Primary Instability Paradox
My essay about press coverage of presidential nominations has been published in The Forum.
Cline, Andrew R. (2005) “Primary Instability Paradox: The Ethics of Media Coverage in Presidential Nominations.” The Forum. Vol. 3: No. 4, Article 5. http://www.bepress.com/forum/vol3/iss4/art5
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A tantalizing excerpt:
In this essay I explore the ethical implications for journalists of the Mayer (1996, 2003) predictive model of presidential primary campaigns. I am specifically interested in press coverage of the nomination process from the candidates’ announcements to the Iowa caucuses. I accept the argument by Barger and Barney (2004, p. 191) that the press has an obligation to “enable citizens, through timely access to information, to accumulate the power necessary…to control their own destinies.” I also accept that journalists aspire to act ethically in regard to the integrity of their product and the public they serve (Kovach & Rosenstiel, 2001; Merrill, 1997). Recent scholarship on the effects of party election reforms in the 1970s demonstrates that the primary election process has become frontloaded (Mayer, 2004). Frontloading occurs as states move primary dates forward in an effort to gain more media attention and political influence in the nomination. Frontloading has stabilized the nomination process by making it a “stacked deck” in favor of a limited set of candidates before any votes are cast (Steger, 2003). Since the reforms fully took effect in 1980, the winner of the “invisible primary,” as determined by polls prior to voting, has eventually won the nomination most of the time (Mayer, 1996, 2003; Gurian & Haynes, 2003). The press, however, covers the nomination process as an unstable event by creating an illusion of political drama in which almost any candidate may rise from the pack to win the nomination or the frontrunner may stumble on political mistakes and lose the nomination (Gurian & Haynes, 2003). This illusion of drama hides from citizens the fact that the process is stable and, therefore, limits voters’ choices— hardly helping them to “control their own destinies.” By characterizing the process as unstable, I contend that the press contributes to its stability; thus, the press is complicit in limiting voter choice, a phenomenon I call the primary instability paradox.
