The Joyce Foundation, working with the University of Wisconsin NewsLab, has released a report highly critical of the coverage – or really the lack of coverage – that local news gives to elections and campaigns.  The Joyce folks are very disturbed by this: Vice President  Lawrence Hansen informs us that, “The failure of local television news to foster and encourage informed citizen participation in the political process is scandalous.”  At the same time, however, Joyce has played a key role in trying to limit the information voters get from other sources.  So where should voters get their news?  And what, exactly, is the vision of politics that the Joyce folks have?

We will let readers puruse the NewsLab/Joyce report at their leisure.  The core of the report is this:  79 percent of Americans cite television as their primary source of election news, and 59% watch local TV news.  Yet during the month following “the traditional Labor Day kickoff of the 2006 clection campaign season,” (can a single election have a “traditional kickoff?” Is Labor Day really the kickoff for elections anymore?  We will pass on these questions, because we agree that whatever the kickoff, campaigns are in full swing in the month after Labor Day), the average local TV newscast in nine Midwest markets devoted just 36 seconds to election coverage.  Moreover, much of those 36 seconds go to reports on polls and other “horse race” aspects of the campaign, not to discussing candidate qualifications and issues.  Thus, the average local TV news cast contains less on election issues than a single 30 second candidate ad.  (We might note that the report puts into separate categories, “Non-campaign government news,” as well as other coverage that often relates to government and politics, such as “business/economy” and “foreign policy”).  The report was quickly blasted by the National Association of Broadcasters, which notes that the report doesn’t include other public affairs programming, including other news broadcasts, Sunday talk shows, debate coverage and more.  Fair enough.  That’s not our issue.  We do wonder if some of the decline in issue oriented news coverage, and the public’s apparent disinterest in hearing it (for we assume news broadcasts are at least somewhat market driven) comes from the constant tub-thumping of the pro-regulatory groups and their mantra that all politics is corrupt, and that average voters really don’t much matter.  After all, if it is all controlled by “big money,” and informed voting doesn’t matter, why should citizens bother to get informed or to vote.  In the odd disconnect of the “reform” community, even though dollars don’t actually vote, voters cannot overcome big money by getting informed and voting.

Anyway, in this report, Joyce is not directly after big money in campaigns.  Rather, it is concerned, in the words of Professor Ken Goldstein, who conducted the study, that, “[t]here must be significant substantive content for learning to take place.”

We certainly agree that substantive content is a good thing, and we also agree that local television coverage of elections is often abysmal.  What is interesting to us is that, assuming that Joyce’s concern is real, Joyce and its allies have played a major role in trying to restrict other sources of political information to voters – mainly, the unfiltered communications of political parties and interest groups.  Hansen – and presumably Joyce – don’t like this source of news, because, “paid political ads… are not and never will be a substitute for the kind of in-depth and balanced political news coverage our fellow citizens need and deserve.”  And thus for years Joyce has funded the efforts of various non-membership organizations such as the Campaign Legal Center, the National Voting Rights Institute, The Fannie Lou Hamer Project, the Campaign Finance Institute, Citizen Action, the Brennan Center, and numerous other groups, to promote restrictions on political speech by candidates, campaigns, political parties, and citizens’ groups.

It appears that according to Joyce, candidates and citizens’ groups ought not be speaking directly to voters – or at least voters ought not be listening to what they have to say.  Rather, political messages should be mediated and filtered through a core of trained, objective journalistic professionals, people without any past partisan ties or history of partisan political involvement, such as (we presume) George Stephanopolous, Chris Matthews, Tony Snow, and Tim Russert; or at least such proven moderate, apolitical newscasters as Dan Rather.  It’s not clear why citizens do not deserve to hear directly from candidates and citizens’ groups – Mr. Hansen doesn’t say why that is the case, presumably saving the argument for another day, or perhaps considering it self-evident.

If local news won’t report on campaigns, and direct communications from candidates, parties, and citizen groups should be restricted in their ability to communicate with voters, where will voters get their information?  Implied in Joyce’s history of support for restrictions on candidate, party, and citizen speech, and Mr. Hansen’s commentary, including threatening noises about the “unenforced obligations” of television stations, is that the government should step in to determine the “right” amount of press coverage, and what it should say, and force people to get their political information “properly.”  Government power should decide what issues ought to be discussed, and how we ought to discuss them (“I’m Russ Feingold, and I approved this message.”).  Presumably, some groups will be favored – the type of groups that receive grant money from Joyce, and for which Joyce provides contact information in the individual state reports released along with this latest study.  Presumably, in Mr. Hansen’s world, Joyce, and Mr. Hansen himself, would still play a role in determining how voters get their information, and from whom, largely through the distribution and spending of millions of dollars.  That these might represent policy preferences not shared by other, now silenced citizens, is irrelevant, because Joyce is merely supporting “good” government and a properly “informed” public.

Deeply ingrained in Mr. Hansen’s vision – and, we would argue, that of most advocates for regulation of campaign finance – is an arrogant elitism and a corresponding mistrust of voters.  Voters cannot be trusted to filter information and reach informed decisions, or even to choose their sources wisely.

Fortunately, folks such as Joyce are here to show the way, thanks to their ability to spend millions in grant money to promote their vision of a properly functioning democracy.