by Frank James
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee is upset that we in the media spend more time on, say, Britney Spears being seen getting out of a car with no underwear or Paris Hilton going to jail than on his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination.
This from an Associated Press story yesterday on Huckabee’s complaint:
Asked how he could break out of a pack of Republican candidates considered in the second tier behind a trio of front-runners, Huckabee complained about a lack of media attention.
“One of the frustrations is that there is more attention on Britney Spears getting out of a car without underwear than there is about who is going to be the next president,” said Huckabee. “That is something that we as candidates don’t control.”
Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas, met with reporters after touring a high-tech bioscience company in Ames. He acknowledged frustration that an inordinate amount of attention was given to leading GOP candidates Rudy Giuliani, John McCain and Mitt Romney.
What could he do to get in the media spotlight?
“Accompanying Paris Hilton to jail might work,” said Huckabee.
Nothing else has been effective so far, he said.
“There are times I’m here and it may not be that we get the same level of attention as the three guys who seem to have been anointed by the national media to get a preponderance of the time no matter what they do and where they do it and what they say,” said Huckabee.
It’s true. We’re guilty as charged. His candidacy has received a lot less attention than Paris Hilton. His candidacy has also received a lot less attention than senators John McCain, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and former senator Fred Thompson who isn’t even officially in the race yet.
There are at least two obvious things going on. Since the advent of modern media, we’ve been a celebrity-obsessed culture. No news there. Tired of the normal celebrity-making process, we have even gone into the business of minting new ones through nationally televised contests like “American Idol.”
By the way, the ancient Romans did something similar with gladiators who would become huge celebrities in a kind of bloody “Roman Idol.” So it’s really not a new phenomenon.
This latter-day celebrity obsession may be fueled by the media but the media also responds to it in a never-ending feedback loop that seems like it couldn’t be broken if we tried.
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Any headline with Paris Hilton is guaranteed to get more Internet hits than most stories about the presidential race. And how many hits would a story on congressional earmark reform get?
In an age when hits translate into advertising revenue and where there’s increasing competition for consumer eyeballs, much of the media go with where the audience is. That’s actually a sound business decision.
But no candidate believes he’s going to make any ground with voters by blaming them for not focusing on substantive matters like a presidential race. So instead of blaming the tastes of the American people, the media get blamed.
Also, when there’s a large field of presidential candidates, a sorting out occurs. Who has the most money? Who has the most buzz? Who seems the most presidential? Who are the activists in the parties’ bases most excited about? Who is most likely to be the last person standing?
Whoever scores the highest on these is likely to get the most media attention since that attention is a finite resource that’s getting ever smaller.
With the changes in the media, especially the print media, wrought by long-term readership trends and accelerated by the Internet which has cut deeply into revenues, newspapers don’t have the budgets to deploy reporters to all the campaigns.
It’s even more expensive to send out television crews with all the equipment needed for live shots and the like.
So journalists make decisions. Which candidates are the likeliest candidates to get the two parties’ nominations. That’s how we prioritize.
But that doesn’t mean we won’t or don’t cover other candidates at all. They just won’t get as much attention.
Even so, Rep. Ron Paul (R-Tex.) has shown that just because the media doesn’t think you have the best chance at winning your party’s nomination, it doesn’t mean that you can’t break through.
During the debates, he did just that with an anti-Iraq War message that placed in sharp contrast with all the other Republican candidates. He generated an Internet boom in which his site was getting more hits for a while than the other better-known candidates.
So there is a way to break through, especially in the age of the Internet.
One thing Huckabee did assure himself of by complaining is a story about him complaining.