News Flash: News media considered to be "too liberal"

Gallup Poll Analyses - Are the News Media Too Liberal?

Here's an interesting study just released by the Gallup Organization showing how American's view the bias of their media (and, we assume more specifically, news coverage). Almost half of those surveyed felt the media's bias leaned too much to the left, while nearly 40% of those surveyed thought it was about right. A significantly smaller slice of the public thought the media was too conservative.

Looking inside these numbers reveals some interesting facts, as well. Of those people surveyed who consider themselves to be "liberal", nearly one in five thought the media's bias was still "too liberal" while half felt the media gets it about right. Of those Americans who identified themselves as "conservatives," on the other hand, 29% felt the US media got it right and only 9% felt the media went too far to the political right.

What's this mean? Two things:

1) Fox News' intuition/market research identified a significant market when they spotted a need for what they call "fair and balanced reporting" and what many others call "conservative news bias" among a significant population of Americans. By playing to relatively common perceptions, Fox News has been able to carve out a lucrative niche.

2) Americans are becoming more savvy news consumers whether they like it or not.

All news reporting, for that matter all media, has some kind of editorial bias. It has to. People need a plot to follow in order to stay engaged and in the news business it means you have to have a point or focus to the story. There's nothing wrong with that as long as you know what you're getting yourself into.

What erodes the trust in the media (which has eroded over the past 25 years, by the way) is the inability or unwillingness of the media to identify their point-of-view and consistently stand behind it. Instead, many media outlets have insisted on fighting a losing battle - claiming impartiality and then waffling from one position to the next.

When we talk about brand value, we explain that value is built by consistency in execution and point of view. A brand depreciates when a company's actions (or, in this case, positions) are inconsistent with what's been said and done in the past.

If the media wants to build credibility, it needs to come out of its closet and admit to editorial bias.

This information is (c) 2003, Brand Central Station, all rights reserved. If you are interested in receiving news and analysis directly from BCS, please log onto our website (www.brandcentralstation.com) and sign up for our weekly newsletter, the BCS TuesdayReport.

Marketing "dream team" carries the torch for NYC's Olympic bid

Dream Ad Team Set To Play for NYC2012

So, how do you sell New York City as a possible site for the 2012 Olympics?

Well, first you have to convince 12 million New Yorkers that this is a good idea in the first place. After that, the rest of the world should be a cinch.

This campaign should be interesting to watch for a number of different reasons. First, you've got an entirely pro bono effort with a number of the top marketing people in the US involved. Will everyone play nicely or will we have too many chiefs and not enough indians? Only time will tell, but I suspect they'll figure out a way to make it work.

Second, there's a definite deadline to this engagement. The Olympic selection committee makes its choice on July 6, 2005, so there's only a year and a half to beat out the other contenders: Havana (Cuba), Istanbul (Turkey), Leipzig (Germany) and Rio de Janeiro (Brazil). More importantly, however, the committee has even less time to win over the hearts and minds of millions of New Yorkers who are seeing city services being cut and pleas for community sacrifice due to budget overruns and the weight of recovery from the 9/11 disaster.

Will they see "value" in hosting the Olympics in 2012 when they're asked to support the city's bid this year and next? It should be interesting to see how the communications "dream team" assembled to create and manage the message handles the task.

So, let the games begin.

This information is (c) 2003, Brand Central Station, all rights reserved. If you are interested in receiving news and analysis directly from BCS, please log onto our website (www.brandcentralstation.com) and sign up for our weekly newsletter, the BCS TuesdayReport.

Political hack hacks CBS news website

News: Kucinich backer hacks CBS News site

Here's an example of free political speech taken to the extreme. You know, the first amendment to the US Constitution guarantees the right to say what's on your mind and not that anyone has to listen to you.

Hacking isn't free speech, it's vandalism.

What motivates a hacker to attack a news site and promote his politician's views over another? That's anyone's guess. But the possible downside ramifications for the Kucinich campaign are pretty significant.

Could fringe campaign candidates see hacking as a legitimate way to steal the spotlight? I hope not. Trust me here, if we thought telemarketing was annoying, this kind of behavior can be far worse and much more destructive.

What will be interesting, of course, is to see how the Kucinich campaign decides to deal with this matter. How aggressively will they move to distance themselves from this well-intentioned hacker? Will they give him up? Can they?

All told, I think there's probably an upside to this entire event: to raise the awareness of site hacking.

Lessons for the small business.
Of course, most small and medium-sized businesses don't have to worry about malicious hackers. After all, who wants to make a statement on a low-traffic site? But some of the tips offered in this article are just good web policy, no matter what size enterprise you run.

Remember:

1) Always have a back-up of your site handy, and keep that back-up stored off site (away from your server).

2) Review the security procedures used by your ISP - or if you host your own site, make sure your IT people update your security periodically.

3) Have a communications plan in place to contact customers and other key people in the event your site gets hacked or server goes down. Make sure your channels of communication remain open even if you can't use e-mail.

Don't think it's worth it? Just take a few minutes to think through the role your website now plays in your company's sales and customer service efforts. If any part of your client communications relies on e-mail or your web presence, not having a plan can be more of a risk than you might expect.

This information is (c) 2003, Brand Central Station, all rights reserved. If you are interested in receiving news and analysis directly from BCS, please log onto our website (www.brandcentralstation.com) and sign up for our weekly newsletter, the BCS TuesdayReport.

Arnold's supporters terminate subscriptions to the LA Times

Yahoo! News - L.A. Times Faces Anger for Schwarzenegger Coverage

More political shenegans related to the California recall election - and the media, once again, finds itself caught in the middle.

Reading the article, you'll find that 1,000 readers have cancelled their subscriptions to the LA Times for its coverage of the sexual harassment allegations made against Arnold Schwazenegger. The paper also reported that nearly 400 people have called and criticized its coverage.

Why all the vitriol?

There may be a few reasons worth exploring. First, Arnold did try to inoculate himself starting with his first appearance on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno by predicting news reports of bad behavior, steroid use and womanizing. But how many people really took note of that?

The second reason may actually be more telling. Many people in California find in Arnold a character they can understand and follow. He's not a sympathetic character by any stretch of the imagination. He's an actor - or, more accurately, he's a body-builder who plays an actor. But he also comes across as a stand-up guy who, starting with the Leno appearance, has been vague on policy but willing to admit that he's made mistakes in the past.

Boy, talk about an interesting sales pitch.

The third reason is, I think, the most accurate reason for Arnold's appeal and the anger with the LA Times. Arnold is the anti-Gray Davis. He is just about everything Gray Davis isn't. He's big and strapping, Gray appears small and meek. He's got an outgoing personality that bubbles forth, Gray's attempts at humor and warmth appear forced. People associate Arnold with strong, hero characters like the ones he's played in movies. The best Gray Davis can hope for is that people won't draw too many similarities between him and Mr. Smithers from the Simpsons.

So when people are upset with the performance of their state government and the person most closely associated with that lack of performance, they're likely to vent their frustration in places where they think their voice will be heard.

They've signed petitions to get rid of Davis, but that isn't enough of an outlet. After all, who reads a petition anyway?

Enter the LA Times with its implied criticism of Schwarzenegger and timely articles outlining harassment allegations by fifteen women. To many, these stories serve an important news role in helping to form opinions about candidates by looking at their previous actions (after all, wasn't it big news that Gray Davis mashed with Cybil Shepherd?). To many others, however, these stories were an attempt to sabotage the anti-Gray Davis and retain the status quo in the state of California.

And, unlike the state government, the LA Times feels it when you cut them off. By canceling their subscriptions, 1,000 people have tried to send the Times a message.

The fact is, in the business of media, 1,000 subscribers to the LA Times is not a life or death situation. But if more activists see canceling subscriptions as a new way to pressure the media, that could change. What kind of place would this be if the media underwent a referendum vis a vis subscription sign-ups or cancellations as a result of their perceived (real or implied) political bias in their coverage?

In the age of electronic and customized news content (via the Internet), I suppose it's not too hard to believe that media properties might start delivering the news and views people want to read rather than content developed from a specific point-of-view. I'm not sure that's a good thing.

What do you think?

This information is (c) 2003, Brand Central Station, all rights reserved. If you are interested in receiving news and analysis directly from BCS, please log onto our website (www.brandcentralstation.com) and sign up for our weekly newsletter, the BCS TuesdayReport.

Why the whole ESPN/Rush Limbaugh flap is a sham.

ESPN Responds, but Its Leaders Hide

Okay, I've got to weigh in here. It's easy for the media to get full of itself - and this is the perfect example. Let's try to look objectively at this entire brew-ha-ha:

1) ESPN hires Rush Limbaugh to be a guest commentator on "Sunday NFL Countdown." He brings no credentials other than he's a fan of the game and he's got a big mouth.

2) Limbaugh's performance is dissed as being uninspired and non-confrontational (read: "not entertaining").

3) Limbaugh dials it up a notch and goes political on the set.

4) None of the other commentators pick up on Limbaugh's comments because - believe it or not - they're football analysts, not political talk-show hosts. Limbaugh's pass to his fellow commentators went right over their heads.

5) Someone rightly says Limbaugh was out of line, ESPN reacts and Limbaugh leaves the show claiming "he was 'right' all along" - no kidding, he's so far right he makes Barry Goldwater look like a piker (rim-shot).

6) ESPN issues statements and the on-air analysts publicly apologize.

Some people (like Richard Sandomir of the NY Times) want more blood from ESPN. And my guess is that ESPN is, in an odd sort of sado-masochistic way, loving it. Here's why ...

ESPN's Sunday NFL Countdown show is a cable television show - that means it gets only a fraction of the audience the other NFL pre-game shows gets. That's why they added Limbaugh in the first place. Mess things up a little bit ... cause a little bit of controversy ... get people to try the show. The more people try the show, the better the ratings and the more ESPN can charge for advertising.

The only problem is that Rush Limbaugh wasn't a very good football analyst. Hey, the guy is an entertainer. He has his right-wing radio show on talk radio (which gets way more media attention than it deserves given the general size of talk radio audiences) and admits himself that he has to be controversial in order to get people riled up and listening to him. But if he's only talking football, he's just not that good.

So, in order to get more people watching, Rush fell back to what he knew best: slam liberals and (most of all) the liberal media. He blew it by trying to couch his media slam in football terms. What was worse was that his panelist teammates didn't see what he was doing and took him at face value as a football analyst. As a result, the ESPN regulars looked foolish (at best) and pandering to a racist policy (at worst).

I think the fact is the ESPN analysts are great football analysts and when given adequate preparation, Steve Young, Tom Jackson, Chris Berman and the rest can do a great job with feature stories, game breakdowns, etc. The fault of the ESPN producers was in not managing the Rush factor with the other show panelists. Just think how much more interesting that edition of NFL Countdown would have been if Jackson had called Limbaugh out on his comment. My guess is that Limbaugh would still have his job and everyone would be turning in next week to see how nasty everything gets on the set.

The fact is that ESPN knew why they hired Limbaugh in the first place - cause a stir. They also knew the way he causes a stir is to trumpet his own right-wing point of view and that often means going after what Limbaugh perceives as "the liberal media." ESPN let Rush Limbaugh be Rush Limbaugh and got caught in the process.

Now the more people talk about it, the more attention (and Rush) get as a result. Sunday NFL Countdown's numbers will go up, just because people will try to tune in to see what all the fuss is about. And, quite frankly, Rush will probably get a positive bounce out of this as well.

I guess not only Rush was/is right, but so are the producers at ESPN.

Mike Bawden
Brand Central Station

This information is (c) 2003, Brand Central Station, all rights reserved. If you are interested in receiving news and analysis directly from BCS, please log onto our website (www.brandcentralstation.com) and sign up for our weekly newsletter, the BCS TuesdayReport.