Biased Election Reporting – Moon of Alabama

June 8, 2009

Biased Election Reporting

This is how the Associated Press reports the German results of the European Parliament election:

German Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives were headed for a center-right majority and her center-left rivals for a historically heavy defeat Sunday in European Parliament elections, according to projections.

Bloomberg writes:

German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats beat the Social Democrats in European Parliament elections yesterday with less than four months to go before a national vote, preliminary final results showed.
…
“It’s a very successful election for Merkel,” Jan Techau, an analyst at the Berlin-based German Council on Foreign Relations, said in an interview. “It’s a pretty strong signal that German voters prefer the center-right parties because people expect them to be more competent on the economy.”

Now compare those news reports with the facts.

This chart, snipped from the Süddeutsche Zeitung, shows the percentage point changes from the last European Parliament election to yesterday's one.

Merkel's CDU/CSU lost 6.6 percentage points or 23% of its last time voters while the Social Democrats' SPD lost 0.7pp. The Greens gained 0.2. The big winner was the slightly libertarian FDP with a 4.9 win. The left gained 1.4 and all others gained 0.9.

How can Merkel's major loss of 6.6 percentage points be interpreted as a "very successful election" while the potential left-of-center-coalition of SPD/Greens/Linke which gained 0.9 in total is seen as having had a "historically heavy defeat"?

Posted by b on June 8, 2009 at 08:15 UTC | Permalink

Comments

same thing here in france: most call it a big ump/sarkozy victory but if you tally all the vote that are left leaning (ps/green/npa etc.) the picture ain’t so cut and dry: give or take 43 percent of the voters voted to the left and about 40 percent voted for the right (ump/fn etc.) if the modem with its almost 9 percent would align itself to the right (where it came from) it would be a victory indeed. but the modem has strayed too far from the right and i don’t think it will realign itself with sarkozy.
the big issue is the huge amount of abstensions. i think it means that folks know that those elections don’t really mean much in terms of local politics. yet.
the european right has been trying to claim this election but as a referendum i bet you that some folks on that right are runnin’ scared! this is imho a huge defeat for the european right or a huge defeat for the americanization of the european right. even obama couldn’t save it and god knows lots of peopleover here go gaga for him.
my two centimes 🙂

Posted by: charmicarmicat | Jun 8 2009 9:34 utc | 1

How can Merkel’s major loss of 6.6 percentage points be interpreted as a “very successful election” while the potential left-of-center-coalition of SPD/Greens/Linke which gained 0.9 in total is seen as having had a “historically heavy defeat”?

My personal hypothesis:
For the major media outlets, every Rightist electoral victory is and will be, “decisive”, “overwhelming” and a “landslide”. Even a single-vote victory, even a victory like Bush’s in 2000 when the sack of crap actually lose the popular vote. As an Amendment, these victories will proof beyond doubt of a “righ-of-center” culture, which will demand, in an ultra-bastardized form of Volonté générale that the progressive sectors become punchbags of their political adversaries.
On the other hand, every Leftist electoral victory will be dubious, incomplete and will imply a deeply divided (Read: at ports of civil war) society. Case in point: the big bunch of polls that the likes of Chavez and Morales have won in South America. Repetitive electoral victories of this sort will prove institutionalized fraud, because, how can any society on Earth be left-leaning instead of the opposite?
All in all, the media dudes know very well where their pay checks come from, and how quickly these could disappear.

Posted by: C.A. | Jun 8 2009 12:57 utc | 2

won’t FDP caucus with Merkel?

Posted by: scott | Jun 8 2009 13:19 utc | 3

@scott – won’t FDP caucus with Merkel?
Not on European level but on the national level. But there the numbers will look much different. On the Europe level their were some 35 parties and 10% of the people voted for fringe groups. In the national election there will be less than 10 parties and the fringe vote will be much smaller. Turnout on the national is also much higher changing the whole calculation.
It will likely be a “block” voter decision with CDU/FDP against SPD/Green/Linke. It is all still open and much can change especially on the economic side until the elections.

Posted by: b | Jun 8 2009 13:55 utc | 4

hey all.
recently moved back to europe from a 17 years stint in the u.s. any euro-centric blogs you’d recommend?

Posted by: charmicarmicat | Jun 8 2009 14:06 utc | 5

You ignore the extreme low levels the SPD started with. The SPD has a historical low, because already the privious election was a historic low. That was the time when Schroeder decided, that he can’t continue to govern.
Die Linke is not centre left, but far left. They aren’t in the PES faction in Europe. Greens + SPD have still lost.
CDU/CSU + FDP have won 54 of the 99 seats in the EU parliament. That would be enough to form a coalition, if the result would be similar in autum.

Posted by: Jemand | Jun 8 2009 14:10 utc | 6

BBC: Socialist leader Martin Schulz said his group’s defeat would be analysed. “It’s a sad evening for social democracy in Europe. We are particularly disappointed, [it is] a bitter evening for us,” he said.

Posted by: Don Bacon | Jun 8 2009 15:20 utc | 7

I’m pretty sure the journalists involved have taken basic statistics classes, but an all too large portion of their readership hasn’t. Most people don’t understand how numbers work, but that’s how spin works. Calling the SPD/Green/Linke loss “historically heavy” is inaccurate, but still subjective enough to make it difficult to contest on legal grounds… and after it’s in the public unconsciousness, the work is done anyway. Dissent is marginalized and the aristocracy lives to pillage another day.

Posted by: Monolycus | Jun 8 2009 15:25 utc | 8

I’m pretty sure the journalists involved have taken basic statistics classes, but an all too large portion of their readership hasn’t. Most people don’t understand how numbers work, but that’s how spin works. Calling the SPD/Green/Linke loss “historically heavy” is inaccurate, but still subjective enough to make it difficult to contest on legal grounds… and after it’s in the public unconsciousness, the work is done anyway. Dissent gets marginalized and the aristocracy lives to pillage another day.

Posted by: Monolycus | Jun 8 2009 15:34 utc | 9

I would like to ask. Does it matter?
To me difference between – for example – between SPD and CSU/FDP; Labor vs Tories is merely is philosophical. As long as it is capitalistic/imperialistic economy system there are all: bourgeoisie, exploitation political forces.

Posted by: Sarajevo | Jun 8 2009 15:52 utc | 10

@5: Here’s one called French Politics that you might not have found.
http://artgoldhammer.blogspot.com/

Posted by: ds | Jun 8 2009 16:02 utc | 11

It does indicate that the current Grand Coalition in Germany between the CDU/CSU and the SPD will not survive the next election and most likely be replaced by a coalition of the CDU/CSU and the FDP.
I think that is the point that the journalists are trying to get across.
I cannot see how the SPD can recover any lost ground by then, they will be hard pressed to keep from losing any more votes.

Posted by: ralphieboy | Jun 8 2009 18:59 utc | 12

@11: thanks ds!

Posted by: charmicarmicat | Jun 8 2009 19:30 utc | 13

I’m with those who can’t see any real differene between the mainstream parties on this really altho it is amusing to see the pseudo-lefties argue that this election was a victory for the right, still ya get that it must be difficult to conceal one’s core beliefs all the time.
I’m far more interested – no wrong word- engaged by the all of the media reports about the xtian victory in the Labanon which fail to tell their audience that the result of the exercise was inevitable given the euro designed gerrymander that guarantees avore by a Lebanese muslim is worth less than half a vote by a Lebanese xtian. Sshhhh! we don’t talk about that here. Still imagine how that electoral inconsistency would be discussed if the election were in Zimbabwe or Venezuela.
The real issue with europe one which will gravely effect politics at the heart of empire next time too is that so many voters – in the main left sympathisers – stayed at home.
From what I saw of the english results the right and racist parties didn’t increase the numbers who voted for em by much at all – it was that no one bothered to vote for the other mobs that got them elected. Now that is an issue and one that citizens should empower themselves to take on. provide a viable alternative to the weasel words of brown and oblamblam

Posted by: Debs is dead | Jun 8 2009 20:55 utc | 14

that’ll teach me to ignore preview avore = a vote gotta go – a lab full of eager minds awaits

Posted by: Debs is dead | Jun 8 2009 20:57 utc | 15

@5 – charmicarmicat, you might want to take a look at this site: European Tribune

Posted by: Fran | Jun 8 2009 21:52 utc | 16

xtian victory
March 14th is not especially christian, Debs. Hariri is Sunni. Jumblatt Druze. But you are certainly right that Christians get a highly disproportionate number of seats. and swing the vote.
I quite liked the commentaries that Hizbullah didn’t want to win this time round. Could be a wise decision. Better let Netanyahu destroy himself, without having a justification for attacking over the border. Something in that.

Posted by: alex_no | Jun 8 2009 22:44 utc | 17

Swedish pirates capture EU seat! Congratulations, ASKOD!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/-/2/hi/technology/8089102.stm

Posted by: Maxcrat | Jun 9 2009 0:55 utc | 18

@16: thanks fran!

Posted by: charmicarmicat | Jun 9 2009 9:10 utc | 19

The Swiss papers, the same, with on the same page(s) a different message, it is becoming quite schizophrenic:
Merkel did well! accompanied by, further down:
In times of trouble the extremists or fringes gain, that is a given. Super right this time more than way left. (Economic crisis, protectionism, enemies lurking, etc.) Mainstream ‘leftists’ parties have nothing to offer, they are biting the dust.
The ones who will bite the dust are the newspapers. Sad in a way.
The European Tribune is center left mainstream but has some good head articles and comments sometimes. Comments are very open.. eurotrib. Jerome a Paris writes there or owns it or whatever. Scrolling down I see Fran posted the same link. I don’t know of any other good EU blog/site/aggregate which says a lot…
The EU is not understood by nationals of the different countries, they don’t care, partly because pols who stumble blame Europe, etc. – see the abstention rate.

Posted by: Tangerine | Jun 9 2009 12:54 utc | 20

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