Forget the Candidates! The Real 2016 Campaign Is Between Old and New Media

The buzz is on the political contenders but what’s at stake for those who are covering the race

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As the dust settles on the GOP’s midterms triumph, the obvious question presents itself: how soon until the media kicks into high gear for 2016 coverage.

TV news networks, digital, and print outlets have already spent plenty of time on the “who’s angling” for the 2016 question, looking both at potential candidates’ brand building and fundraising positioning. And surely, by early 2015, when the lame duck session of Congress is over — barring big breaking news domestically or abroad — full-throttle “who’s running” will begin.

Scratch that — it has already started the day after the midterms.

“So the midterms are over … let’s talk about 2016, shall we?” Fox News’ Bill Hemmer said on Wednesday morning.

“Let the games begin!” MSNBC’s Al Sharpton gleefully shouted, quoting “The Hunger Games” that night on MSNBC. “How will 2014 affect 2016 and the GOP’s plans for Hillary?” he said teasing an upcoming segment.

“Let the 2016 trash talking begin,” Anderson Cooper said Wednesday night on CNN.

Part of the rush to cover a contest two years away is practicality — and in some cases laziness. It’s easy to fill TV news shows, digital sites, and newspapers with never-ending stories about Chris Christie visiting Iowa; Rand Paul vs. Ted Cruz; all things Hillary; will Elizabeth Warren play spoiler; can another Bush win, and on and on we go.

But aside from who will run, grab their party’s nomination, and become the 45th president, there’s another important competition with economic, social, and cultural implications.

The media’s intensified battle for eyeballs.

From industry “experts” declaring print’s unofficial death; to others cautioning of the demise of the TV news business in the face of  dwindling younger audiences; to other aficionados all but proclaiming digital the new king, coverage opportunities coinciding with 2016 are plentiful — and pivotal — for each media platform.

American University communications professor and former Fox News contributor, Jane Hall, sees an opportunity for one network in particular.

“People are writing stories about how MSNBC’s ratings are down. I was thinking in the more immediate future when these guys come back to Congress, one thing that could happen for MSNBC is it once again could assume the role that it had as sort of the anti-party in power under George W. Bush,” Hall told TheWrap.

“I don’t think the fervor is quite the same as the anti-Bush, Iraq war fervor, but when Obama was elected, people at Fox News didn’t think they’d do as well, and by positioning themselves as very strongly questioning Obama, they ended up doing very well,” she explained. “MSNBC can end up with a loyal opposition vote, so I wouldn’t discount them.”

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And as for MSNBC’s competitors heading into 2016, Hall thinks Fox can bank on the viewer loyalty it’s developed over the years while CNN still has challenges: “CNN is still trying to figure out how they can have their traditional fact-based journalism while also having hosts that viewers want to tune in and watch.

“I think one of the problems all three of these networks have is how are they going to grow a younger audience,” she adds. “It just seems to me that the next generation of cable news viewers is something these networks are going to need to address.”

And we all know where those younger viewers have been flocking to during the Obama era. Whether it’s digital sites offering short-form content or small tablet and mobile devices keeping on-the-go youngins happy, the 2016 media war must enlist digital.

“For digital outlets, they have to face the fact that people are looking at other digital competitors too,”  NationalMemo.com editor-in-chief Joe Conason told TheWrap. “The other part of it is people want all kinds of digital experiences to meet their needs and interest. If you don’t do that — including with political coverage — they will go away.”

Print must also lean on digital. “The only print organizations covering elections well are the ones that have a robust digital platform of their own,” he added.  “That [print] is definitely a niche market at this point. For most people, that’s no longer the way they get their news.”

And many would argue print outlets — much maligned for fledgling advertising revenues and thinning out of staffs — collectively have a greater need for campaign scoops, spikes in circulation, and increased digital traffic on the road to 2016.

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But not everybody.

“I’m not of the school that they’re all but dead,” Poynter Institute Media Business Analyst Rick Edmonds told TheWrap. “They are much smaller than they used to be — this has been yet another disappointing year with steep declines in advertising — but most newspapers are profitable, at least modestly.

Looking forward, “2016 is a good opportunity for coverage. My view of building back viability as a business is to try and get a variety of revenue streams to cover for the continuing print losses.”

And with many major media outlets built on legacy and gravitas, one analyst thinks it’s the individual pundits-turned-media-titans that are the real players as politicians angle for the White House.

“You’ve got the Sarah Palin channel, or the Glenn Beck channel, or the Rush Limbaugh channel, or the Sean Hannity channel, or the Thom Hartmann channel,” media analyst and principle of The Sobel Group Bill Sobel told TheWrap. “All these things, they’re all part of politics, but they’re highly focused on a very specific audience. You couldn’t do that before.”

“Print should look at it. Should they embrace it, I don’t know…you’re looking at a very interesting topic. We all know The Times tends to be left-wing; how left-wing can and should they be without pissing people off without losing the moniker of ‘The American newspaper.’”

The media had “Hope and Change” to keep it busy and well-trafficked in 2008; The Tea Party and the battle between the 99 and 1 percent in 2012, and a little bit of both in 2014.

What sources, scoops, and new technologies will propel digital forward while keeping TV news and print in the race is what I’ll be watching.

After all the media gifts us with the same amount of fodder, gaffes, and occasional hope as the politicians. It just has a way longer shelf life.

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