Tim Steller's column: Media's influence on elections is appropriate

Election 2022 has been a weird time to work in Arizona’s news media.

On one hand, news outlets like the Star are smaller and financially weaker than we were in previous elections, and that means we are less able to cover candidates like we used to.

On the other hand, the legacy news media remain essential to candidates and voters. We loom large in the campaigns of Republicans as well as Democrats, even if we only serve as a foil to some candidates.

For those who are deeply in the Trump camp, criticizing traditional news outlets the way Trump does is practically a prerequisite of their candidacies. What would Kari Lake, the GOP candidate for governor, be if she weren’t a former local TV news anchor bashing her old colleagues?

It’s essential to her bio, and, as if to emphasize her conversion, she made stomping out of TV interviews a signature of her primary election campaign.

As a general-election candidate, she has continued lecturing reporters. Last month, she told a large crowd of journalists who turned out for what she termed an “emergency press conference”:

“Your voices are loud, even though there aren’t many people listening anymore, but they still are loud. Please do better. Please don’t try to influence this election. It’s wrong, and I think you all know it. Start being honest and fair journalists.”

That may sound sensible to many readers, and it’s fine when she’s asking news outlets to be “honest and fair.” But to me, telling journalists not to try to “influence” the election makes no sense. When we report a story about a candidate, or about an issue, it ought to influence voters’ thinking. Otherwise, what’s the point?

That’s performing the role of the Fourth Estate. We shouldn’t act as if all candidate positions have equal merit. That would be offering false balance to candidates who are out of balance.

Take Katie Hobbs, Lake’s rival as the Democratic candidate for governor. She has been hammered by me and others in Arizona’s news media for refusing to debate Lake. Her opponent has trashed Hobbs as a “coward” as a result. Democrats have regularly insisted to me that Hobbs shouldn’t entertain a peddler of lies like Lake by being on the same stage with her.

But many of us have said Hobbs should have debated anyway. This may well influence the election, and that’s OK. Would Lake really object to that sort of media influence?

Still, there are other candidates who insist they are being treated unfairly.

The novice Republican candidate for attorney general, Abraham Hamadeh, has constantly protested coverage of his race on social media. Since the primary election Aug. 2, Hamadeh has tweeted 22 times about the Arizona Republic. “The failing Arizona Republic hates us,” he tweeted Sept. 21.

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In that same time, he has tweeted about “the media” 44 times. “The media is the biggest threat to ‘democracy,’” he tweeted Oct. 22, apparently responding to an Arizona Republic editorial about the threats that election deniers pose to our democratic system.

This editorial, of course, was referencing candidates like Hamadeh, who has ominously promised “perp walks” related to the 2020 election if he wins, and has warned, “The media doesn’t know what’s coming when we take office.” Comments like that appropriately make Hamadeh, an unknown candidate unlike his rival, Democrat Kris Mayes, the subject of special scrutiny by news outlets.

In an Oct. 27 video with state GOP Chair Kelli Ward, Hamadeh implausibly claimed: “I simply no longer care what the media thinks about me.” For someone who says he doesn’t care about the news media, or who thinks it is failing, Hamadeh sure seems obsessed with us and how we cover him. (Hint: He cares a lot.)

The special focus on certain types of legacy news media outlets — longstanding newspapers and local TV stations — is especially puzzling.

Candidates like Lake and Hamadeh have ready access to a variety of major conservative-leaning outlets. National conservative cable channels like Fox News are probably more influential media outlets on elections than Arizona’s smaller TV stations, newspapers and online outlets.

But Lake acted in a Fox News interview Sunday as if the network she was on is something other than the major media institution it is.

“I’m trying to wake people up in this country as to what the media is all about, and I think I’m having an effect,” she said, while speaking on the most popular cable news channel.

Beyond these major conservative cable outlets, there are the other traditional outlets — like conservative radio talkers Garret Lewis on KNST in Tucson or James T. Harris on KFYI in Phoenix. And there are online outlets like the online Steve Bannon’s War Room, where GOP Secretary of State candidate Mark Finchem makes regular appearances, claiming, among other things, that there was fraud in Pima County in the 2020 election.

Hamadeh appeared on the show Tuesday. You guessed it: He complained about media coverage, on a popular right-wing media show.

When people talk about “the media,” they should be including these outlets, too. Some are growing even bigger than the traditional outlets that candidates decry and hold to a higher standard.

And they certainly have an influence on elections.

That’s OK. When you report on candidates and elections, you ought to.