Slate Analysis: The 2004 Democratic Primaries

8/10/2019 Slate Analysis: The 2004 Democratic Primaries

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/slate-analysis-the-2004-democratic-primaries 1/8

Chris Hart

COM105

Coverage of DNC 2004 Primaries by slate.com

The Internet news magazine slate.com (“Slate”) is one of several news mediums

studied to analyze coverage of the 2004 U.S. Democratic primaries. Based on

comparisons between Slate and other news outlets in a range of mediums, I believe that

Slate positions its coverage slightly left of center. Such a comparison needs to take into

account several factors, including the type of coverage provided, the style and tone of the

coverage, and how that coverage compares with that provided by other news outlets.

For the purpose of this paper, I will present both qualitative and quantitative

analyses and comparisons in a couple areas. First, I will quantify the number of articles

in each of three categories: majority commentary, majority news coverage (factual with

little commentary beyond political “slant”) and articles containing both news and

commentary. In doing so, I will also attempt to characterize, in general terms, the tone of

the articles considered. Second, I will summarize the conclusions the research group

reached in comparing and contrasting coverage of the primaries across the mediums on a

periodic basis. Third, I will address what I term Slate’s “meta-coverage” – articles that

report on coverage of the primaries by other news organizations. While this aspect of the

paper is not central to showing Slate’s position on the conservative-liberal spectrum, I

feel it is important to show how Slate perceives the position of other news organizations

relative to Slate’s position and provides perspective to the first two areas of the analysis.

Finally, I will address some of the possible reasons for the media’s favoritism of Dean

very early in the primary (while this was not, generally speaking, Slate’s position) and the

later shift to Kerry-focused coverage (minimizing Dean) within the framework of the

analysis.

1



Chris Hart

COM105


A total of 20 articles from Slate were reviewed and summarized between January

22, 2004 and March 20, 2004. (It is important to note that the selection of these articles

was not random. While I attempted to choose a representative cross-section of articles as

a sample, a completely random selection process would better lend itself to a qualitative

analysis.) Of the 20 articles, six were purely factual reports similar to what one would

expect in a daily newspaper. Seven articles were primarily commentary (while all but

one contained at least some facts) while the remaining seven were a mixture of facts and

commentary.

The articles sampled included only six different authors. William Saletan and

Chris Suellentrop authored eight articles each, perhaps causing their style, tone and

opinion to be over-represented. (I feel that this percentage is likely to be representative

of percentage of total articles on Slate covering the primaries – Saletan and Suellentrop

are both key political journalists for the magazine.)

The purely factual articles were all written objectively and were neutral with

respect to political tone. Most of the articles focused exclusively on the Democratic

primaries without regard to Republican opinion or eventual competition with Bush.

(Two articles comprise the exception: one dealing with Jewish voters needing to choose

between Bush and Kerry, both of whom have been very friendly towards Israel, and one

highlighting the choices of “cross-over Republicans” voting in the Democratic

primaries.) Coverage of most popular candidates (Dean, Kerry, Edwards and Clark) was

fairly equal with the lesser-known candidates (Lieberman, Kucinich) receiving less

coverage than the former category but equal coverage amongst themselves.

2



Chris Hart

COM105


Commentary and opinion pieces on Slate are easily identifiable – all of the

articles summarized that contained opinions or editorials were written in the first person.

Since many of the authors of the articles analyzed wrote a combination of news and

commentary, the political orientation of these authors was fairly transparent. It was clear

which candidates the authors liked and disliked, enabling the reader to be aware of any

potential biases when evaluating news articles by the same author. While seven articles

are classified as commentary, they are often are based on at least some supporting facts

and none are pure, unsupported rhetoric.

As a part of this project, other students studied several other news outlets as part

of a focus group. Slate was compared and contrasted with the following news

organizations: MSNBC, New York Times, The News Hour with Jim Lehrer and Morning

Edition. While many similarities in coverage existed, several differences were

discovered that are important to understanding Slate’s position in the industry.

In general, Slate covered many of the same events as the “traditional” news

outlets being studied, such as debates, speeches, photo-ops and primary results.

However, Slate often reported elements of these events that were not covered by the other

news organizations, such as more thorough and contextually appropriate quotes from

candidates rather than “sound bites”. Slate also addressed the role of media in the

election directly, which will be discussed in more detail later.

While all the other news organizations being analyzed in our focus group seemed

to favor Dean, Slate’s coverage was much more balanced between the three front-runners

(Dean, Edwards and Kerry). While the commentary revealed that Slate’s authors favored

3



Chris Hart

COM105


Dean as the winner in the beginning of the primaries, their factual coverage would not

lead one to that conclusion. This was one key difference between Slate and the other

news mediums in the focus group.

Slate was the only web-based medium studied in this focus group, leading to

some key differences between it and the traditional news outlets. The traditional TV

news outlets could change how a story was presented. For example, a television news

show can vary where or when a story appears or is re-run. (In the case of a TV news

program, a piece on a primary or debate may be run as the “top story” on a light news day

but may run second or third behind a more sensational story, such as a murder or mass-

casualty accident. Similarly, a newspaper can decide whether the same news item runs

above or below the fold based on what else is running that day.) Slate keeps a consistent

format and grouping of articles – all election articles were accessible by a link to

“Election 2004” which remained in the same location of their web site throughout the

duration of this survey.

In contrast, newspapers can decide where articles about the election could be

placed. At one point in the campaign, the New York Times ran a story that Bush was

leading in popular polls that appeared on page four. Within a month, Kerry was leading

in popular polls, which the New York Times covered in a story appearing on page one.

Perhaps there is a legitimate reason for the disparity, such as differences in news volume.

Nonetheless, the disparity certainly affects reader perception as an article on page one

reaches far more readers than the same article on page four. Moreover, reports on polling

4



Chris Hart

COM105


have been used as the quintessential example of reflexivity, encouraging a poll trend to

continue among the masses.

Another difference was the permanency of news items between the mediums.

Unless a TV news program is taped, it is nearly impossible to see the same broadcast

again unless the same story is re-run. (Even if a story is re-ran, different commentary or

footage could be used.) Similarly, newspapers must be saved for a reader to be able to go

back to a pervious story. Conversely, Slate kept a running archive of stories about the

election for two to three weeks. This enabled a reader to go back to previous stories and

understand how coverage may have changed. (While Slate’s stories remained on the site,

the titles of a story would often change, rotating between two or three different titles with

the same content. This made going back to view a previous story based on its original

title slightly more difficult, as it was not always possible to locate a story by matching a

story’s current title to the previous title under which it appeared.)

Slate also provided “meta-coverage” of the primaries by covering other media

outlets’ coverage of a news item or otherwise addressing the role of media in the election.

This did not occur in any coverage by the other news organizations in the focus group.

Two instances of this phenomenon are of particular interest. In the first, “I See Dean

People: Howard Dean’s Fatal Echo Chamber”, William Saletan discusses Martin Sheen’s

appearance at a speech given by Dean in New Hampshire. Martin Sheen plays the role of

a Democratic President in NBC’s political drama The West Wing, and many of the

comments Sheen made at the speech were related to the show and highlighted how

Dean’s campaign looked to capitalize on voter’s familiarity with the show.

5



Chris Hart

COM105


In the Slate article, “Is He Still Here?: John Kerry Can’t Get Rid of Howard

Dean”, Chris Suellentrop discusses the media coverage of what came to be known as the

“Dean Scream”, pejoratively referring to when Howard Dean became emotional at a

speech. The clip of Howard Dean’s scream was replayed frequently on TV and often

framed in a way that made Dean seem out of control. Suellentrop saw the speech in

person, however, and pointed out that at the time, Dean’s “screaming” was barely

audible. Thus, in context, this event was hardly even newsworthy. Taken out of context

in a different medium (on TV rather than in person) however, it portrayed Dean very

badly. It is likely that the TV news media could have framed this event differently by

providing more context for the event or by not covering it at all. The fact that they did

not, for whatever reason, leads me to believe this was an example of agenda setting.

As a final example of Slate’s coverage of other media, William Saletan’s article

“’It’ Boy: The Limits of John Edward’s Rare Talent” discusses Edward’s passion and

animation when speaking. While this is evident when watching him speak in person,

Saletan says, it is often impossible to see when watching him on TV due to camera

framing. Saletan doesn’t comment on whether this is intentional; nevertheless, it

certainly affected audience perception of Edwards.

These examples highlight the power of the media to influence viewers (and, more

importantly in this case, voters) perceptions of candidates. Giving fair, objective

coverage across a variety of mediums (especially when trying to condense a long event to

a short news segment) is difficult. Competition among major news organizations in an

6



Chris Hart

COM105


increasingly crowded and demassified market only makes this task more difficult. Slate’s

coverage is more thorough than some of the other sources studied in the focus group.

Early on, Dean appeared to be the front-runner and received a majority of

coverage. As the campaign developed for each of the candidates and the personalities

and nuances of each candidate’s platform and approach crystallized, Kerry became the

focus of attention in at least some of the major mediums. There are many possible

explanations for this phenomenon.

One possibility is that the medium in which a candidate is presented

fundamentally affects the perception of that candidate’s platform and personality. A

“hot” medium, in which the consumer is very involved in understanding the story, works

better for some candidates and not as well for others. For example, Dean’s campaign

came across better on the Internet and on radio, where news consumers had to be actively

engaged to understand his platform. Presented in this light, his ideas came across clearly

and he appeared to be very thoughtful and balanced. In a “cool” medium such as TV, the

viewer does not need to be as involved. The producers of the news segment have great

control over what is shown. Dean in this kind of setting often came across as arrogant

and extremely spontaneous.

Compared to Dean, John Kerry performed much better in cooler mediums. His

personality, ideals and the tone of his presentation worked well, especially on TV. While

radio and Internet news pieces covering him may have been more critical, the majority of

the nation gets their news from TV. As a result, interest in Kerry continued to increase

while Dean’s coverage became more negative, exacerbated by one or two media events

7



Chris Hart

COM105


that turned into a news fiasco. This coverage forms a sort of feedback loop, fed by the

reflexivity phenomenon, causing Kerry to become increasingly popular.

While the medium where a story is covered certainly affects how a piece is

perceived, media professionals can maintain a significant amount of control in the

process. The medium in which that piece is presented merely sets the boundaries along

the spectrum in which those presenting the news can operate. It is then the responsibility

of media professionals to ensure that a story is portrayed accurately. Objectivity is the

responsibility of journalists, editors and all of the individual contributors that make news

possible. How they treat this responsibility has a very direct effect on the public’s

perception and can make or break a candidate.

I believe that Slate can be seen as a positive force in news media. Their factual

coverage provided angles to stories that were not readily available in other mediums and

their commentary raised issues important to the election. By willingly turning their

metaphoric lens on coverage from their competitors, they highlighted the importance of

understanding how coverage of the same event can differ based on the medium in which

it is presented. Commentary provided by their authors highlights the similarities and

differences between candidates and helps bring certain social issues to the foreground.

Ultimately, however, we, as the general public, need to be informed, concerned

and vigilant about the media. The media provide a valuable service by providing a forum

to encourage public discussion of social issues. In doing so, they merely encourage

change; we are the ones who must effect change. To do so in an uninformed manner is a

dereliction of our duties to our government, our society, and ourselves.

8

Slate Analysis: The 2004 Democratic Primaries

Documents

Transcript of Slate Analysis: The 2004 Democratic Primaries