ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, April 11, 1996 TAG: 9604110026
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-12 EDITION: METRO
IN THE ongoing war of words over how well the news media serve the public, coverage of the New Hampshire presidential primary is frequently a battleground.
A new study by the Washington-based Center for Media and Public Affairs has criticized the national TV networks for ignoring issues and concentrating on the horse-race aspects of the 1996 election. This point has been made before, we believe with considerable justice.
Others, however, say the study erred in focusing on evening-news segments, inevitably brief, without looking at the networks' special in-depth reports in other time slots.
Still others agree that the media paid less attention to the issues than four years earlier - but were right to do so. In the contested Democratic primary four years ago, they say, the story was how the various messages of relatively unknown candidates would resonate with voters. In the contested Republican primary this year, the story was whether the largely issueless campaign of a well-known front runner could withstand primary challenges.
Indeed, argue some, the media in New Hampshire paid too much attention to issues. Steve Forbes and Pat Buchanan were fringe candidates, goes this argument; Forbes' flat-taxism and Buchanan's nativism got more exposure than they merited. (Never mind that Buchanan won the primary.)
We'll propose a simpler possibility: Regardless of how the New Hampshire primary was covered, it was definitely overcovered.
Bill Clinton couldn't win it in 1992; he nevertheless went on to win the Democratic nomination. Bob Dole couldn't win it this year; he nevertheless will be the GOP nominee. Never very representative of the country as a whole, tiny New Hampshire no longer is one of just a handful of states with presidential primaries. Nor, under the accelerated primary schedule, is there as much time for the New Hampshire outcome to influence later primaries.
Come the year 2000, the biggest improvement in coverage of the event might be less of it.
LENGTH: Short : 44 lines KEYWORDS: POLITICS PRESIDENTby CNB