Complaints about the coverage of political campaigns are rife this time of year. Many pundits decry the lack of serious discussion of the important issues facing the nation, though they quickly return to speculating about whether a candidate’s latest attack ad will hurt his or her opponent. What never gets discussed is why reporting is so focused on trivia and attack.

The reason is that such reporting is profitable. All of the media covering the current election have one desire in common: they want a large audience. There is a collective benefit to the political media to have controversy because controversy and a close election result in a bigger audience.

The more closely contested this campaign is, the higher will be the ratings for media that cover politics. A big lead for either candidate reduces interest. Once it became clear that McCain would be the nominee of the Republicans, most of the coverage turned to the Democratic Primary. But once it was clear that Obama would be the Democratic nominee and that he had a significant lead over McCain, coverage turned to his supposed weaknesses. Attack ads against him were immediately rebroadcast by news organizations because controversy is interesting to people. But publicizing attacks on the front runner also narrows the race, thus maintaining interest—and thereby audience.

For example, straightforward reporting on what each presidential candidate proposes to do would quickly move the race in Obama’s favor. This is because his positions are more in line with the wishes of the majority of Americans on virtually every issue. So expect more reporting on lipsticked pigs.

Many media justify their reporting of lies and distortions by saying that they are only reporting what someone else reported. As Paul Krugman pointed out last week, so-called “balanced reporting” involves the media reporting an ad full of lies in terms of what was said in the ad and how the attacked candidate is responding to it. Seldom are the lies labeled as such. See the Register Guard’s account today of Smith’s latest slime of Merkely.

This process is distinct from the process by which certain media organizations trying to support one candidate—or party—because they view the policies of that party or candidate as more favorable to their interests in general. For example, Fox News has had a symbiotic relationship with the Conservative movement—and the government to the extent that Conservatives have controlled the government.

But it is fair to ask in a democracy whether the media in covering the race as they are currently doing contributes to the wellbeing of our democracy. There are important issues that are not being discussed because so little of the media has been willing to cover them.

If audience size is the major factor selecting media practices, then we can select better practices by affecting audience size. If we are troubled by the media’s failure to label and criticize lies and distortions or by their tendency to give credibility to stories that they know to be false, then we should reduce the audience that results from such practices.

There are two ways to do this. One is to build audience for media that report on substantive issues. Much of that is on the internet. You can affect the outcomes of public discussion by telling everyone you know about good sources of news. Promote the hell out media that you think are serve the interests of the wellbeing of society.

The second thing you can do is criticize lousy reporting. Media outlets worry when lots of people complain about their coverage. You don’t need to write a rejoinder to what they said or be paralyzed by the thought that you may not be 100% absolutely right. Just let them know that they need to do better and that you are going elsewhere for you news. (Don’t bother with Fox. The fact that you are writing to them will tell them that they are reaching you.)

You can get a list of media and how to contact them at Fair.org