Talking: Election coverage—where’s the policy?

Hourly breaking news. An endless stream of push notifications. A backlog of political podcasts (but not this one, right?).

Today we’re talking about how the news media covers elections, and how voters can find real information within the sea of coverage in the final weeks before the election.

Transcript

Speaker 1: [00:00:00] New polls in the last 24 hours. We brought you the CNBC change research numbers last night. It's a tie.

Reem: [00:00:05] Today we're talking about the elephant in the room: elections.

Speaker 2: [00:00:09] Here's the situation. Take a look at where the polls are right now.

Reem: [00:00:13] Election coverage has all but taken over the news cycle leading up to November 3rd. Every day there's a new poll, a new analysis, a new scandal.

Speaker 3: [00:00:22] The fly that landed on Mike Pence's head was on everybody's lips.

Colleen: [00:00:28] But, you know, it's not taking up a lot of your time? Policy. I'm Colleen Pulawski.

Reem: [00:00:33] And I'm Reem Rayef, and this is Talk Policy To Me.

Reem: [00:00:37] After the 2016 election, Harvard professor Thomas Patterson took a hard look at the media coverage of both major party candidates. His study discovered something while illuminating very little. Only about 10% of the candidates media coverage had anything to do with their policy stances.

Colleen: [00:01:06] And not much seems to have changed in the last four years. Recent articles have condemned the media for falling into the same traps it did in 2016 by letting candidates actual policy platforms and political records be overshadowed by extended discussion of family members struggles with drug addiction, who gave who coronavirus, and the fly on Mike Pence's head. It's entertaining, sure. It gets clicks and it drives views. But what's the cost to the electorate?

Reem: [00:01:36] An estimated 10% of all voters are between 18 and 23 years old, and these young people are only a fraction of who will be voting for the first time in 2020. Recently, naturalized U.S. citizens, people who have just completed parole and newly politically active folks, all of these people will be entering the fray and asking themselves who and what should I vote for?

Colleen: [00:02:00] Despite this, most mainstream U.S. news takes an understanding of policy issues for granted. How does this dearth of policy coverage affect voter behavior? And what can the news media do to give more airtime to the actual issues? Our reporter Michelle Pitcher set forth to find out.

Michelle: [00:02:24] And we are recording on my end as well. So great. So if you wouldn't mind just starting off by introducing yourself.

Anita: [00:02:31] Yeah, my name is Anita Varma and I am the assistant director of journalism and media ethics at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics, which is based at Santa Clara University. And I'm also really pleased to be a visiting lecturer this semester for UC Berkeley School of Journalism. My recent focus is on how journalists cover and humanize marginalized communities. I specifically focus on the role of solidarity and how that's different from empathy or tolerance or other kinds of ideals we might hear more about in the context of journalism.

Michelle: [00:03:12] I'm curious how you think that plays into election coverage as we're entering the November election season.

Anita: [00:03:19] Yeah, I'm so glad you asked that. So just last week at the Marcus Center, I run an initiative called the Solidarity Journalism Initiative. So we're able to do some really timely workshops for practicing journalists as well as journalism educators. And last week, a set of workshops were on precisely this topic. We called it Covering Elections in Solidarity. And you might wonder, well, in solidarity with who? And our answer is with voters, right? Because we get a lot a lot of coverage of where is Trump, What's he doing? Who is he talking to even before his COVID diagnosis? And same for Biden. Where is he? Who's he having dinner with or virtual engagements with and much less around the lived experiences of people who are presumed to be part of the voting electorate. So with a solidarity approach to covering elections, we end up shifting focus from right elite candidates, elite supporters, elite parties, and instead looking at where honestly, most of the country is, which is on right on the ground doing the work and trying to engage not just in politics that happened on the first Tuesday of November every four years, but engaging in politics year round.

Michelle: [00:04:34] That's really interesting that that was the focus of those workshops because this difficulty to engage is sort of what I am trying to nail down. I am wondering how in the world new voters are supposed to parse these complex policy issues that we're asked to vote on. It seems like media coverage doesn't do a very stellar job of the education part. So I'm curious if you have thoughts on what a news media could do better, whether that falls in their purview, just sort of what is available to new voters in terms of policy education?

Anita: [00:05:15] Yeah, I think that's a phenomenal question. And I think that new voters are often well, first time voters, even if they're not just at the cutoff age, but folks who are engaging for the first time may find it difficult. There's a whole sea of confusing claims, contradictory links and all kinds of like a barrage of some of it's information, some of it's misinformation, some of it's partial information. So how do we how do we navigate that? And I think the biggest thing that my recommendation always is for new voters is to not rely on one source. The problem, though, is that it will lead to confusion. Right. So if we're seeing a bunch of claims in, you know, pointing you left a bunch of claims pointing you right. In terms of what this candidate actually thinks can be really, really tough to figure out. Well, which which version of events am I going to believe? And that's where I think community discussions are really important as well. So to understand for people who are not in support of this candidate, what are their reasons? What what's the aspect of the story that I'm not yet seeing and that, you know, everything I'm describing takes a lot of work. It takes a lot of time. And so at that point, what some folks end up doing is entrusting the formation of their opinion to an opinion leader. So that is what brings us to the theory called the two step flow, which arose more than 30 years ago, in communication research. But basically, the people will entrust decisions about politics and viewpoints on politics to someone they view as a leader of their community of thought. So that doesn't need to be their literal community of people who live in Sunnyvale, in my case. But that can be a little more figurative.

Michelle: [00:07:13] Mhm. That's really fascinating. So this theory recognizes that it is particularly cumbersome to educate yourself on complex matters of policy that have decades or more than a century of history in this country.

Anita: [00:07:31] Now, that said, it's not that everybody delegates all of their political views 100%, but we see that happening in environments both of confusion and oversaturation and also conditions that make it really hard to find time, even to just, you know, take a break from work, let alone finding time. Write in conditions of precarity, of late capitalism kind of grind a lot of folks are going through to find time to also sit down and give yourself those policy lessons.

Michelle: [00:08:04] Mhm. Yeah. That idea of oversaturation really resonates because I personally have not lived through a new cycle like the one we've been living through for the past. I don't even want to quantify the years. It feels like a lifetime. And so I wanted to talk a little bit about the study from Patterson and what I found particularly surprising and the reason that I went down this road was that only about 10% of news coverage during a general election has anything to do with policy. And so I've been living with this notion in my head that we're saturated with policy coverage, but in reality, it's such a small fraction.

Anita: [00:08:48] Now of two things on the oversaturation point. One is that there's an argument to be made that we're actually getting oversaturated with politics, not necessarily with policy, but there's also an argument to be made that we reach our saturation point with policy coverage quicker than we reach our saturation point with lighter or softer forms of content. So why would that be? So in the case of housing and homelessness coverage, reading five stories about people experiencing homelessness and what their day to day is like and what their struggles are might leave you with capacity to read five more. On the other hand, reading five stories about policies related to how and where unhoused people can sleep when there are no shelter beds. The situation of lack of affordable housing of the different propositions. After reading five of those stories, it's very likely that readers need a break. But they may turn away because the cognitive load that's put on them, oftentimes by policy stories, will reflect the complexity of policy discourse and the complexity of the policy itself, such that the saturation may come sooner. It's kind of like if you are eating a really rich cake versus eating like a really light muffin, you could eat five muffins or you might only be able to eat a sliver of this cake. And if we think about policy coverage, oftentimes it's a really rich cake After too much of it, you can't keep going.

Michelle: [00:10:26] I'm curious because a lot of what I'm what I'm talking about is based on assumptions after the 2016 election. It feels like 20 years have passed. It feels like two months have passed since then. And I just wanted to sort of get a temperature check from you. If you think that some of these assumptions are still holding true how.

Anita: [00:10:45] To put it. So I'll back up a step and see that same pattern. Yes, are absolutely repeating themselves at the same time. Some of those repetitions are being destabilized through some really interesting and important counter narratives that existed in 2016, but we're not getting as much attention. So one example of that is around this issue of horserace coverage. So horserace coverage has been criticized for many years around what it does to voters, right? Voters feel like they're spectators, they feel demobilized. They feel like the die has been cast. So why would I stand for 6 hours to try to be in line and miss work and all of that? So the critique of horse race coverage is not new, but after the events of 2016, it does seem like the bottom fell out in a way, right. Of being able to really say horse race coverage is the best that we're going to get in terms of understanding voters, because it didn't give us an understanding of voters in really key states. The increased coverage of voter suppression entirely goes to the credit of folks who are working to address voter suppression and trying to push against it, thinking about the legacies of John Lewis and the need for stronger voting rights, not only as policy level, but also in terms of enforcement of voting rights, are human rights. And I think the folks who have been doing that work, both in grassroots efforts and grassroots media efforts, are having a really big impact. Compared to what we were seeing in 2016, where that was often relegated to the margins. So there's some hope in there. I think there's also dismay that voter suppression, intimidation and lack of access continue to be issues, but at least I see more indication that they're being discussed compared to four years ago.

Michelle: [00:12:42] Well, thank you so much, Anita.

Anita: [00:12:44] Thank you, Michelle. Bye!

Colleen: [00:12:53] So, Reem, what do you think about this idea of saturation points and opinion leaders?

Reem: [00:12:58] As someone who studies policy, I feel 100% on board with us. I feel less certain of my political stances than ever before. The more you know, the more you see your ignorance. Right? So I love this idea that people are leaning on others who they trust to help them understand what it means when a candidate says they want a single payer option versus universal health care, or when a ballot initiative proposes a change in property taxes. My quote unquote, opinion leaders are my classmates and my neighbors and writers who I trust, and I'm absolutely leaning on them as I fill out my ballot this year. When I first voted in 2012, it felt much simpler. I didn't do too much research or interrogation. I just voted for the first Democrat whose name I recognized on the ballot totally.

Colleen: [00:13:43] So I also voted for the first time in 2012, and it was also much simpler. I too grew up in a Democratic household and it was just a given for me at that point in my life at age 28 to vote for the first Democrat that I saw on the ballot. But what I do remember is that. It was my first time having more extended conversations about policy with my peers. And I will say that I was totally ill equipped and we probably all were. But this was the time that I distinctly remember that I started trying out what it meant to discuss like quote unquote platforms and quote unquote, policy proposals. And it was so overwhelming. I was not a policy wonk. And a lot of the policy jargon just really went over my head. One thing that I also really remember from this time was it was the first time someone around me labeled themselves as a fiscal conservative, and I didn't know what that meant. I had no clue what it meant. But over time, I started to feel more comfort with the language of policy and more confident in engaging in policy driven discussions with the people around me. But that certainly did not come until much later. And yeah, I was just not equipped as a first time voter to have substantive policy discussions.

Reem: [00:15:14] So Michelle spoke to first time voter Megan Darshan Kvetch to find out what it's like to go through all of that that we just talked about in 2020.

Megan: [00:15:31] I just recently turned 18, so I am super excited to be voting in this upcoming election. What sorts of things have you been doing to prepare? Well, I actually pre registered to vote the second I turned 16 because I knew that I would forget, but so it finally just kicked in and I'm actually I have signed myself up to receive as many emails as possible from politicians, from different propositions, from pretty much everything, because I feel like the number one way to really get a feel of what the politician stands for is from them themselves. And that information is absolutely out there. It's just kind of difficult to find it.

Colleen: [00:16:10] I'm curious how you got that idea.

Megan: [00:16:12] I guess it was actually from like applying to colleges was getting all the emails from colleges, made me actually look into what they were like. And I figured, why not? Why not try to do the same thing with politics? Because if they they want you to vote for them, they're going to give you the information you ask for.

Colleen: [00:16:30] Do you feel like you grew up in sort of an environment where you were prepared for this?

Megan: [00:16:35] I mean, Truckee's a very mixed bag, depending on like where people fall on the political spectrum. But generally speaking, I went to Truckee high school, and the teachers are very good about teaching us how to find information and how to research and how to make an informed decision. And while it wasn't explicitly transferred into politics, they definitely showed us the correct ways to try to find that information. They also forced us to take government as a senior. So that also helped.

Colleen: [00:17:08] Once your tested on something, you're like, okay, I'm in.

Megan: [00:17:11] I got it. I got it. I do understand how the government works. Cool, cool, cool.

Colleen: [00:17:15] Step number one, I wanted to sort of give you some space to talk about what it's just what the heck it's like to be a first time voter in 2020.

Megan: [00:17:22] It's so stressful, but it's. It's so exciting. But I think the weirdest the weirdest feeling that I keep getting from thinking about voting is an almost feeling of helplessness. Like, what is what is my vote really going to do going forward? Which is partially why I've actually flipped to focus a lot more on like local politics. I've actually because I think I think local politics is one of the coolest things ever. But it's so boring. But it's it's where the change is made. And that's and that's been the way to kind of remedy that feeling of I don't know what I'm doing. This is this is what I'm doing, this is what I can do. This is the change I can see in front of me.

Reem: [00:18:09] I love this idea of taking control of the pre-election anxiety by doing your policy research. We love to see it.

Colleen: [00:18:15] Definitely, and the pre-election anxiety is absolutely a real thing. So what are you doing to prepare for the election and ease your own anxiety? Let us know on social media. @GoldmanSchool and @BIFYA_berkeley. That's capital B I F Y A underscore Berkeley.

Reem: [00:18:35] This has been Talk Policy To Me. See you next time.

Reem: [00:18:38] Talk Policy To Me is a co-production of UC Berkeley's Goldman School of Public Policy and the Berkeley Institute for Young Americans.

Colleen: [00:18:52] Our executive producers are Bora Lee Reed and Sarah Swanbeck.

Reem: [00:18:56] Editing for this episode is by Michelle Pitcher.

Colleen: [00:19:00] The music you heard today is My Blue Dot Sessions and Pat Mesiti-Miller.

Reem: [00:19:04] See you next time.