Shaping the Stream

by Dr. Ellen Brandt

 
If the existing Mainstream Media is prone to prejudice or outright bias, Republicans need to apply polite but firm pressure on Internet gatekeepers to change the shape, size, and scope of what is considered Mainstream.

 
As promised in our last article, we want to make some specific and concrete suggestions about what GOP leadership can do to alter the balance of power within the so-called Mainstream - or widely read - portion of the Media, especially focusing on Internet-based Media.

There are two paths towards correcting this bias, seen as widespread and persistent, which presents Democratic Party candidates, pundits, ideology, and agendas in a favorable light, while presenting Republican candidates, pundits, ideology, and agendas in a far less favorable light.

First, we can attempt to assist existing publications and sites, including social media sites, which have a stake in appearing unbiased and politically inclusive. We can work with them directly and help them recruit and feature GOP writers, editors, candidates, and viewpoints, while changing various internal technical factors, which may be impeding their sites' avowed neutrality.

It is also important to work with Internet gatekeepers, such as search engines and media consolidators, whose current pattern and practice may be geared - either accidentally or deliberately - to featuring publications, individual articles, podcasts, and other kinds of media which boost the exposure of Democrats and their favored constituencies, while stifling reader and viewer exposure for Republicans and our important constituencies.

The second path towards a fairer and more inclusive Mainstream is taking an active role in creating brand-new Internet entities - publications, social media sites, GOP-oriented search engines and Republican-friendly media consolidators  - which together would form an Alternative Mainstream Media universe, not just supplementing what exists now, but also, if correctly promoted, serving as an effective GOP Internet infrastructure.

Republican readers and viewers would be able to turn to our sites first in their search for news, research, opinion, and interactivity which treats Republicans and Republican thought fairly and honestly, without having to wade through the virtual morass of bias or sometimes outright smarminess that dominates Internet political news and commentary now.

The above is not an either-or prescription, and both paths toward change have to be pursued simultaneously, with the endorsement and guidance of the RNC and major think tanks, candidate organizations, and PACs. As many and as varied Republican groups as possible at the national, state, and local level should be persuaded to join in this concerted effort.

Here, then, some specific suggestions, as we work towards a Media Mainstream which includes and welcomes Republicans:

 
The Already-Existing MSM - Stop Blackballing Us and Grant Us Full Membership

 
Maybe it's because so many of the current crop of webmasters and others involved in nitty-gritty Internet operations are males under the age of 30, with technical educations and lifetimes of playing video games and minor league hacking behind them. (No, this is not my personal bias speaking. It is quite literally true.)

Whatever the reasons, the existing Mainstream Media now has the feel of a jokey and smarmy Animal House-like fraternity, with the Nerds enjoying their full Revenge and relegating whomever they see as the Clean-Cut Kids to near invisibility.

Think of the GOP as the Clean-Cut Kids, being blackballed mercilessly and kept out of the Web Visibility frat house.

No matter. Turn the other cheek. Let bygones be bygones. The Past is just Prologue. And all those good, wholesome, moral attitudes, which most Republicans already live by, anyway.

This time can be different, if - again - the RNC, the PACs, the GOP oriented pundits and think tanks, and every other Republican-leaning group we can think of comes aboard and acts in a concerted fashion.

Some of the key things we need to do or have done by the gatekeepers are technical and mechanical:

 
***** I admit that I myself am not enamored of SEO/SEM techniques - search engine optimization and management -  which are basically artificial, algorithmically-based formulae for upping one's Internet stats of various kinds by "sharing" - i.e. stealing - other sites' stats and/or improving one's visibility on search engines by knocking other sites' search visibility down a notch.

I do not utilize SEO/SEM in terms of my own blogs, sites, or Internet groups. But that's just me.

The cold, hard fact is that the Democratic Party, its candidates, its PACs, and its supporting groups of various kinds pretty much all are slavishly devoted to SEO/SEM, while the majority of Republican Party operatives, activists, candidates, and groups won't even know what I'm talking about.

To level the playing field, pure and simple, the GOP, under the aegis of the RNC, needs to allow existing staff members - we're certain they're there already, mostly very young and mostly former marketing majors - to pull out all the stops on GOP-oriented SEO/SEM. Let this be these staffers' near-full-time job for a few short months, and we'll see marked improvement almost immediately.

 
***** One very specific technical improvement, not SEO/SEM-linked, is pressuring the search engines - all of 'em, domestically and those based abroad - to make sure GOP-favorable publications, blogs, newsletters, pollsters, researchers, pundits, and social media sites are all included in the News listings, as well as in the much broader Web listings, at their sites.

Although the Web listings, I find, are far superior in terms of inclusiveness and accuracy, they are almost totally ignored by news consolidators and news "scrapers," which are generally the vehicles for getting topics, candidates, and authors into the "trending" and "political buzz" Mainstreams, which now dominate the Internet, whether we classically-trained journalists, researchers, and activists like it or not.

These vehicles - consolidators and scrapers - are fixated on News, rather than Web, listings. And some from-the-top persuasion from the RNC and other Republican influencers would, I believe, elicit immediate "Sure, we'd be happy to," compliance from most search engines, which are themselves fixated on increasing Internet viewership from actual Humans, rather than Script Bots.

Recent research shows Internet readers and viewers - so-called "eyeballs"- are now only 35 percent or so actual Human beings, with 65 percent of Internet-based "eyeballs" belonging to Script Bots, powered by artificial intelligence.

We Republicans on the Internet tend to be actual Humans! So we're really very, very valuable as "eyeballs." We just need to stress this point and be as persuasive as we can about it.

 
***** Re the publications which make up the existing Mainstream Media: Whether or not politics is their major beat, I think many of them can be persuaded to improve their reporting and editorial coverage of the GOP, if we can show that it is to their own advantage to do so.

We - again, collectively, under the aegis of the RNC and major Republican groups - should make these very simple and totally true arguments:

***There are at least as many Americans who identify as Republicans as Democrats, with more than half of Independents now trending towards GOP candidates in this election cycle.

***There are very broad spectrums of political opinion, within both major Parties and within the citizenry as a whole, on any number of key current issues, which means taking a narrow partisan stance on any of these issues is an egregious mistake.

***Populism is a vibrant force within both major Parties as well as within the electorate as a whole, so that being too "politically correct" is now looked at askance by what is probably a significant majority of potential readers and viewers.

***And the MSM itself has become more and more mistrusted, especially by Republicans and Independents.

***Ergo, Fellas: You are losing readers and viewers, and you will continue to lose them, unless you begin to shape up, look sharp, say your mea culpas, and decide to tailor headlines, reporting, and coverage to all Americans, not just a small partisan slice of the electorate which shares the views of your (too-young, too-Elitist, too-biased, and insufficiently-tolerant-of-all-viewpoints) current cadre of editors and reporters.

 
***** Moving on to the social media sites: There, a combination of editorially-oriented persuasion and operational tweaking may be needed.

Many of the major social media sites have an editorial component, like LinkedIn's Pulse, which features articles from whatever group of "thought leaders" in-house editors favor. And in tune with the bias and prejudice throughout today's MSM, these "thought leaders" have tended to be Democratic Party-friendly and/or to write about topics and push agendas that could come straight from a staff memo at Hillary Clinton's campaign.

The social media sites are stubborn and set in their ways, so it's going to take steady, polite but firm, pressure from the Republican establishment to persuade them to alter their editorial focus. Start applying such pressure now and use the same arguments we outlined in our discussion of existing Mainstream Media publications above.

On the operational side, there are quite a few member-owned and member-managed groups at social media sites which purport to be "Republican," but are, in fact, extremely narrowly-focused and exclusive in their approach, seeming to feature a never-ending stream of postings by wild-eyed men (literally - their official photos all look like Rasputin on Acid, and none of them are women), covering incendiary topics in incendiary formats.  

These groups and these posts seem caricatures to us, rather than legitimate political discourse - so much so that we have often wondered whether those managing  and posting in such groups were not actually Democratic Party operatives having "fun" with elaborate Dirty Tricks.

In any case, Republican leaders' stance so far has been similar to its stance towards rabid and rabble-rousing talk radio hosts, who claim to be part of the GOP, but often do Republicans more harm than good.

Social media sites are different from the public universe of radio channels, however, since radio-based free-for-all sites are self-selecting, and few listeners who don't want to be there will be there.

In contrast, the major Internet social media sites have very wide and diverse audiences, and the Party should want to make a favorable impression in terms of these sites' entire audience base, rather than "turning off" potential GOP readers and viewers.

So perhaps we should at least consider politely persuading the talk-radio-style, in-your-face "Republican" groups to cool things down a bit; try to be polite to all fellow Republicans and non-Republicans who venture there; and also try to solicit at least some material which is thoughtful and substantive, rather than posted for pure shock value.

 
My Way and the Highway: Working Towards a Broader, More Inclusive Alternative GOP Mainstream

 
The second path towards shaping a Republican-friendly MSM is expanding what's already part of the Mainstream with brand-new publications, social media sites, media consolidators, and search engines of our own.

 
***** The effort can - and probably should - start with the RNC's own existing sites, which some have said are difficult to use; tend not to be based in real time; have too little material included; and don't sufficiently allow the Voices of rank-and-file Republicans - or even officeholders from the states and local jurisdictions - to be heard.

The Party needs to prove - and probably to state - that it  truly and honestly wants its image and its practice to be that of the inclusive, vibrant, non-politically-correct "Big Tent" Party this nation now wants and needs. Everything we proceed to do will follow from taking this statement to heart and living by it as a Party and as individual Republicans.

 
***** For instance, one RNC-sanctioned site I believe we could set up immediately and easily might be a comprehensive, continually-updated on-line GOP magazine, welcoming and including articles and other media from any bona fide GOP'er who wishes to submit them.

By all means, impose strict editorial standards on such material, rejecting anything that is poorly written or unprofessionally produced. But encourage journalists, researchers, academics, strategists, and pundits across the Republican political spectrum to contribute. Encourage submissions from those working at the state and local level, rather than nationally. And encourage discussions of topics to which the existing MSM is giving short shrift or ignoring completely.

If well done - and why shouldn't it be, given the degree of raw intellect, sophistication, and passion prevalent throughout our Party? - such a GOP magazine would quickly become the "go-to" source for Republicans on the Internet - the first place they "traveled to" when coming on-line at the start of their days.

Moreover, we'd also hope that very quickly, the existing Mainstream Media would make such a site a "go-to" source for their own reporting and editorial efforts, automatically forcing them to begin to understand what Republicans nationwide are thinking about, care about, and want the rest of the nation - and the world - to know about us.

 
***** Similarly, although not necessarily under the aegis of the RNC, we believe it would be very beneficial if several new social media sites aimed at a Republican audience were formed over the course of the next few months.

Such sites could have editorial components, where news stories and other media from a GOP viewpoint could be featured. But they would primarily be vehicles for Republicans to connect with, correspond with, and have Internet conversations with one another, within a friendly, respectful, and polite environment, where every site user were given an equal Voice.

Clearly, such sites could become especially useful if elected officials, candidates, and activists of all kinds and from every level of government and the Party utilized them in an honest, active, and consistent manner, truly seeking to make friends, exchange ideas, explicate policies and agendas, and develop constituencies both locally and nationally.

We're hoping that one such site will be developed under our Party of Yes imprimatur. But we'd be delighted if our intended site were only one among several, with specialized social media sites for Republicans part of the mix: sites geared to academics and other scholars, for example, or sites geared to local government initiatives.

 
***** We also think it might be an excellent idea for the RNC and other Republican leaders to give their official blessing to one or several consolidator sites and/or GOP-oriented search engines.

These would be vehicles for finding and cataloguing new GOP-friendly blogs, academic articles, think tank white papers, polls, videos, and other media on a daily or more frequent basis - in the case of search engines - and choosing the most interesting among them as daily or more frequent "feeds" to subscribers who are interested - in the case of consolidators.

We would expect that such subscribers to GOP feeds would soon include many reporters and editors who are part of the current Mainstream, because their jobs would be made easier and more efficient by subscribing.

(Note that "subscriptions" via feeds generally do not mean paid subscriptions - although they sometimes do. A feed subscription, in Web parlance, is placing oneself as an individual, organization, or fellow media outlet on an Internet mailing list to receive updated information.)

 
End-Note

 
We've made the various suggestions in this story in the spirit of flexible cooperation and friendship towards every person and institution within the Republican fold.

Under no circumstance do we wish to criticize what has been done up to this point. We believe that as Republicans, we have all acted in good faith, working hard to make our Voices heard within the existing Mainstream Media, despite its enormous limitations.

In return we've all-too-often been attacked, lied about, scorned, and ridiculed. Even more significant - and even worse - Media outlets which are clearly not the Party's friends have consistently and insistently attempted to steer us in directions which are not in our best interests, operationally or ideologically.

Many of us believe it is extraordinarily positive and well-nigh miraculous that so many Republicans - candidates, officeholders, activists, and rank-and-file alike - have spontaneously taken up the cry of "Mainstream Media Fairness" at this particular juncture. Through our collective action, we can make immense improvements prior to and throughout Election Year 2016.