General Question

Pandora's avatar

How do you think candidates would fare if no news station decided to cover any election event or even name a candidate for a whole month?

Asked by Pandora (32384points) March 10th, 2016

The question pretty much covers it but I wonder if other candidates would shine better on their own or if numbers for primary elections would drop.

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8 Answers

NerdyKeith's avatar

They’d still get online coverage. In fact many have argued that online campaigns greatly helped Obama get elected the first time round

Mariah's avatar

It would serve to help the people who are already household names and hurt the newcomers. I don’t think that would be a good move.

zenvelo's avatar

That’s why New Hampshire was so important in the first place, because it gave the politicians a chance to meet the electorate personally.

In big states like California it would be more like what @Mariah describes. But in small states, it would mean the “unknowns” could get known.

elbanditoroso's avatar

It would never happen. Media would never do that sort of self-censorship

Pandora's avatar

@elbanditoroso I know it would never happen, but pretend this is some weird universe where the media decided their ratings were suffering because people rather watch Scandal or go out rather than hang behind their computers or watch commentator after commentator give their different view on who said what and why and how the public is going to react. So they decided to take a month off and do other things to bring up their ratings.
How do you think the public will react when left to their own devices and to think for themselves?

Pandora's avatar

@Mariah, Don’t you think the media already played a hand in making the little guy less unknown but focusing on only the big names? Well except for Sanders. But he was being dismissed in the media but the republicans helped launch his name by trying to muddy Clinton and made Democrats look more into Sanders. So as he grew popular they couldn’t ignore him any longer.
But I said just for a month. I wonder if people would have time to forget all these opinions on the media and actually bother to research their candidates and come out with an informed opinion instead of a steady spoon fed opinion.

ibstubro's avatar

These days every media outlet has a section they label “News”.

If the News Stations failed to report the elections, the little guys would pick up the slack.
Worse yet, the PACs would just pay for more advertising to slant the election results.

Honestly, the system is more broken than the news stations. They’re just the mouthpieces.

RedDeerGuy1's avatar

Trump might relax, and pay for his own air time and not go crazy to get attention. When it’s his dime than he would not waste his hard won treasure with jokes and buffoonary.

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