Ames Progressive

With a strong zero percent of precincts reporting, MSNBC and a number of other news media outlets called Nevada for Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney today.

Granted, it was never any surprise that Romney would likely take Nevada, a Mormon stronghold that was left uncontested while the GOP field focused instead on their South Carolina primary, also today.

Still, the media’s transfixion on predictions and poll watching deserves attention. It reduces politics to a sporting event, a horse race in its worst form. When media outlets fall over themselves trying to one-up their brethren to provide the most accurate results the fastest, they pervert the democratic process and all but predetermine the outcome of the race. As the media focus increasingly on making a buck and less and less on their responsibility to provide accurate, important and relevant information for the myriad publics within their society, voter enfranchisement descends further and further down the loo.

Say what you will of Michael Moore’s brand of journalism, but his analysis of Al Gore’s defeat in Florida in Fahrenheit 9/11 was spot-on. In that instance it was Fox News Channel declaring the state for Bush when clearly, as all the other networks duly noted, the race was still too close to call. Forget for a moment that FNC functions as the far-reaching propaganda arm of the Republican Party; when FNC called the state for Bush, the anchors of the other networks apologized to their audiences for not being the first to be strong-armed into throwing the election into the hands of the loser.

For a more timely example, take a look at these graphs, courtesy of JedReport at DailyKos:

And that’s only the top three in the Democratic polls. Who was Chris Dodd again? Joe Biden, anyone? Their presence, much like the current presence of Ron Paul and (the nearly invisible) Dennis Kucinich, was a boon to the race while it lasted for the fresh ideas and dynamics they injected into the race. But they were dead in the water from before they announced their candidacies.

No matter that Obama has comparatively little political experience; he’s the first black man who’s ever had a chance at winning the presidency, but perhaps only with the complicity of an adoring press. Clinton could very well destroy her party’s hopes of reclaiming the White House should she win the nomination and for good reason, but her establishment backing and the star power of her hubby have given her the campaign coffers to leave the less fortunates behind in a cloud of dust.

“The problem of the media is that they like to think of themselves as the king anointers, and they are going to pick whomever it looks is most likely to win. By and large, they want to be right come election day, saying, ‘We told you all along. We provided the first fast, accurate coverage that so and so would win the nomination or so and so was the frontrunner.’”

– John Zambenini, Ron Paul’s Iowa communications coordinator