candidates' positions on major issues and a better feel for their character and personality than did voters who depended solely on television.

Next in value for relaying political information to voters were commercials, in which, unlike most television news reports, the candidates usually talked about issues in ways that clearly separated each from his opponent.

Of the least information value were those action-packed seconds (literally seconds) of what the candidates did (more than what they said) during the last 24 hours.

"Steady viewers of the nightly network newscasts learn almost nothing of importance about a presidential election," Patterson and McClure conclude from their research.  They offer this example:

"One noon during October in New York City, in ample time for evening newscast coverage, McGovern stated important policy positions on crime, prison reform, gun control and the courts.

"Two networks completely ignored the address, covering instead a McGovern motorcade in Boston later that day.  He was pictured in crowd scenes.

"Indeed, 60 per cent of all campaign stories (that fall) showed one candidate or the other hustling through crowds."

The authors are just as critical of the candidates.

"Network news serves up pure political pap, and the candidates obligingly provide it.  Their belief in the myths about TV's power and their false conception of the capacities and expectations of the American voter are both based on a low regard for the citizen's good senses."

Just so.

Television debates give an impression of substance but they are just as ephemeral as the flickers on the tube.

The written word sticks in the mind and stays there to be pulled back for review and study within the privacy of our individual skulls.

And it is in these dark recesses that campaigns are won and lost.

Author: Lindsey Williams