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The media's negative impact on the 2008 election stems from a single problem: The media is not covering the election. They are covering "the race". Coverage of "the race" runs like coverage of a football game. It's either play-by-play or color commentary. CNN has innovative graphics. MSNBC has pithy commentary. Every channel has a roomful of statisticians crunching the numbers, slicing the support of each candidate into specific quantities. The talking heads are all talking to the other talking heads. A diminishing number of newspapers carry wire stories on the media's impact on the election. It's all about the race: who's ahead, who's stumbling, who's surging, who's fading. The media has all the numbers and none of the reasons why the numbers matter.

Much of this lack of depth in coverage can be laid at the feet of the few companies who control the media. The explosion of cable channels was supposed to be a sign of competition, a sign that the "long tail" would choke the old networks into oblivion. Instead, each of the nets has been bought up by larger companies, who, in turn, buy more media outlets to build their own long tails. General Electric (NBC), Viacom/CBS, Disney (ABC), News Corp (Fox), Time Warner, and Gannett together own a sizable chunk of the television and cable stations, magazines, and newspapers. (Let's set aside radio for now.) Every one of these huge companies is beholden to shareholders. The shareholders demand return on investment, which means a reliance on ratings, subscriptions, and the penetration of brands in the collective consciousness. The profit motive drives the companies and their subsidiaries. Each company has a roomful of statisticians crunching THESE numbers, to see who is winning and if they are winning by enough. The media is part of "the race" and is becoming more a part of it every day.

It is little surprise, then, that "the race" rather than the election process gets top billing. An exciting contest can be monetized. It is not so easy to find the profit in covering how the candidates intend to address issues especially those issues without a blinking red hot-button. It is hard work to drill down to the fundamental differences between parties and candidates, harder still to explain the need to inform the electorate. The self-fulfilling fallacy that media consumers want only to be entertained is reinforced by the numbers, says the media. The Democrats have had twenty debates to date but there were more eyeballs on

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