Framing the Debate and the Front Runners Too Early
Thompson points to as recently as 2008. Early in the race for the Democratic nomination, the media acted as though the race was between Hillary Clinton and John Edwards, but Barack Obama’s victory in the Iowa Caucus later made it clear that Obama was better positioned than initially thought.
Thompson believes the media go too far at times in influencing political races by shaping public perceptions of candidates with their coverage.
[Read: Ron Paul Vs. Rick Perry: A 2012 Texas Showdown.]
“Not only did they physically frame Romney and Perry in center stage at the MSNBC debate, but they gave the two of them a blatantly disproportionate amount of attention, and that’s not fair,” she says. “By framing debates that way, they tell people who is important and who is not.” And sometimes, Thompson says, a candidate’s media coverage isn’t even an indicator of performance on the campaign trail.