Not In Our Schedule -

Not In Our Schedule - TV discovers that covering protests is ratings suicide, according to this WaPo article:

The influential television-news consulting firm Frank N. Magid Associates recently put it in even starker terms: Covering war protests may be harmful to a station's bottom line.

In a survey released last week on the eve of war, the firm found that war protests were the topic that tested lowest among 6,400 viewers across the nation. Magid said only 14 percent of respondents said TV news wasn't paying enough attention to "anti-war demonstrations and peace activities"; just 13 percent thought that in the event of war, the news should pay more attention to dissent.

I'm biased - I'd be a fool not to admit it. But I think the networks and the Twin Cities' local stations have spent plenty of time covering the protests. There seems to be some sort of segment on the protesters during every newscast, network and local: "While the fighting seems to have stalled, the protests on the home front are heating up...".

I also think the protests themselves verge on non-newsworthy; it's the same people every time, they do the same things, say the same canned lines. It's as newsworthy as the #7 Bus arriving on time.

Magid, whose representatives did not return phone calls, offers no direct advice about what stations should do. However, the research's implied message reinforces antiwar activists' assertion that media outlets have marginalized opposing voices.

WHOAH!

There's a jump-cut for you, huh?

I'd say the implied message is "the antiwar activists have marginalized their own message to the point where Americans are phenomenally uninterested in hearing what they have to say".

The activists respond:

"The antiwar movement in this country is far bigger than it was during the first few years of the Vietnam War, but you wouldn't know it from the coverage," said Adam Eidinger, a Washington activist. "I think the media has been completely biased. You don't hear dissenting voices; you see people marching in the streets, but you rarely hear what they have to say in the media."

Because the marching in the street pretty much IS what they have to say, from what I've seen; the typical anti-Bush protester rarely speaks much beyond the slogans they yell. Sure, there are exceptions.

And as an aside: Mr. Eidinger complains that the media ignore a large percentage of Americans. Mr. Eidinger; welcome to the life of a firearms rights activist!

Posted by Mitch at March 28, 2003 06:00 AM