Mainstream media shutout: 'The candidates are who we say they are'
by
DC Larson

As the 2008 presidential campaign proceeds from the caucus/primary period to the general election one, independent and third party aspirants are taking the field.

Ralph Nader has already launched an independent bid. The Libertarian Party has selected former Republican Congressman Bob Barr. A one-time Democratic Congresswoman, Cynthia McKinney is thought likely to capture the Green Party's nomination. Brian Moore will represent Socialist Party USA.

Other alternatives to the Democrats and Republicans include the Labor, Reform, Peace and Freedom, Constitution and US Communist Parties, all of which will soon either offer their own presidential candidates or perhaps endorse another third party's contender.

Of course, the conventional wisdom so lauded by cable news program panelists dictates that candidates from small, unorthodox parties cannot win national elections. But that is a self-fulfilling prophecy, as a primary reason is the near-total invisibility of less-held political ideas in mainstream journalism.

Rank-and-file voters cannot effectively choose representation or guide the course of democratic government unless they first have been familiarized with the diverse options available.

So, we are presented with an excellent opportunity to examine the way mainstream media functions, given the responsibility it has to fully inform citizens during an election season. Does it assist or impede public knowledge and understanding of all electoral choices?

Journalistic thoroughness and impartiality are citizens's allies during this electoral decision-making process. Freedom of relevant information and honest, respectful coverage without the handicap of subjective partisan sensibilities are musts, if objective truths are to be known and processed by the voting public.

Conversely, ideologically or commercially-prompted selectivity and institutional prejudice frustrate democracy's legitimate interests.

Outright suppression of voices contradictory of (or even threatening to) an entrenched ruling elite is typically thought to be exclusive to clampdown police states. But it can be found in U.S. news media, too.

Consider the actions of major television networks and cable news channels. ABC took it upon itself to determine that anti-Iraq war Democrats Mike Gravel and Dennis Kucinich were not deserving of televised debate inclusion. CBS and NBC followed ABC's shameful example; the public interest was overuled by corporate preference.

CNN, MSNBC and the Fox News Channel pursued similar agendas, with painfully scant coverage afforded Nader and Barr (generally framed as 'How might their candidacies impact the Democrats/Republicans,' rather than as legitimate expositions of those candidates's philosophies). And zero attention paid has been to most of the others.

(From his time as a Democratic aspirant through his move to the Libertarian Party, Mike Gravel was long a target for insipid and mean-spirited joking from cable news hosts like MSNBC's Chris Matthews. It apparently mattered not that Gravel had as a congressman been instrumental in ending the Vietnam-era draft, had pushed the Pentagon Papers into the open and was in 2007 that rarity among major-party figures: a prinicipled and free-speaking opponent of the Iraq War.)

The press practice of according sporadic, superficial and abbreviated coverage to non-mainstream candidates fulfills two objectives. Alternative figures and philosophies are represented as 'oddballs,' impractical and not worth serious attention.

Too, the supposed sufficiency of the Republican/Democrat duopoly is implicitly asserted.
Of course, third party and independent candidates may well offer fresh, superior solutions to pressing problems and speak for marginalized communities. (Besides, the major parties themselves boast a percentage of oddballs.)

Media outlets engaging in this filtering process do so in blatant contravention of genuine democratic rule. The public doesn't elect editors and reporters, has no authority over them and should not be bound by their political or professional prejudices.

Voters not familiar with alternatives to the status quo will likely either gravitate toward traditional, major party candidates or withdraw from the electoral process, entirely। And as a result, no real progress on issues of import to the public interest is achieved.

To rephrase an old philosophical query: If an alternative candidate runs in this Media Age but no one reports it, how many voters will even hear?



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