{"id":1972,"date":"2008-11-17T20:43:13","date_gmt":"2008-11-17T20:43:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/?p=1972"},"modified":"2008-11-17T21:02:07","modified_gmt":"2008-11-17T21:02:07","slug":"the-news-medias-lessons-from-the-obama-campaign","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/2008\/11\/the-news-medias-lessons-from-the-obama-campaign\/","title":{"rendered":"The News Media’s Lessons From The Obama Campaign"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"ObamaM<\/span>y chums – the Carnivores of Journalism<\/strong><\/a> (read in tooth and claw<\/a>) – are ripping apart the lessons for the news media from the online electoral campaigning of President-elect Barack Obama.<\/p>\n

Here’s my message for the old news media. You missed a revenue stream. Auction endorsements.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Don’t be fooled by the SMS<\/strong> and Facebook<\/strong> wrappers. This is not the Paypal<\/strong> public sphere. We’re not all friends and Obama didn’t twitter his way to the White House.<\/p>\n

First the groundwork<\/a>. When it came to polling, surveys and research, Obama clocked up $22m<\/strong> to McCain’s $1.75m<\/strong>. Big difference.<\/p>\n

Then the Obama campaign spent another $22m<\/strong> on fund-raising via direct mail with people like these<\/a> guys<\/a>.<\/p>\n

McCain spent just $7m<\/strong> with companies like this<\/a>. Maybe Republican direct mail companies offer three times the bang for the buck…but I doubt it.<\/p>\n

The simple facts are that Obama outspent and outraised McCain – especially in small donations.<\/strong> 48.3%<\/strong> of Obama’s $640m<\/strong> total came from people donating less than $200<\/strong>. John McCain got just a third of his funding from the same source.<\/p>\n

The donors bought influence. Not over Obama (pitching less than a couple of hundred bucks isn’t even going to get a night on the Lincoln bed-pan<\/a>), but over their fellow citizens via the hoary old medium of TV advertising. <\/p>\n

Of every dollar that Obama supporters gave, 29 cents went straight to buying TV ads.<\/strong> Because television reaches those hoary old folks who – y’know – vote.<\/p>\n

Incidentally, banks turned out to be better at predicting November’s voter intentions than October’s market movements. Take a look at the donations from both candidates’ Top 20 lists.<\/p>\n

\n Obama \t McCain
\nGoldman Sachs \t\t$874,207\t$228,695
\nJPMorgan Chase&Co \t$581,460\t$215,042
\nCitigroup Inc \t\t$581,216\t$296,151
\nUBS AG \t\t$454,795\t$147,465\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And what about the corporate donors of the new media? Are they any different from the corporate donors of old money? Not necessarily<\/a>, except that they haven’t learned to play both sides. <\/p>\n

Google mostly wants a free hand from Washington to cement its lead in online advertising \u2014 but it also wants help bullying telephone and cable companies into letting its services and ads flow unimpeded on high-speed broadband lines and cell phones, a cause it has dubbed “network neutrality.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This election was won and run old school. Obama spent $18m<\/strong> on live events to McCain’s $6m<\/strong>. So let’s remind ourselves how Obama won:<\/p>\n

    \nPlanning – polls<\/strong>
    \nFund-raising – mail-shots<\/strong>
    \nMass media domination – TV advertising<\/strong>
    \nLive events – good old-fashioned, new-fangled showmanship<\/strong><\/ol>\n

    Room for any of those in your part of the news business?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    My chums – the Carnivores of Journalism (read in tooth and claw) – are ripping apart the lessons for the news media from the online electoral campaigning of President-elect Barack Obama. Here’s my message for the old news media. You missed a revenue stream. Auction endorsements. Don’t be fooled by the SMS and Facebook wrappers. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[1897,1658,1937,1947,1945,1928,211,1907,1943,1949,1951,1941,1950,1944,1503,1946,1948,1940,1939,1936,1475,1938,1922,1942],"class_list":["post-1972","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-journalism","tag-barack-obama","tag-broadband","tag-cell-phones","tag-cent","tag-citigroup-inc","tag-dc","tag-google","tag-google-inc","tag-help-bullying-telephone","tag-john-mccain","tag-jpmorgan-chase-co","tag-jpmorgan-chaseco","tag-lincoln","tag-media-domination","tag-news-media","tag-online-advertising","tag-online-electoral-campaigning","tag-sms","tag-ubs-ag","tag-ubs-mutual-funds-securities-trust-ubs-enhanced-nasdaq-100-fund","tag-united-states","tag-usd","tag-washington","tag-white-house"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1972","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1972"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1972\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1979,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1972\/revisions\/1979"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1972"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1972"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1972"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}