So maybe you think shootings, car chases and Jerry Seinfeld’s sex life are more interesting than the matter of who’ll lead the largest state in the union. If so, you’ll love commercial television in Los Angeles. Television has just checked out of California’s race for governor.
John Jacobs wondered in The Sacramento Bee “if commercial television news programs can stop interviewing Jerry Seinfeld’s ex-girlfriends long enough to devote a few minutes to covering what is turning out to be an exciting race.” Bill Rosendahl, whose Century Cable in Los Angeles offers a rich political menu, grumbles that “broadcasters have relinquished their responsibility.” Bill Carrick, a Democratic political consultant, calls the new political journalism “drive-by coverage.”
Here, in quick soundbites, is the story being missed. California’s Republican Gov. Pete Wilson is stepping down. Three Democrats and a Republican are vying for his job. One of the Democrats, Al Checchi, is a megamillionaire pouring his money into television ads and direct mail. Jane Harman, a moderate Democratic congresswoman, is also spending a pile from family funds. Lt. Gov. Gray Davis, the third Democrat, has no personal fortune. He’s playing tortoise to the millionaire hares and has a chance to beat them both. Republican Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren smiles as the Democrats eviscerate each other.
Want to know more? Forget about film at 11. You have to watch the political commercials. Or maybe read a newspaper or two.
Dan Schnur, who was Wilson’s communications director, sees a lethal mix in the decline of political coverage on TV and the cramming of the airwaves with political ads. “The lack of news coverage itself should be of concern, but it would not be alarming,” he says. “The preponderance of paid political advertising would be of concern but not alarming. But the combination, the incredible imbalance between paid advertising and news media coverage, is alarming because there is no control on the accuracy of the information.”
Carrick, who is running Harman’s campaign, warns that the lack of news attention creates incentives for candidates to do nothing but raise money and tape commercials.
“You do a cost-benefit analysis,” he says. “What’s the point of running around campaigning if you’re not going to get covered?” Less personal campaigning means voters are deprived of “the unscripted moments when the public gets a sense of who the candidates really are.” Thus the adage, coined by Bob Shrum, Checchi’s consultant, that a political rally in California is three people around a television set.
Linda Breakstone, the political editor of KCBS-TV in Los Angeles, has covered politics in the state for two decades. (Her station, by the way, gets better marks than most on politics.) Once upon a time, she says, “we covered politics in this town pretty extensively.” She traces the decline to the Rodney King beating, the subsequent riots, and above all the O.J. Simpson story.
“O.J. set this standard of interest, and nothing political lived up to it.” How can Checchi, Davis, Harman & Lungren live up to O.J.? To make matters worse this year, Breakstone says, El Nino dominated the news when at least some stations might have begun dipping into the governor’s race.
Carrick notes that the race has received more coverage outside the Los Angeles market, and Breakstone thinks even the L.A. stations won’t be able to ignore the campaign between now and the June 2 primary. A surprisingly substantive debate last Wednesday sponsored by the Los Angeles Times may spark interest, though a little late for much in-depth television reporting.
Linda Douglass, who spent nearly 15 years covering California politics for television, was appalled that the debate was held in the morning, not exactly prime time, and was broadcast by so few stations. Douglass, now ABC’s senior congressional correspondent, insists there are rating points to be had for the right kind of political reporting.
“People are not necessarily interested in politics, that is in the name-calling and the insult-of-the-moment issues that are staples of a political campaign,” she says. “But people are interested in what politicians say about issues that matter to them–schools, taxes, immigration, infrastructure.” They also care, she says, about whether all the political commercials they’re watching are true.
Breakstone has what you might call a supply-side theory: Show citizens a campaign, and they might just get interested. “If we make it exciting and tell people it’s exciting, people will get into it,” Breakstone says. “You’ve got to get it out there.” What a novel thought.
