The news still skews Republican

The very first post at Messaging Matters noted that many issues in the news seem to skew Republican. That was nearly three years ago, and it’s still the case. Many of the so-called major news stories of 2013 were ginned up by Republicans: Obamacare website glitches, Benghazi, IRS “scandal,” etc. Even the New York Times, supposedly the bastion of liberal media, fell for these Republican-created news memes. And how about the lineups of the Sunday morning talk shows? This year, only the GOP Shutdown seemed to favor the Democrats.

How, you may ask, do website glitches get blown up in the news into an existential crisis for President Obama and the entire Democratic philosophy? Republicans have many advantages which allow them to shape and skew the news:

• A Republican television channel, Fox “News,” as well as conservative talk radio, and newspapers such as the Wall Street Journal and the New York Post, which seem to exist largely to attack Democrats and promote Republican politicians and causes.
• Corporate dark money unleashed by the Citizens United ruling from, not coincidentally, the Republican-majority U.S. Supreme Court.
• Media owned by large corporations which tend to lean Republican, which is ironic given that the U.S. economy and the health of those corporations consistently do better under Democratic governments.
• Republicans are also good at creating and repeating bite-sized messages that the media love to swallow. This was evident during the GOP Shutdown, where the news media eschewed the more complicated issues that led to the shutdown and instead focused on the relatively puny and wholly forseeable issue of the World War II Memorial closure.

There’s no doubt that Democrats and progressives are at a disadvantage when it comes to news bias. However, Democrats and progressives need to recognize and use the advantages they have, because if they do not, the Republicans will continue to frame every issue. The consequences are that, as political messaging guru George Lakoff writes, “if you successfully frame public discourse, you win the debate.” These Democratic and progressive advantages include:

• Democrats and progressives are better with technology. Remember then-candidate Barack Obama‘s online fundraising success in 2008, which was pioneered by Howard Dean four years earlier. Democrats and progressives need to keep using free social media to end run around the traditional corporate media.
• The Republican Party is in the midst of a bloody civil war, with no end in sight. Indeed, this GOP Civil War should have been the political story of 2013, if the mainstream media covered the news fairly.
• People power — Democratic programs and positions, including gun background checks, same-sex marriage, support for Social Security and Medicare, and yes, even support for sticking with rather than repealing the Affordable Care Act, are shared by a majority of Americans. Moreover, demographic groups that are growing rapidly, such as Latinos and Asians, heavily favor the Democrats. When you have people power on your side, you need to organize and use this power to pressure the politicians for change, and to vote in massive numbers.

So get out in front of the news curve. Lead with Trey Radel. Lead with Chris Christie vs. the Tea Party. Lead with Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker in deep trouble. Lead with the call to reduce gun violence. Lede, lede, lede.