The Real Media Bias

The real media bias is in favor of conflict and it comes from an unexpected source.

You.

I have been conducting experiments at ZDNet on this subject and my findings are quite conclusive. Stories featuring personal conflict do best with the audience.

Here’s an example. This piece of silliness, which took me all of 10 minutes to produce, is the most popular story I’ve written in months, and by a large margin. My previous "best" efforts involved stories where I pictured neighbors and family members.

People in conflict sell. This, not the supposed right-wing bias of Fox News, is what operatives like Karl Rove have been taking advantage of for decades. It informs their pattern of attack, and their decision to put unqualified religious nut in line to be Vice President.

Rather than arguing against this bias, which comes from the voters and not from the political classes, we should look at how to take advantage of it.

There is no doubt, for instance, that the most successful period for
the Obama campaign, in terms of the media, came when Senator McCain was
unable to count the number of homes he had. It revealed him as
out-of-touch. It resonated. Why? Because it had conflict, and it was
personal.

It was the success of this story, more than anything else, which
probably informed the Palin selection.  The McCain houses story was a
story of Stooge. The Sarah Palin story is being sold as a Cinderella
story.

A lot of attention is being paid, and when pollsters ask the
top-of-mind question it moves the numbers. But it has a limited shelf
life. What we assume is that McCain’s handlers will follow this up with
other stories, aimed at distracting the media. And they will succeed at
it. It’s what they do.

This causes reporters to believe that the McCain campaign is
"driving the narrative," that they’re winners, and everyone likes the
story of a winner. Obama campaign officials are being told by their
Netroots supporters to go on the counter-attack, but they don’t want to
get personal. They want to govern after they win, and make common cause
with Republicans.

What to do? Go after the people around McCain. Go after their
wealth. Go after their connections. And when you do it, use victims,
personal stories, as your mechanism.

It’s not hard to do. Start by finding victims of Sarah Palin and
bring them to the microphone. Go to Alaska and stand on the entrance
ramp of the bridge to nowhere she’s having built. Send Biden to an
Eskimo fishing village to dramatize the polar bears’ plight in terms of
the residents there.

Feed the press. Give them an attack line, a personal story of
conflict which the other side must respond to, and do it every day. Do
their work for them and spoon-feed the results.

And if you can’t get a story attacking McCain or Palin, attack their
campaign manager. Attack their advisers. Attack their big contributors.
Tie those attacks to people, and to issues. Do it every day. Do it in a
coordinated manner.

Do it now.