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Show Hingkley Journal of Politics 2005 found only one third of registered voters who were about to vote in that primary said they knew enough about the candidates to make an informed choice. A September 29, 2004, poll by the same organization found that six months had accomplished little; a majority of adults did not know where the two candidates stood on major issues such as Social Security and tax breaks (National Annenberg Election Survey 2004b). This follows the trend set in 2000, in which only 50 percent of the public thought themselves knowledgeable enough to make a decision before the final election (National Annenberg Election Survey 2000). While some of the blame for this must fall on other media, television, as the most relied upon source for campaign news, must shoulder the bulk of the responsibility. Adding to television's culpability is a Pew study which found that those voters who rely upon network or local television news broadcasts for political information ranked among the most ignorant about the campaign (Pew Research Center for the People and the Press 2004b). The degraded quality of television political news also lends to voter cynicism and disaffection. The distortion of all political events through a strategy frame leaves voters with the impression that politicians act only in their own self-interest, as any evidence of idealism or honest concern for the country's well-being is introduced as a campaign tactic and immediately analyzed by Washington pundits in terms of its effects on that candidate's political future. Strategy coverage could also lead to the view that politics is a game played by politicians and insiders with no effect on normal people's everyday lives, and, conversely, that ordinary citizens can have no effect on politics. These possible and ongoing negative effects of the drop of real political information on broadcast television are disastrous and deleterious to our democracy. An increased reliance on paid advertising to fill the void left by other forms of media could lead to an uneven candidate playing field, shallow coverage could lead to voter ignorance, and strategy-focused coverage can result in widespread voter cynicism and apathy. Thus it is not surprising to learn of reforms introduced to avoid this calamity. The Possibility of Reform The disappearance of political information from the broadcast news has not gone unnoticed by caring citizens and reform groups. Traditionally, reforms to ameliorate the situation have taken one of two approaches. One is voluntary initiatives by local or, less frequently, national media organizations to increase their political coverage. The other is government intervention, which has come through legislation, voluntary challenges, or the FCC. There have been numerous instances of media organizations in a specific community working with each other, politicians, reform groups, and the public to increase the quality of political information disseminated. Most of these initiatives have been limited in scope, choosing to concentrate on one specific election or race, and thus it is difficult to assess their potential for long term success. However, their impact can perhaps show whether there is a ray of hope for future reforms. During the 1997 New Jersey gubernatorial election, academic and civic communities launched an effort to improve campaign quality, hoping for more issue-oriented and positive campaign discourse on the part of both candidates and the media. These efforts involved a set of voluntary standards of campaign conduct for candidates, free air time provided by the networks, and a series of public debates. The attempts were successful in parts, resulting in a campaign that 70 percent of the public found more positive than the 1996 senate race, as well as campaign and newspaper coverage that 60 percent of the public thought was more focused on issues of concern to voters. However, for our purposes it was a failure, as coverage on television network affiliates remained minimal, and candidate television debates were poorly scheduled and little watched (Waldman 1998). An even more extensive effort in Minnesota in 1996, called the Minnesota Compact, while enjoying success in other areas, also failed to dramatically increase campaign coverage on the local television stations, and the televised debates failed to reach a wide audience, with the final debate reaching only 70,000 households. (Cappella and Brewin 1998). However, a 1996 attempt at reform in the Massachusetts Senate race showed that television debates can be successful. Through the cooperation of the major Boston newspapers and both cable and broadcast stations, eight candidate debates were scheduled, all of which were televised. The cooperative nature of this venture helped to boost viewership, as the debates were aired in prime time, and half of them were carried live by all the local broadcast stations. The final debate was watched by more than 500,000 households. These debates then became topics for the evening news broadcasts, ensuring an increased level of campaign discussion in that arena as well (ABC n.d.). Similar results were found by the Madison Project in Wisconsin during the 1992 presidential primaries, with debates being widely watched and resulting in widespread television news coverage (Denton and Thorson 1994). Efforts to improve television campaign discourse on a national level have occurred, albeit more rarely than localized initiatives. As discussed previously, the Hearst-Argyle station group launched significant campaigns to increase campaign coverage on their stations, with great success. In 1996, the Free TV for Straight Talk coalition appealed to the major networks to provide presidential candidates with two- to three-minute segments of free air time. It was hoped that these segments would be more issue-oriented than the news and more accurate than the ads. However, perhaps because the networks did not cooperate and air their spots simultaneously, the segments were not widely seen. Only 22 percent of voters reported having seen the spots in a survey taken after the election. But 60 percent of those who saw the spots reported having learned something from them, showing them to have 79 |