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CEC Monitors U.S. Electioneering
The Russian Central Elections Committee’s Center for the Study of Election Technology is conducting a study of the coverage of the U.S. presidential elections on U.S. television in September and the first half of October and concluded that American television is giving Democratic candidate Barack Obama a “hidden advantage” over Republican John McCain. The CEC center will continue to study the campaigns until the elections on November 4. It will present its conclusions after the elections, although Kommersant has obtained a copy of its conclusions from the period of October 1 to 13.
The center is following the news broadcasts of the three leading U.S. networks – ABC World News, CBS Evening News and NBC Nightly News, as based on the electronic Tyndall Report, which summarizes those news shows. The Russian center made the following conclusions. First, more time is devoted to McCain, but “the material that makes up that time difference can be assessed as negative.” McCain’s vice-presidential pick Sarah Palin is also subject to criticism that Obama’s running mate Joseph Biden is spared. Second, when the candidates’ programs are described, Obama’s is described second, which make them look better to the public. Third, when their programs are compared, they are either presented equally, or Obama’s is presented preferable.”
As an example of the advantage shown Obama in news coverage, the report mentions a story in which three out of four voters interviewed said they would support Obama, even though his lead in the polls at the time was only 10 percent. Nonetheless, the report concludes that it would be hard to accuse American television of favoritism. Head of the Russian research center Alexander Ivanchenko noted that the study’s scope is quite limited compared to the amount of new coverage available to the American television viewer.
Evgeny Minchenko, head of the International Institute of Political Expertise, noted that the CEC has an agenda in its research. “They criticized us at on our elections, and we will criticize them too… There is the task to take away from America its position as sole interpreter and priest of democracy.” Fedor Lukyanov, editor-in-chief of Russia in Global Affairs, noted that “The political subtext here is that we are no worse than anyone else and we have the right to make an evaluation. The difference is that analogical research by Western experts is of great interest to our society and is an important fact in social processes, while in America, no one pays any attention to it. Foreign evaluations of their domestic processes do not interest Americans at all.”
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of Oct. 20, 2008
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