Counting Horses Instead of Counting Locomotives
September 1st, 2008 by Dave Allen
Chasing the story, chasing the numbers. This presidential campaign season is a tricky time for the TV networks. It seems that the network evening newscasts and network news divisions are struggling to pin down any hard stories. The media pundits are flailing around as the Democratic Convention didn’t go the way they had predicted, [Clinton this, Clinton that, disaffected feminists revolt etc,] and now with Hurricane Gustav hitting the Gulf Coast the Republican Convention has been downsized and all the top journalists and commentators have decamped to the storm zone.
It’s very telling, and yet still amazing, that here we are in 2008 with the networks covering the presidential race while looking longingly over their shoulders at the 2000 race, a time when YouTube had yet to make its mark. They have not been paying attention. The networks are still looking for ratings and are judging their results based on the number of viewers they attract. Yet, as Frank Rich writes in his op-ed article on Sunday, Andrew Rasiej, the founder of Personal Democracy Forum, which monitors the intersection of politics and technology, points out that when networks judge their success by who got the biggest share of the television audience, “they are still counting horses while the world has moved on to counting locomotives.” [Rasej also runs TechPresident, a group blog that covers how the 2008 presidential candidates are using the web.] The Web, in its infinite iterations, is eroding all 20th-century media.
On cable, CNN consistently beat ABC, NBC and CBS in the ratings last week according to Nielsen, but as media are being transformed cable news channels may not last much longer either.
it was laughable seeing the networks fall over themselves as they struggled to understand how Obama got to the nomination. Obama’s supporters didn’t have that problem. As Rich says “the Obama campaign has long been on board those digital locomotives.” The Obama campaign has been telling its story online well beneath the radar of the mainstream media. When the networks focused on how many people turned up at Invesco Field to watch and listen to Obama they were counting horses. Meanwhile the real story lies in how many people are following the candidate’s every move online. Obama’s fund-raising and organizational networking online is unknown. That might give the networks another big surprise come November.
And then another fast-moving story breaks. As Hurricane Gustav moves over land and dies down the networks can switch their attention to the Republican VP nominee, Sarah Palin, whose 17 year old daughter is pregnant. That’s one that will have them horse counting.
Tags: Andrew Rasiej, Barak Obama, Bristol Palin, Frank Rich, John McCain, Opinion, Sarah Palin, TechPresident
