It’s always ironic when Canadian media-types criticize politicians for the shallowness of their messaging since let’s face it, the media actually helps to drain the communication pool.
To show you what I mean think back to the recent spat over the Conservative Party’s attack on the NDP.
It all started when the Conservative Party unleashed a communication strategy aimed at convincing Canadians the NDP supported a “carbon tax.”
This caused a bit of a stir because officially the NDP doesn’t support such a tax; instead it supports a “Cap and Trade” scheme.
At any rate, the NDP got all riled up at the Conservative Party’s tactics and more interestingly so did the media.
Political journalists were stunned and outraged at how the Conservatives took a complicated issue and boiled it down to a simplistic sound bite simply to distort a political rival’s position.
It’s a “smear” cried MacLean’s magazine; it’s “contempt for Parliament, the judiciary, the media, and anyone who gets in their way. But most of all, contempt for Canadians,” fumed the Ottawa Citizen’s Dan Gardner; while The National Post’s Andrew Coyne called it “dumb, dishonest, attack-dog politics.”
But at least Coyne conceded all political parties engage in such communication tactics, noting “there are no virgins in this #.”
Of course, what all these journalists were really complaining about is good old fashioned political propaganda. Indeed, when it attacked the NDP on the carbon tax idea, the Conservatives were using a tried and true propaganda formula: Come up with a simple message that makes your base happy and entices new followers to your camp and keep repeating it (with slight variations) for as long as it works.
Like it or not, this sort of strategy is common in this modern age of mass communication.
And before the media gets too contorted in moral indignation over this, it should perhaps consider the role it plays in making propaganda such a common strategy.
What I mean is when it comes to propaganda the media are a bunch of enablers.
Or to put it another way, politicians communicate in short, simplistic sound bites because that’s what the media demands.
It’s true.
If you take longer than 20 seconds to offer the media an analysis of a complex policy issue you simply won't appear on the evening TV news, you won’t get quoted in the newspaper.
If you want to get news coverage, you better offer the press a clever, short and colourful quote.
When it comes to news, simplicity and style trumps substance.
For instance, which quote do you think would more likely end up in the news:
Quote 1. “My opponent's stand on waste management infrastructure fails to adequately address the concerns of the various stakeholders associated with this project and certainly exceeds the cost parameters established by the town’s policy committee.”
Or
Quote 2. “His sewer plan stinks to high heaven.”
If you said quote 2, congratulations you are well on your way to becoming a spin doctor.
And for TV it’s all about theatre or good “visuals.”
TV news reporters would be much more likely to cover a political speech on agricultural subsidies if the politician giving the speech just happened to be standing next to, say, the world’s largest radish.
Oh and by the way, as a rule the media doesn’t really care all that much about boring policy issues.
They much prefer to cover what I call the “Politics of politics.”
They love to report on stuff like which politician has leadership ambitions, which party is ahead in the polls, which communication tactics are working and which ones aren’t.
And so, a development concerning trade policy will make page 25 in the newspaper, whereas news about a politician making a “gaffe” or disagreeing with his leader will make page one.
Mind you, what the media loves most to talk about is conflict; conflict is exciting, it’s dramatic, it’s stimulating, and therefore newsworthy. This is why “attack dog politics” will always garner media attention.
Politicians, of course, understand all this.
Accordingly they will tailor their messages in ways which will capture the media’s interest.
That means focusing less on boring substance and more on the politics of politics.
I know the media likes to complain about this from time to time.
And for them I have one word of advice: next time try complaining in short, snappy sound bites.
