Journalism and American Democracy

While the election coverage of an Obama / Romney square-off stirred up madness on Twitter and numerous media websites and television channels, Arizona’s premier media outlets remained calm. The state’s top two news outlets – AZCentral.com, home to the Arizona Republic Newspaper and channel 12 news, and The Arizona Daily Star – seemed more preoccupied with voter issues, such as the long lines in the east coast and issues experienced within Arizona, than with the election results within the state.
Arizona is a red state through and through. With the increasing Latino population it has been argued that the it could become a battle ground state in the future. But right now, it remains unequivocally red. The proof lies in the media’s coverage of the election. As the polls closed in Arizona, the Daily Star immediately reported that “All 11 Electoral Votes Go to Romney”. I assume there was about 0% reporting at that time. Now, it is true that Romney actually garnered a larger percentage of Arizona’s vote than McCain did in ’08. And since there were no contested congressional races, the world of federal politics was largely subdued in Arizona. Both sites were very focused on voter troubles however, serving as a government mouthpiece to help inform voters at home on how to report any problems or issues experienced at the polls. This was interesting to see. Whether this is basic protocol or a new development in wake of the problems out east, I don’t know.
There was, however, an important local race that garnered some attention from both papers; Infamous Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio versus challenger Paul Penzone. Arpaio ended up winning an unprecedented 6th term as Maricopa County Sheriff but it was his closest race yet. Sheriff Arpaio and his office have been the subject of hundreds of lawsuits from civilians and the U.S. Justice Department, the big one citing widespread discrimination of Latino residents in Maricopa County. His harsh stance against illegal immigration has made him quite the controversial figure in Arizona, as well as national, politics. Most Arizona news outlets jumped on this breaking news, largely ignoring the national election. Many televised Penzone’s concession speech as well as Arapio’s acceptance speech. This was the big news of the day for Arizona, who will face another 4 years under Joe Arpaio. How long that lasts with the new lawsuits remains to be seen.

“The Nation Votes, Ohio Decides” seems to be a common national sentiment (that specific phrase via The Daily Show). Indeed, President Obama released a special political advertisement just for Ohioans asking them to vote, running it for nearly the entire span of the early voting period. The sentiment is relatively absent in Ohio itself, with only a few newspapers attributing victory directly to Ohio. The most blatant about it almost certainly being the Akron Beacon Journal (). Nonetheless, most couch it in the language of swing states, making it an interesting time when newspapers feel neutrality includes having no bias towards their home market. Normally there’s some forgiveness of such things, such as when a newspaper barely conceals glee at a home team victory, but here that seems absent, to my somewhat surprise.

The radio stations and television, at least insofar as I could access them, which was inevitably over the internet, seemed to lack much in the way of local flavor. They reported the election results as they came in, swayed to one side or the other based on their partisan preferences, and had the only concession to their locality in focusing on what this meant for both Ohio and the nation. Even then, aside from a few specific points such as how it would affect a local plant, generally things focused on more general issues like the economy. Indeed, the economy tended to be the general theme of coverage, but that seems to have been true nationally. Whether this is because Ohio is an accurate reflection of the nation or simply because of my own limited knowledge, I cannot say.

Also surprising was that there were numerous and heartfelt calls about the election, the importance of democracy, and getting out to vote. Many newspapers appeared surprisingly civic minded, such as The Plain Dealer turning its into an encouragement to vote. This was, it is worth noting, notable enough to get national attention. Putting aside the front page itself, which is lovely enough to make me like it even as I am consciously aware it is trite. Indeed, perhaps it says something about the relative position of news and politicians in my life that this struck me more than President Obama’s appeal.

There’s also story from Kentucky, which has remained in the top five of its newspaper from the election for a few days now, and is funny in a sad sort of way.

are pictures of a few dozen front pages of newspaper pages from Ohio, which are interesting to examine.

It was a a personal moment on the morning of November 6, 2012 when I had an overwhelming sense that anything could happen that night. I was voting for president for the very first time, and it was a powerful feeling and one in which I was proud to be a part of this country. I ventured out very early that morning with my dad and my brother to the local fire station to cast our vote, and it turned out to be a simple enough pursuit. Although a early on the morning, there were many people already out to cast their vote. We did not, however face the longs lines projected in Virginia or Florida or Ohio.

As a fairly new South Bend and even Indiana resident, it was hard to learn very much about the candidates while in school here. Jackie Walorski and Brendan Mullen fought hard battles over television and radio ads, while Donnelly and Murdock raced for the open senate seat.

While there can be so much negativity surrounding this campaign and people can be pulled in by the spectacle of news channels and twitter trends and mathematical predictions (which I sure did as I watched the results), it is important to take into account this great notion that anything could happen that night. It was a close race, and in our democracy, no one knew what would happen until al the ballots were cast. And that can be a comforting thought in all the headache of election season. Here the U.S. had two amiable and competent candidates who were willing to sacrifice much of themselves for the country, and they let the American people decide with each of their votes.

While the results were streaming in, I was volunteering at the local Ronald McDonald family room, and one of the parents standing there and watching the results struck me when he said, it’s not just the candidate who will get things done. There is a lot to be done in this country, and it will not just be from the president. Many people will be working of the benefit of this country for progress. Although Indiana voted for Romney, there must be comfort in the process of the election and that there should be four more years of working together for progress and a better future.

Alright, so my prediction that Nevada would go red was wrong. Barack Obama won 52.30% and Mitt Romney won 45.73%. County-by-county, Romney won 15/17 counties, losing Clark (Las Vegas) and Washoe (Reno). I was surprised that Obama was able to capture Reno, especially with the last-minute campaigning that Romney did in the area to get students at the University of Nevada Reno to change their votes this time around.

In post-election coverage, The Washington Post evaluated how the state split its tickets – electing some Republicans like Dean Heller over Democrat incumbent Shelley Berkley, while still sending the electoral votes to Obama. This election for Nevada was really going to come down to two factors – whether the poor economy would be enough for Romney to flip the state from 2008 (when it elected Obama) or if the rapidly growing Latino population would get out the vote and keep Obama in the lead.

From the Reno-Gazette Journal’s “Latino votes come with a demand: Reform immigration system” published 11/7/12 (click photo to link).

Because the Latino population, as reported by National Public Radio, has grown to comprise 10 percent of the electorate, the GOP has to figure out how to win back their votes. With rising Latino superstars in both parties – Mayor of San Antonio, Texas, Julian Castro (Democrat) and Florida Senator Marco Rubio (Republican) – the door is open for the parties to realign on the issues in an effort to court the burgeoning population’s votes. Losing the minority vote in general hurt the GOP, and while they may struggle with African-Americans, many say that the religious links between Latinos and the GOP make the fit plausible, if they can work out their presently rigid position on immigration.

I checked in on the Reno Gazette-Journal, which changed its endorsement to Romney this year after feeling let down by Obama’s first term. Their coverage would indicate that Romney lost Nevada due to women and the Latino vote. Seems like Nevada’s narrative fits right in line with the national narrative, so all the stories – like today’s Early Start CNN coverage and The New York Times’ front page article – about the GOP needing to re-evaluate are right on target in this state.

In analyzing coverage of the presidential election across Indiana media, I looked at articles from three papers: the Indianapolis Star, the Journal Gazette of Fort Wayne, and the Evansville Courier & Press. One trend that I immediately noticed across all three papers’ websites was that they seemed to pay more attention to the state and local election results and aftermath than those of the presidential race. None of the three websites had a story related to the presidential election placed very prominently on their “news” or “politics” page, and I had to do a bit of searching to find their coverage of the presidential election. Most of the featured political stories on these three websites discussed the results and significance of state and local races, and most of the stories on the presidential race were picked up from other newspapers or media sources with a more national base. This smaller amount of reporting and coverage on the presidential race is probably largely due to only having the access and resources needed to directly cover local races. It may also, however, reflect the Republican leaning of the state, and knowledge that many readers will not want to read lengthy pieces touting or analyzing President Obama’s victory. Because Indiana was won decisively by Governor Romney on Tuesday, there may not be great demand for extensive coverage on a national decision that did not reflect the state’s popular opinions. The coverage of state and local elections, on the other hand, are guaranteed to deliver favorable news and analysis to at least a considerable portion of readers.

It was also interesting considering the angles by which some of the stories discussed the presidential election. One story in the Indianapolis Star focused mostly on how Romney won Indiana decidedly and how Obama was unable to generate enthusiasm in the state as he did in 2008. The story quotes a professor from Indiana University in Bloomington as saying there was “a lot less excitement” for Obama in this election than the last. The article also mentions that Obama did not visit Indiana once this election cycle, as his campaign likely sensed that chances of victory were very low. A story on the website of the Journal Gazette, originally from Bloomberg News and titled “A nation divided?”, focused on how Obama gained the votes of a large majority of minority and women voters, while Romney gained a significant majority of votes from white and male voters. This article seems to portray a narrative where there is a widening ideological gap between different segments of the American population. This narrative, along with the perspective that shows Obama failed to generate much support in Indiana, draws attention to the fact that neither candidate was able to develop a wide, diverse base of support across the country, and presents the idea that despite Obama’s victory, the nation is not necessarily united behind him. It seems that there might be a subtle yet intentional negative backdrop given to coverage of the presidential election results in these Indiana papers.

Amazingly, when I logged on to NJ.com — the website for one of New Jersey’s largest papers, the Star Ledger — the headlines were not about the election results. In fact, without scrolling down a bit and finding the link to election coverage, one would hardly know that an election took place yesterday. The news of the moment is all about the disaster and debris left in the wake of Hurricane Sandy, and the impending nor’easter that is wreaking even more havoc.

Once the reader scrolls down a bit, there is more news about Sandy as it pertains to the election, including the fact that there were record-low voters in the state of New Jersey yesterday due to the lingering effects of the storm.

Then, there is an interesting tidbit on the link that takes the readers to pages of the election coverage. It reads, “Is it too soon to start the Christie-for-President Chatter?” This is interesting for a number of reasons. Governor Chris Christie is a Republican, and yet New Jersey is a state that has historically voted Democrat, including this year. Chris Christie has also made some controversially blatant and honest remarks in the past, which have garnered mixed feelings about the man in charge. (Personally, I think his what-you-see-is-what-you-get attitude is great. He spoke about education in America at the Law School last year on a Football Friday and my dad and I went to see him. I thought he was great. He’d have my vote for President). So, it’s interesting that in a historically Democratic state, New Jerseyans would already be calling for their Governor to run in 2016.

On the election coverage page itself, there is commentary on how social media (read: Twitter) showed that New Jersey residents had mixed feelings about the election results, as well as the fact that Tweets calling for Christie began as early as last night.

Just to add some personal commentary based on what I know about my home town as well as the rest of the state, I will say that I am not surprised that there are mixed feelings about the results from New Jersey residents. I come from a generally affluent town that is very socially conservative. I know of many surrounding towns and areas all across New Jersey — not just in my central area, but in the north, the south, and on the shore. However, there are also some very blue-collar and inner-city areas that likely would have pulled for Obama (for example, for every Princeton and Short Hills, there is a Camden and Newark). All sides of the spectrum are covered by New Jersey, and those larger cities such as Newark, Camden, Trenton, and New Brunswick probably made a lot of strides for Obama.

In general, there clearly was significant coverage in a state that voted for our President, but a lot of it was overshadowed by recent events, and how newly elected local officials would help assist with the aftermath.

Although in many places, the presidential election was the focus of the day, it seems that that particular election was hardly at the forefront of the minds of many Minnesotans. In fact, the news of Barack Obama’s reelection did not even crack the 10 “Most Viewed” stories on the Pioneer Press website, and only appeared five stories down on Star Tribune’s “Most read” list, below “Downtown Mpls. restaurants under scrutiny over disabled accommodations.” Arguably, it is understandable that the presidential election was not the main focus in Minnesota, as it is not a swing state, having granted its electoral votes to the Democratic candidate in every election since Richard Nixon’s 1972 win. It is also important to note that in Minnesota, there were two amendments of great magnitude on the ballot – a voter ID amendment and a marriage amendment.  Judging by the list of most read stories on the two major newspapers’ sites and the buzz I viewed on various social media outlets, the defeat of these two amendments was bigger news for many people in Minnesota than the reelection of Obama. The reelection of Michele Bachmann, an extremely controversial conservative U.S. Representative who has gained nationwide notoriety, by a mere 4,207 votes, was closely watched across the state – and likely the nation. Kare 11, the local NBC affiliate in the Twin Cities, was live tweeting the vote count, as it was extremely tight throughout the evening. This station, along with other broadcasts and newspapers, tended to tweet results so as to keep the voters informed, but also encouraged the viewing and reading of traditional news sources, as evident in Kare 11’s last tweet of the night: “Bachmann defeats Graves in tight 6th District race. Tune in to KARE 11 Sunrise starting at 4:30am for the latest.

Since I could not follow the election coverage on a local station as I would have if I had been at home, I settled for following Kare 11’s twitter feed and the CNN website, as I watched the CNN broadcast. It was convenient that the CNN site offered state-by-state coverage, but it was also interesting to see how they prioritized the results. Obviously, since CNN is a nationwide network, the Minnesota presidential results were featured at the top. They would also display “Key Races,” essentially meaning close races or those that might hold wide interest, such as the Bachmann v. Graves race. They also prioritized amendment initiatives, as the results of the marriage amendment were being prominently displayed, but it was very challenging to find out any information regarding the voter ID amendment. Truly, across various media sources, the marriage amendment appears to have taken precedence over all other contests, including the presidential race. In the days and weeks leading up to the election, there was a proliferation of “VOTE NO” statuses, profile pictures, cover photos, and stories being posted on Facebook, with little noticeable buzz regarding Barack Obama or Mitt Romney.  As one Pioneer Press article is entitled “Minnesota Republicans lose big, face tough two years ahead,” it seems the focus in Minnesota was less on Obama’s win, and more on the uncertain future of the Republican party as a whole as it faced major setbacks in Minnesota and elsewhere in the 2012 election.

Being born and raised there, I’m usually pretty proud to tell people I’m from St. Louis.  However, after following the election coverage last night and looking back over the post-election news today, I must report that the coverage I saw was minimal, and really not all that impressive.  I followed the election news pretty closely last night on Twitter, and saw updates from all kinds of people and news organizations all across the country.  The Post-Dispatch (St. Louis’s one major newspaper) made all the same updates as other news sources, but often lagged far behind.  Like half an hour behind.  It seems to me that the only outlet moving slower was perhaps the New York Times; they, of course, were waiting to confirm everything with sources.  Since they’re still the leading newspaper in the country, it’s not really in their best interest to jump on breaking news too quickly, but rather to wait a little longer and make sure their information is correct.  However, if that’s what the Post-Dispatch was after, it seems like they would publish after the Times.  Instead, their tweets usually fell somewhere in between the first announcements and the Times, which makes them just seem…well, slow.

Looking at the articles posted on their web site, most look like they’re just re-posted from the AP  (that’s disappointing, sure, but not too surprising, at least to me.  Subscriptions have been declining for them for years, forcing them to make staff cuts, so they have had to turn more and more to pre-fab news stories from the wire).  The content leaves a little to be desired too – the first thing you see on the site is a slideshow of pictures of the Obama girls, so we can see how much they’ve grown up…

Aside from the Presidential election, the Senatorial race received considerable coverage, both in Missouri and nationally.  That had mostly to do with the controversy surrounding it after Todd Akin, now of internet fame, made his comments about ‘legitimate rape’, and then refused to drop out of the race.  Despite the coverage leading up to the election, which made the race sound razor close, Claire McCaskill defeated him 55-39%, what he called “a real skunking.”  And with that, Missouri politics will probably fade back into national obscurity…

The state of Illinois was considered by many to be decided before election night even began. Nevertheless, I can image it was exciting for President Obama, the 44^th leader of the United States of America, to see his home-state turn blue last night. Big O took 57.8% of votes in Illinois, where 900,000 people chose to vote early including the President himself.  Obama chose to spend November 6^th in his hometown of Chicago, sharing a family dinner at home and then heading to the Merchandise Mart where he gave his acceptance speech. His speech gave credit to the voters who have given the President the chance to move forward and continue to do the job that was entrusted to him in 2008. He promises that he has listened to Americans about what needs to happen in order for this country to regain his footing and proudly thanked Vice President Joe Biden, his wife, and his daughters.

The mood in Chicago was much less celebratory than Obama’s first victory in 2008—only 20,000 people were in attendance for his rally as opposed to 200,000 four years ago. The feeling was described less as excitement and more as relief. This is interesting for Democrats especially, many of whom acknowledge that the President’s policies have not helped our nation to progress as much as they’d like, especially to help decrease the deficit, but prefer him to Romney. The “lesser of two evils” viewpoint was widespread throughout America in this historic election. It seems that voters are excited for the Democrats to keep hold of the White House but aware that Obama needs to work a lot harder on job creation and diminishing the deficit before they will cheer as loudly for him again.

The real excitement in Illinois came from the four congressional seats won by Democrats in the House. Tammy Duckworth, an army veteran who lost both legs from injuries sustained by a blast in Iraq, won one seat for the Democrats. Another winner, somewhat shockingly was Democrat Jesse L. Jackson, who is currently under investigation for attempting to sell President Obama’s senate seat after he was elected to the presidency. He recently was hospitalized for mental illness as well. Still, he somehow managed to garner the majority and keep another democratic seat in Illinois.

Overall, Illinois was an exciting place to watch the election and proud to host their hometown hero elected to his second term as President. Illinois residents stand behind Obama, though they contribute to the pressure put on Obama to perform better this time around and make serious progress.

On the excitement scale, reading Idaho’s presidential election news coverage ranks somewhere between watching a Mitt Romney speech and watching paint dry. Newspaper and television coverage was seriously underwhelming and uninteresting. The predictable outcome of the state’s Electoral College allocation led media outlets to cover more contentious local issues. In fact, news articles regarding the POTUS election were quite difficult to find on the Coeur d’Alene Press website. Of the “Top Stories” listed on the Press’s homepage, the generic AP story covering the presidential race came up fourth. Instead, the Press decided that the most important story of the day were the voting technology glitches and the announcement of local races rather than the presidential race.

Eight driving hours and a different time zone away, Boise’s Idaho Statesmen portrays a similar ambivalence to the presidential results. Of the three print editions published by the Statesmen, only two had the election as its main headline, the third focused on the state education reform laws. Interestingly all three editions featured a secondary cover story touting “In Idaho, presidential result means more Obamacare, likely less federal spending.” Thus, when there was some sort of reaction to the presidential election, it was typically negative. The only story within the Idaho press that covered the results in a more positive light was a brief article about included the headline the Democratic gathering at a downtown Boise hotel from the Spokesman Review that included the headline “Idaho Dems celebrate, pool beckons.”

Idaho’s television news was equally unamused with the Obama reelection decision. Although there was limited television coverage originating from Idaho (as Northern Idaho gets the majority of its television from Spokane-based stations), it was staunchly pro-Romney. On Boise’s KTVB, hosts described Romney as “almost a native son” and utilized Idaho’s $600 million in Romney campaign contributions as evidence of the state’s love for him.

Idaho’s news coverage of the 2012 presidential election left much to be desired. Most of the election focus was on local issues including education reform and state government elections. In browsing Idaho news sources, it would seem almost as if there was not a presidential election day whatsoever. I guess the predictability of the results doesn’t warrant much coverage. Nonetheless, had the national election results gone the other way, it would be hard to imagine Idaho not giving more attention to the race. Regardless, I believe that it is important for local media outlets to focus more on local issues because there was plenty of national election coverage elsewhere.

SIDE NOTE: Idaho was most recently relevant in Presidential politics in August when Clint Eastwood officially endorsed Mitt Romney in Sun Valley. You can thank us for the chairs later…

Last night, just was we all did during the presidential debates, we stalked the election via Twitter. The Massachusetts senate seat election in particular was highly followed race because of what was on the line. If Elizabeth Warren was elected, then she would be the first women elected into the Senate in the state of MA, ever. She was indeed elected, and the history of MA senate race was changed forever.

Back to Twitter though, twitter was exploding on election day. Even though there are many other reliable sources via the internet such as the updates by CNN or NBC, twitter is a different kind of outlet  that is more accessible to a general public, especially young college voters. Many college students (such as myself) do not have televisions in their dorm rooms, and the alternative to tracking the election, other than the TV, is the internet. As I walked in the front entrance of LaFortune , I was hit by a buzz of  political college students assembling together, accompanied by pizza boxes and star bucks cups,  to watch the presidential election. I also noticed twitter up on a lot of different computers. Now even though many of the students were watching a projected screen of the NBC coverage of the election as well, they were also referencing twitter. I myself, as I proceeded to the basement to study in quiet, pulled up my twitter newsfeed and kept it minmized in the bottom of the screen, accessible for whenever I wanted to have a reliable update of the election. As I watched the coverage in the state of MA, news teams and media figures alike were also on twitter.

WCVB Boston tweeted many live updates from their Live Wire Blog. This blog had every single new election update, retweets from politico, CNN, and NBC as well as some of their own tweets and pictures such as Romney and his family voting in Belmont, MA. WBZ a Fox affiliate in the Boston area was also on twitter, tweeting live updates for the Senate Race in Springfield, tweets such as “Warren crowd now chanting her name. Waiting for her to speak.” and updates on the legalization of medical marijuana in the state of MA. Again, even though twitter is viewed by many journalists as a colloquial and un-professional type of news source, I got most of my election information from twitter, as I assume many others did. I believe that in general, we are looking at the future of election day, and personally I do not see it as completely dim.