MEDIA INFLUENCE ON THE ELECTION

The Kerry campaign counted on Big Media to help it win. Oops.

BY GLENN HARLAN REYNOLDS
Saturday, September 4, 2004 12:01 a.m. EDT

With accredited bloggers at both conventions, this can fairly be called the first presidential election to be blogged. And that just might matter--though if it does, it will be as much because of big-media vices as it is of bloggers' virtues.

The election coverage from Big Media has been unusually partisan this time around. As Newsweek's Evan Thomas famously remarked: "Let's talk a little media bias here. The media, I think, wants Kerry to win. . . . They're going to portray Kerry and Edwards as being young and dynamic and optimistic and there's going to be this glow about them . . . that's going to be worth maybe 15 points."

When he made that remark, many were worried. If the big media all tilted toward one party (which was pretty clearly true) and if their influence was worth 15 points, enough to swing most any presidential election (which was plausible), then the institutional power of big media seemed to be a threat to democracy itself. But it hasn't worked out that way--or if it has, John Kerry must be an awfully weak candidate to be neck-and-neck with President Bush despite a built-in 15-point advantage.

It's probably some of both. Mr. Kerry, as even many Dems are admitting, is a weak candidate. But the big media advantage doesn't seem to have turned out to be as big as some thought.

More at: http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110005571