LECTURE VI: THE MEDIA AND PRESIDENTIAL POLITICS DR.

CHRISTOPHER MALONE

I. Understanding The Game of Presidential Politics

Politics for most people is a spectator sport. In his excellent book Out of Order, Harvard Political Scientist Thomas Patterson makes the argument that the contemporary media treats all politics certainly presidential politics as a game watched by the American public. Think about the analogy for a second: if politics is akin to a sporting event, then the players (politicians) play the game and the commentators (media) analyze the game for us. That makes the public the spectators we watch the game of politics but do not get involved in it.

I. Understanding The Game of Presidential Politics

We live in a capitalist society. Which means that the vast majority of news outlets are for-profit companies. Profits flow when the ratings are good. The ratings are good when viewers are tuned in. Viewers tune in when they are both informed and entertained (though probably more entertained than informed). Thus, to a large extent, the mainstream media are in the entertainment business. This is the nature of the beast.

I. Understanding The Game of Presidential Politics

In the early 1960s, Reuven Frank, head NBC News at the time, made the point that all political coverage on TV had to be dramatic, with a beginning, middle, and end, with high points and low points. A Shakespearean play in a minute and a half or less. Frank understood that politics was drama:

Each story had to have an introduction with characters (protagonist and antagonist); There had to be some type of rising conflict; There had to be some type of crisis point;

And there had to be some type of resolution.

I. Understanding The Game of Presidential Politics

When politics is covered in this way, it lends itself to the perception of objectivity on the part of the person reporting the story. This is the essence of the game. Rather than focusing on the subjective accounts of candidates positions and the substance, the game format allows the media to merely report on the public attitude through quantitative and qualitative means. It also allows the media to report on the strategy and the tactics of the campaign in a way that sounds like the color commentator of a sporting event. Part of this objectivity involves the use of polls to assert the objective situation in the campaign.

II. Changes in the Game

Patterson makes the point that the way the game is covered has changed tremendously with the rise of television as the main source of news for the American public. As the following graph indicates, even in the Internet age the vast majority of Americans still get their news from television.

II. Changes in the Game

II. Changes in the Game

Yet, what has happened in the television age is that substance has been overshadowed by the horserace of politics. First, there is a difference in the policy schema versus game schema: The media can report on a candidates campaign in two ways, in terms of policy options or in terms of the game of running for office. One is about the substance of the campaign; the other is about the strategy/tactics that a candidate uses in order to gain advantage in other words, the horserace of politics. Pattersons point is that the media today is much more likely to report on the game schema rather than the policy schema.

II. Reasons for Changes in the Game

In times gone by, the political parties carried more of the burden of electioneering. Now the candidate creates a campaign around him/her, raises the funds for the campaign and then hits the campaign trail. True, during the general election the major candidates receive much assistance and support from their respective parties. Yet by and large candidates must fend for themselves, creating their own identity and their own message. In other words, the candidate focuses the attention more on his/her personality and his/her values than the party does on what it stands for. Policy decisions and coalition building still matter during campaigns,

II. Reasons for Changes in the Game

Changes in the field of journalism itself. In the early 1960s, reporters became disenchanted with the restrictions of objective reporting. At the same time, television opened up the possibility of celebrity to reporters. Many journalists became celebrities or media personalities and in many instances came to be as well known as the politicians themselves. Journalists were thus given the freedom to not only ask questions, but answer them as well. By the 1970s, journalism became more vigorous. Vietnam, the Pentagon Papers, Watergate all gave the press new ways to explore the actions and motivations of politicians. One could say that many elements of the press now had its own agenda. Before they were silent skeptics, now they became vocal cynics, which in turn has perhaps fueled the cynicism of the American electorate.

III. The Consequences of the Game

First is that there tends to be an interpretive style of reporting: A good portion of the media now engage in an interpretive style of reporting rather than straight reporting. Coverage now becomes a mix of what candidates say (an increasingly smaller amount of time is dedicated to the candidates own words), investigative reporting of the candidates backgrounds and issues, and an analysis of the campaign situation in terms of the horserace. This last has come to overshadow all the rest to the point now that 80% of all coverage is interpretive in

The Horse Race

Horse Race and Substance Stories as Percent of Total Campaign Coverage: Weeks 1-8 of General Election 19922000 Substantive stories are those providing extensive
discussion of policy issues or the candidates' qualifications or professional background, or both. Horse Race stories focus on who's ahead, who's behind, and candidate election strategies. Statistics on the percent of stories based on total number of election stories from that particular news organization. Both substantive policy issues and election strategies/horse race topics may be found within the same story. Based on 622 stories from August 31, 1992 to October 25, 1992; 391 stories from September 2, 1996 to October 27, 1996; 340 stories from September 4, 2000 to October 29, 2000 from the ABC, CBS, and NBC evening news.

The Horse Race

Horse Race and Substance Stories as Percent of Total Campaign Coverage: Weeks 1-8 of General Election 2000 Substantive stories are those providing extensive discussion of
policy issues or the candidates' qualifications or professional background, or both. Horse Race stories focus on who's ahead, who's behind, and candidate election strategies. Statistics on the percent of stories based on total number of election stories from that particular news organization. Both substantive policy issues and election strategies/horse race topics may be found within the same story. Based on 340 stories from September 4, 2000 to October 29, 2000 from the ABC, CBS, and NBC evening news. Between September 4-October 27, 2000 PBS's NewsHour with Jim Lehrer aired 177 campaign stories, of those stories 68% discussed substantive policy issues and 30% discussed election strategies and/or horse race topics. Data: Center For Media And Public Affairs/Brookings

The Incredible Shrinking Sound Bite

The words of candidates and politicians are increasingly framed by the media. Studies over more than two decades indicate that what a politician or candidates says on the TV news has increased dramatically.

The Incredible Shrinking Sound Bite

The Incredible Shrinking Sound Bite

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The Consequences of the Game

Second, there has been a change in voters perceptions: Paul Lazarsfeld conducted a study in 1948 and found that two thirds of all voters conversations were concerned with the candidates positions and qualifications. Thomas Patterson did a similar study in 1992 and found that two thirds of the conversations were about the game the horse race and the tactics, rather than the substance. Why? Precisely because what voters heard on the news was about the game of politics rather than about the substance. It is no mystery that voters perceptions are clouded by what they see and hear on the television. If the American electorate is starved for substance by the media, then why do we blame them when they know little about the

IV. News Coverage: Hard News

The media cover candidates in different ways. The objective journalism also known as Hard News usually follows a likely script which all candidates can be placed within: 1. The Bad News Syndrome: Recent studies have found that candidates receive up to twice has much negative press as positive. This begs the question: what exactly constitutes news? As the text points out, a fresh face winning and an incumbent losing is news. A Bush consultant once put it: there are three things the media are interested in: pictures, attacks, and mistakes Furthermore, the media shape the message of the candidate through its own agenda reporters receive six times as much attention on the nightly news than the candidate.

Negative Coverage: An Example from 2000

Statistics on the percent of positive and negative evaluations based on total number of evaluations in the stories. Explicitly negative and positive statements by non-partisan sources were considered when judging whether coverage was negative or positive. Based on 340 stories from September 4, 2000 to October29, 2000 from the ABC, CBS, and NBC evening news. Between September 4-October 27, 2000 PBS's NewsHour with Jim Lehrer had 57% positive and 43% negative evaluations of Bush, and 56% positive and 44% negative evaluations of Gore (based on evaluations in 177 stories). During Week 3 there were too few evaluations in the TV networks evening news for George W. Bush, to report meaningful results. Data: Center For Media And Public

Framing: The Story Line

For the news media, all campaigns must fit within a pre-existing story line. Patterson and others suggest many prefabricated lines to fit the campaign within.
The

likely loser scenario; The front-runner script; The bandwagon story; The losing ground narrative. Take the 2012 Republican candidates and place them into these scenarios:

Framing: The Story Line

The point is that the press fits the news of the campaign into the principle story line rather than creates a new story from the changing events of the campaign. But just as important, the campaigns must fit their own reality into the press story lines.

V. New Coverage II: Soft Coverage

The other side of the media coverage coin is what we might call soft coverage appearances by candidates on talk shows such as CBS This Morning, Larry King Live, Good Morning America, The Daily Show, Colbert Report, David Letterman, Jay Leno, etc. This type of format allows candidates to put a human face on their campaigns. The questions are softballs lobbed in; candidates are treated like celebrities. Clinton blowing his saxophone on Arsenio Hall in 1992 made him not only seem real, but even (well almost) cool. And when he went on MTV to talk about boxers or briefs and whether or not he ever smoked marijuana, he was totally human. Al Gore went on David Letterman in 2000 to show that he actually had a personality. Recently President Obama was seen on Jay Leno.

Soft or Hard Coverage?

http://www.nbc.com/the-tonightshow/video/president-obama-part-1102511/1364517/ http://www.thedailyshow.com/full-episodes/thuoctober-27-2011-andrew-napolitano