Political pundits on TV periodically bemoan the level of political discourse in the United States. They claim coverage of the campaign for President typically consists of who's ahead, who's behind, and by how much.
Instead of covering policy proposals by the candidates, news programs dutifully report the polling percentages instead. This is referred to, with some disdain, as the "horse race."
Why does this happen? Because the American people are more interested in the horse race than differentiating abstruse details on health insurance, energy, education and military proposals. Anyway, except for one or two extreme candidates, most of the Democrats agree with each other on the broad strokes of political philosophy and the role of government. Most of the Republicans, with the notable exceptions of Rudy Giuliani and John McCain, are the same.
As the owner of a full-service public relations firm, Cut-It-Out Communications, and with a degree in Government, I inherently understand this situation. Repetition is the key to any persuasive effort aimed at a large number of people. Whether it's a business running the same TV commercial ad nauseum, or a politician reciting the same stump speech across the nation, repetition ensures saturation into the collective public mind. Propagandists often spout that if you repeat something often enough, people will believe it even if it's false.
And so, the level of political discourse suffers. The media, unfortunately, abets this situation. Reporters are faced with the alternative of repeating the candidates platitudes over and over again as they meticulously stay "on message," or covering something more exciting, the horse race.
This situation has slowly become ingrained in political coverage, especially for mass media outlets. Today, the main hope for politically-active, informed citizenry is centered on the Internet. More on this in a future post.
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- Willy Gissen
- In 2003, Willy Gissen founded Cut-It-Out Communications, a full-service public relations agency based in Hartsdale, New York. His organization specializes in the incorporation of online activities into traditional public relations programs, primarily for business-to-business clients.
These activities include the creation of e-newsletters, the set up and maintenance of internal blogs, and the development of inbound links to maximize a client’s search engine ranking.
See his other articles at public relations instruction, and visit his other blog, New York Times Leader, for an analysis of each morning's lead story.