(This caricature of the current Democratic candidates is by DonkeyHotey.)The Republican race for their presidential nomination has been pretty volatile. There have been several different leaders in the polls. The current flavor of the month is Donald Trump, and he may or may not remain the leader. This is the kind of thing the media loves, because it gets viewers to tune in to see what is happening now in the race.
The Democratic race is far different. Hillary Clinton started out with a huge lead, and she has maintained that huge lead over all her competitors (still with double the national support over her nearest competitor, Bernie Sanders). So why is all we seem to hear from the news networks, especially the cable networks, that Clinton is losing support?
The answer is that the truth (that Clinton maintains a huge lead) is not exciting to them. They don't think it will get them viewers. They don't think people will tune in to hear that a race is static -- and that there has been no real change for several months. And they might be right. But does that give them the right to give viewers an impression that is simply not true?
There was a time in this country when networks didn't expect their news shows to be money-makers. They made their money off their entertainment shows, and considered their news shows to be a community service -- happy if they just came fairly close to breaking even. But that time is gone. Now the networks, both cable and broadcast, expect to make money from every minute of air time.
That is the reason we get less real news and more "fluff" pieces, and it is the reason they are willing to give a false impression to their viewers -- because that is what they think will increase their viewership, and more viewers equals more money.
The truth is that the Democratic race has changed very little over the past few months. Clinton still has around 50% support, while her closest competitor has around 25% -- and if that changes by a point or two from poll to poll, that's not real news. But the networks will jump on every little change, whether it is significant or not, because profits is more important than truth to them (and especially to the giant corporations that own them).
That is not a good thing, but it is a sad reality of how low our news networks have fallen.
