Such a process - call it the Media Primary - established Kerry and, to a lesser degree, Edwards as serious candidates worthy of attention, while at the same time, it declared the campaigns of several other candidates to be unworthy of public interest.

One can better understand how the Media Primary works by reviewing the content of a Democratic Party debate in New Hampshire last December moderated by Ted Koppel, anchor of the ABC news program "Nightline." Throughout the debate, Koppel focused much of the discussion on the latest poll results and political endorsements. After he was gently chided by Congressman Dennis Kucinich of Ohio for being overly concerned with "horse race" questions, Koppel asked Kucinich, Ambassador Carol Moseley-Braun, and Rev. Al Sharpton why they were still in the race even though they hadn't gotten major endorsements, weren't climbing in the polls, or had failed to raise millions of dollars from special interest groups and wealthy individuals. Weren’t they just running "vanity" campaigns? Koppel asked.

In following this line of questioning, Koppel let slip one of the secrets of mainstream journalism. As John Nichols, political reporter for the The Nation, puts it: news outlets "prefer easily described, sound bite-driven contests between a handful of well-known candidates, not wide open contests with lots of candidates and lots of interesting ideas." Indeed, such campaigns are cheaper to cover, plus they save reporters the trouble of having to do research on a wide range of social issues and critically examine multiple candidates’ policy positions. Hence the need for a Media Primary to weed out unwanted candidates.

Koppel also inadvertently revealed the three main criteria news media apply when evaluating candidates: (1) fundraising ability, which makes the Media Primary a close cousin of the corporate sector’s Money Primary; (2) experience and establishment support - the longer one has served in Washington and/or the more one’s policy views adhere to those of party leaders, the better; and (3) position in early polls, which are almost useless because well-funded, well-known candidates will naturally fare better than unknowns or newcomers.

In order for a candidate to merit thoughtful media attention, he or she must strongly satisfy at least one of these criteria. Those lacking funds or doing poorly in the polls can rely on experience, ideology or celebrity to win media approval. This helps explain why Edwards and fellow Senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, both favorites of the conservative, corporate-backed Democratic Leadership Council (DLC), got far more media coverage early on than Kucinich, an anti-war, pro-labor progressive - despite the fact that Edwards, until very recently, hadn’t fared well in most national polls, while Lieberman didn’t even campaign in Iowa and has struggled to raise money. Why didn’t Koppel ask why he was still in the race?

The marginalization of Sharpton and Moseley-Braun, who is no longer running, suggests that race and gender are also factors in the Media Primary. Is it just a coincidence that the only black female candidate garnered scant national media attention? No wonder she had trouble raising money and had to leave the contest so early. Sharpton’s campaign has also been largely ignored by major news outlets, even though his sharp critiques of president Bush - and moderate and conservative Democrats - coupled with his opposition to the death penalty and his call for economic justice, routinely draw enthusiastic crowds of progressive voters at campaign stops. With the mainstream media blackout likely to continue, both Sharpton and Kucinich will need to put even greater emphasis on getting their messages out through alternative media venues and grassroots, activist networks.

Complementing his use of the Net, which completely slipped under the radar of major news outlets and political pundits that don’t seem to understand the Net can be used as a two-way communication medium, Dean carefully positioned himself as a strong opponent of the war in Iraq, thus drawing sizable support from peace activists, who had also been organizing via the Net.

Seizing on Dean’s antiwar rhetoric and his direct speaking style, journalists quickly painted a portrait of the candidate as an angry, liberal insurgent who opposed the war from the beginning and wanted to take on the entrenched powers in Washington. Never mind that in October 2002, Dean went on record in support of the Biden-Lugar proposal, which if passed, would have authorized unilateral action against Iraq if UN diplomacy had been exhausted and the president declared the country a threat to the U.S. (Des Moines Register, 10/6/02). Never mind also that Dean goes out of his way to reject the notion that he is on the left. "I think it’s pathetic," he told the Washington Post, "that I’m considered the left-wing liberal" (7/6/03).

Mainstream journalists and pundits, however, are a disciplined lot. Once they’ve settled on labels for the candidates and decided how to frame their reporting, they’re not likely to seek out inconvenient facts or arguments. A survey of reporting on the Dean campaign shortly after the media named him as one of the front-runners is instructive. "Short-Fused Populist, Breathing Fire at Bush," blared the headline of the same Washington Post article in which Dean argued he wasn’t left wing.

Six weeks later, the same paper ran a story describing many of Dean’s supporters as "rabid Bush haters," implying that the candidate’s supporters are unbalanced or too radical (8/23/03). The piece also argued that the candidate would have to "broaden his appeal" beyond his apparently radical base in order to win the nomination. This line of thinking seems to have come straight from the DLC, which has long argued that Democrats must run to the middle in both the primaries and the general election. Journalists buy into it despite the fact that in 2000, Al Gore was most effective in the general election when running, at least rhetorically, as a liberal populist.

Joining the Post in playing up the DLC angle were Newsweek, U.S. News & World Report, ABC News, and the New York Times, which all ran stories last summer asking whether Dean would pull the party to the left and thus weaken it during the general election. Although a few reporters looked beyond this frame and actually documented Dean’s moderate record as governor, the dominant storyline prevailed in the days before the Iowa vote, as indicated by a recent piece in the Post. "The question haunting Dean," reporter John Harris wrote on January 16, "is whether he stands any chance of exerting appeal beyond core Democrats who share his strong opposition to the Iraq war and his liberal social views."