Horse Race Journalism Has No Place in Election Coverage
INTERVIEW ON THE PRICE OF BUSINESS SHOW, MEDIA PARTNER OF THIS SITE.
Recently Kevin Price, Host of the nationally syndicated Price of Business Show, interviewed David Dozier who is a leading media authority.
Horse race journalism has long dominated election coverage. The phrase describes campaign coverage that treats elections like horse races. Who’s ahead? Who’s behind? What do the polls show? This breathless and arguably lazy reporting pushes out coverage of substantive political issues. Since the Biden-Trump debate on June 27th, horse race journalism has all but consumed coverage of the 2024 Presidential election. Horse race coverage does “grab eyeballs,” especially since this campaign is so wildly unpredictable. Grabbing more eyeballs increases ad revenues. However, in Communication Research (DOI: 10.1177/0093635650218808691), Alon Zoizner (2021) reported a meta-analysis of 32 studies and over 38,000 respondents. The meta-analysis showed that such reporting correlates with lower levels of substantive political knowledge and higher levels of political cynicism. We argue that skillful reporting can modify “pure” horse race journalism and the eyeballs that such reporting attracts as a magnet to segue into the underlying issues that separate candidates and political parties. For example, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro was disliked by organized labor as a VP candidate. Why? What are the specific underlying issues that disaffected labor? (see DavidDozierBooks.com).
The Price of Business is one of the longest running shows of its kind in the country and is in markets coast to coast. The Host, Kevin Price, is a multi-award winning author, broadcast journalist, and syndicated columnist. He is Editor at Large for this site. Learn more about the show and its digital partners at www.PriceofBusiness.com.
David Dozier (DavidDozierBooks.com) is the author of the novel, The California Killing Field. He is a professor emeritus in the School of Journalism & Media Studies, San Diego State University. He’s an internationally recognized expert on communication management and public relations.
According to USA Business Radio, “David Dozier is a scholar of public relations and communication management, professor emeritus in the School of Journalism & Media Studies at San Diego State University, and author of The California Killing Field. He says fake news has become a phenomenon, political campaigns use the tactic to influence voters, and that it’s perplexing that a conspiracy-based group such as QAnon has gained national attention.
Kevin Price and David Dozier are doing a multi-part series on this important topic that will be on many different platforms, as well as on radio. Keep an eye out for the series throughout the Price of Business Digital Network and USA Business Radio.
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