Study: Negativity Ruled 2016 Political Coverage

A Harvard University study released in December concluded that media coverage of the 2016 presidential election was overwhelmingly negative, topped only by the 2000 Bush-Gore campaign, according to an Associated Press (AP) news story in U.S. News. Once "horse race" stories about polls were eliminated, coverage of issues relating to Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton's fitness for office were identically 87% negative for each candidate, according to the report from Harvard's Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy. The researchers looked at coverage on ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN and Fox News Channel nightly newscasts, along with The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, USA Today, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal newspapers. The media analysis firm Media Tenor judged the tone of stories; for example, a story about the FBI reopening an investigation into Clinton's e-mails was judged a negative for her, while a story about lawsuits against Trump's business was a seen as negative for him. With all stories included, 71% of the overall presidential race coverage was negative, and 29% was positive. By comparison the 2000 presidential race had a negative-to-positive ratio of 75% to 25%. That's very different from earlier, more positive campaign coverage trends; in the Kennedy-Nixon campaign in 1960, for example, three-quarters of the coverage was judged positive, according to the Harvard report. Overall, whether positive or negative, Trump received far more media attention than any rival. Yet, while the negative tone may have generated interest as measured by television ratings, it didn't seem to drive voter turnout since unusually large numbers of voters either abstained from the presidential election or entered write-in candidates per early evaluations by the U.S. Elections Project, which collects data on national voter turnout. But perhaps the biggest issue for mainstream news organizations was the trend of voters snubbing mainstream relevancy in favor of news sources that bolstered their own viewpoints — including fake news sites. David Bohrman, a former CNN Washington bureau chief who helped with NBC's political coverage, summed up to AP: "The traditional gatekeepers were out there saying 'this is true and this is not.' But they were lost in the noise of 4,200 other sources of information." For the full story, see http://www.usnews.com/news/entertainment/articles/2016-12-07/study-2016-campaign-coverage-was-overwhelmingly-negative

Marketing Pro Ranks GOP Hopefuls' Social Efforts

Social media branding is a must-have for today's presidential hopefuls, so how are the leading GOP contenders doing from a purely marketing standpoint? A recent MarketingProfs article by Jeremy Page, a network marketing blogger, provides one political outsider's ranking of the top six Republican presidential candidates based just on social media marketing performance. You may not agree with the rankings, but there are lessons worth gleaning. For example, Page puts Jeb Bush at the tail end of GOP contenders based on a lackluster social media presence (just 363,000 Twitter followers) and policy-oriented posts that create a persona without emotional resonance. Social media, especially Twitter, "isn't the place to be overly sensible and pragmatic," warns Page. Marco Rubio comes in fifth place with his strategy of keeping an uncontentious, low profile while building a social following (over 1 million Twitter followers). Page urges Rubio to do more to reinforce his brand as a "candidate of the people" with retweets and posts that leverage "your community for your social media content." Fourth place is awarded to long-shot Carly Fiorina for using social media to push a persona of openness, showcasing her willingness to answer questions via Q&As on niche, real-time streaming platforms like Periscope, for example. Ted Cruz gets a No. 3 position for an innovative digital strategy that stresses crowdfunding and gamification. Via Cruz Crowd, followers can recruit friends to join a personal Cruz Crowd donation page and then monitor money raised via Facebook and Twitter, plus earn game badges. With the competitive Cruz Crew app, players earn points based on actions to spread the word. Ben Carson is No. 2 thanks to his use of Facebook to leverage 4.6 million fans (compared with Hillary Clinton's 1.5 million and Trump's 3.8 million Facebook followers) via heartfelt long-form letters, plus polls and petitions to collect e-mail addresses. At the top of the heap is (no surprise) Donald Trump, who presents his tax plan on Periscope, hosts #AskTrump Q&As, and rallies fans on Facebook and Twitter with unfiltered "real" posts that keep him constantly in the media spotlight (for free). Page's takeaway: "Use social media to be controversial and troll the media." For more, see http://www.marketingprofs.com/articles/2015/29033/ranking-gop-presidential-candidates-according-to-digital-strategy

In 2016 Race, Public Snubs Media Fact-Checkers

This election cycle has seen more than its share of candidate flubs, exaggerations and falsehoods, but it's the mainstream media fact-checkers who are getting bad ratings from the voting public, not political prevaricators. GOP front-runner Donald Trump also may lead in untruths, for example. A recent NBC News report notes that fact-checking project Politifact rates 41% of Trump's statements as "false" to date, and 21% as "pants on fire" false. Ben Carson has 43% of his assertions labeled false by Politifact, with 13% at the worst pants-on-fire level. The Democrats' lead candidate Hillary Clinton is not seen as 100% truthful either; Politifact rates 11% of her statements as false and 1% as pants-on-fire wrong, per NBC. Why aren't media call-outs of such political dishonesty affecting poll numbers? The NBC story supplies one explanation: According to a new Pew Research Center study, the American public has more distrust for the news media than ever before, with a whopping 65% saying the news media has a negative impact on the country, up from 57% in 2010. That's a worse rating than respondents give for popular villains like banks and large corporations, and close to the disfavor allotted Congress. The more conservative the respondent, the more likely they are to be down on the media. Pew found that 82% of surveyed conservatives thought of the media as a negative force, which may explain why media challenges bounce off Trump among his Republican fans. For more, read the NBC report at http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/booing-fact-checkers-how-low-trust-media-shaping-2016-n468986

For Media Clout, Rand Twitter Ads Target Reporters

Twitter may not be the political heavyweight in social media, with 300 million users compared to Facebook's 1.4 billion, but Republican Sen. Rand Paul, one of the crowd of GOP 2016 presidential hopefuls, is hoping to enlarge his media footprint with the Twitter ad platform. How? He's directly targeting messages to certain journalists, using a list "uploaded into Twitter's ad platform of journalists," according to a story in The Hill, an influential Washington-based political website. Reporter David McCabe quotes Paul's Chief Digital Strategist Vincent Harris: "We have even created lists of journalists in early primary states, working with the communications team. And it's a really good cheap, effective, targeted way to get a piece of content out there in front of people that you want to see it--journalists who are going to help with their megaphone push a piece of content out further." Rand Paul is following in the footsteps of President Obama's reelection campaign in this respect; Obama digital strategists also used Twitter to try to influence political junkies and journalists. For more, read http://thehill.com/policy/technology/247839-rand-pauls-campaign-directly-targets-reporters-with-ads-on-twitter

Snapchat Enters Political Media Arena

A New York Times article recently noted moves by Snapchat, America's fastest-growing smartphone app, to enter the political media arena. With its more than 100 million users, most between the ages of 18 and 31, Snapchat's ambitions could have significant impact on 2016 election coverage for candidates and causes. One sign that Snapchat is serious about growing political content: It recently hired Peter Hamby, a political reporter for CNN, to head its emerging news division. While Facebook is talking with media companies about using their political content, Snapchat is moving to create its own content, leveraging resources to hire editors and reporters. Snapchat's "Discover" feature already allows media partners, such as CNN, to post content to the app every 24 hours on their own Snapchat channel, but Snapchat also has its own channel, which could increase political coverage under Hamby. Snapchat also has its "Live" app that allows the company to drop a digital boundary around an event, a "geofence," so that Snapchat users can upload their image or video "snaps" to be stitched into a story by Snapchat. For example, 40 million watched Snapchat's feed from the Coachella music festival over three days in April. Imagine the application to a political event. As the NYT story pointed out, Snapchat has the potential to bring millions of first-time voters and millennials into the political arena."There are a lot of young people who are just killing time on their phones, who are on Snapchat and are not getting all that much political news right now," Tim Miller, a communications adviser for potential Republican presidential hopeful Jeb Bush, told NYT. "I doubt there will be any policy symposiums taking place on Snapchat, but you've got to find a way to reach people who aren't reading long-form political articles." Definitely a heads-up for campaign strategists! Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/04/business/media/campaign-coverage-via-snapchat-could-shake-up-the-2016-elections.html?_r=0

If Tweets & Soundbites Rule, Do Speeches Matter?

When voters follow candidates and causes via media soundbites, a few lines of tweeted text or a mobile phone headline, does the old-fashioned stump speech even matter anymore? It's a question recently posed in an article in The National Journal, which noted that leading Republican presidential contender Jeb Bush didn't even give a speech at the recent Conservative Political Action Conference. Bush also has been notably "uninspired" in delivering big addresses so far this year, the article points out. Yet Jeb Bush is still confident he can meet an ambitious fundraising goal of $100 million in the first three months of the year. So why bother with scripted oratory? The National Journal asked pundits what purpose rousing campaign rhetoric still serves, and the experts cited four reasons to speechify. First, campaign speeches help gain donors. Traditionally, if donors see that a candidate can galvanize a crowd, they are more likely to offer support. Second, the discipline of creating cohesive arguments with advisors and staff is crucial to the internal campaign process, helping create a harmonious platform--and team. Third, speeches let a campaign set the public narrative, as President Obama did in 2008 with his rhetoric of hope and "change we can believe in." Finally, a great speech can simply win votes. Jon Lovett, a former Obama speechwriter, summed up, "A great speech can make you remember something about what you believe, about who you are, about who you want to be. It's rare when that kind of thing happens. But it is important, and it is real." For the whole article, go to http://www.nationaljournal.com/twenty-sixteen/the-decreasing-relevance-of-the-campaign-speech-20150304

ABC News Cites 14 Midterm Races That Matter

The political pundits are already deciding which of the races for 435 House slots, 36 Senate seats, and 36 governor's mansions are worthy of national media attention. ABC News Political Director Rick Klein has weighed in early with the top 14 races he thinks are worth following so far. Here are just the top six races chosen: Kentucky's Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell battling both a tea-party challenger and re-energized Democratic foes; Arkansas' incumbent Democratic Sen. Mark Pryor defending a vulnerable position against well-heeled GOP opponent Rep. Tom Cotton; Georgia's retiring Republican Sen. Saxby Chambliss leaving the field open to far-right primary contenders and hopeful Democrat Michelle Nunn, daughter of former Sen. Sam Nunn; incumbent Louisiana Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu fighting to keep her Southern seat as a must-win for Democrats; Florida Gov. Rick Scott, a tea-party power, facing the evolving Republican-turned-Independent-turned Democrat Charlie Crist; Texas Gov. Rick Perry retiring in the biggest red state to leave the gubernatorial contest open for new Democratic star Wendy Davis vs. Republican Atty. Gen. Greg Abbott. For more detail on these and other races, including the Wisconsin governor race and House matches in Arizona, Colorado, Florida, California, Pennsylvania and New Hampshire, see the article at http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/abc-news-14-14-2014-midterm-election-races/story?id=21659968