Media And Politics

At no point in history has the American media had a bigger role in shaping public opinion than it does today. The current highly contested Democratic primary is a testimony of this fact. With both candidates poised to make potential history, Hillary Clinton to be the first female president and Barack Obama to be the first African-American president, the coverage of this primary has been arguably unprecedented. The coverage of this primary and the influential role the media has on it, presents an opportunity to explore how the role, content, and tone of the media has shifted in the last twenty years. The analytical lens of the media that includes talk radio hosts such as Rush Limbaugh, political pundits such as Ann Coulter, and talk show host like Bill O’Reilly did not always exist. The coverage of this primary allows us to examine how this shift came about.
This past fall, while campaigning in Iowa, a photo of an obviously tired and seemingly distraught Hillary Clinton surfaced in the news. This led to questions about problems within the Clinton campaign, including who was actually running the campaign (Clinton or her husband) and if a female could handle the rigors of the presidential spotlight. After a shocking loss in the Iowa primary some new reports even questioned if Senator Clinton could be competitive with the emerging sensation Senator Obama (Goodwin). This type of analytical interpretation of news is a stark contrast from the traditional fact based, objective media standard that existed pre-1970’s. It was during this period, from the 1920’s to the 1970’s, that media and journalism was a sacred industry, upheld by unwritten rules. Journalists attempted to leave their opinions out of articles, with objectivity being the goal. This media era left politicians personal flaws, such as Presidents John F. Kennedy and Franklin D. Roosevelt’s adultery, out of mainstream news. “It was an era when the mostly male journalism profession was deferential and uncritical of public officials, especially on issues related to sex (West 68).” To say that a presidential affair would be front page news in today’s media era would be a drastic under statement.
While objectivity remains a standard in the field of journalism, analysis and interpretation has become more popular. While the objective era would have questioned Senator Clinton’s political policies, the analytical era would question if a female would be able to handle the presidency.
It wasn’t enough to report the “who, what, when, and where” surrounding an event. Rather, reporters must delve into human motivation, explore why particular actions were undertaken, and provide some sense of the larger significance of these activities.
-West 72
This shift, from objectivity to analysis, is marked by two events that changed the way new was covered: Vietnam and the Watergate scandal. “Vietnam was the first real television war (West 62).” The general public was privy to clips of live war action that it had never experienced before. It was a combination of the images and the unprecedented length of the war that lead to the increased dissatisfaction with it. Reports about increased causalities were accompanied by pictures of American body bags and flag draped coffins. These reports contradicted the government released statistics that suggested that the United States was winning the war, and sparked journalist to become more investigative in their reporting. In 1968 the model of objective reporting, CBS news anchor Walter Cronkite, broke the mold when he questioned the war. Cronkite questioned if the U.S. was getting stuck in the war and stressed that we should get out. While the media is often accused of helping lose the war by enticing criticism of it, journalist did not make up the information that they were reporting, nor did cameramen fake the body bags and coffins they were filming.
The lesson learned from Vietnam was to do investigative reporting because one source may not give you all the facts. This lesson was applied in 1972 when the Democratic Party’s headquarters, then the Watergate hotel, was broken into during the election season. President Richard Nixon was running for reelection and he won, but in being concerned about his opponent the White House Administration decided to try and get an inside bead on Democratic strategy. “[T]he break-in was part of a systematic plan of surveillance and disruption targeted at Democratic opponents by the Nixon White House…(West 63).” When questioned about the connection between the break-in and the White House, the Nixon administration insisted on the absurdity of the possibility. Two Washington Post reporters, Bob Woodard and Carl Bernstein, continued to investigate the case and found that the trail of this burglary lead directly to the president and that White House officials and the president himself had lied. Of course following this finding President Nixon resigned, and media again learned some valuable lessons. The Watergate scandal taught journalist to be persistent with investigations, and arguably more importantly to be always be skeptical.
As mentioned earlier, prior to the 1970’s media and journalism was a sacred industry controlled by few media outlets. The shift to the analytical era marked the dissemination of the media monopoly. Darrell West describes this dissemination in The Rise and Fall of the Media Establishment.
At political events, flamboyant Rolling Stone commentator Hunter Thompson stood side-by-side with journalistic icons such as David Broder of the Washington Post.
-West 69
Journalism had lost its prestige, and prominent media outlets began to lose patrons to other outlets. Like any industry, media is driven by profit. This would mean media outlets would have to take different approaches to gain profit.
The analytical era of media is marked by distinct attributes. As already discussed interpretation and analyzes became the norm. With this, the journalist’s opinions and biases, while not purposely distorting a story, they do become a part of it. The newly founded Cable News Network (CNN) provided a platform for the new era of news. The shift to interpretation in media coincided with the popularization of political punditry. Pundits are “individuals whose subject area expertise allowed them to place events in a broad historical and political context (West 73).” While West gives a distinguished detention of pundits, most people would know them as the people that argue on CNN or Fox News. Political pundits may be the representative flag of the interpretive era. These opinionated individuals provide insight as well as entertainment, which is of utmost importance in the analytical era.
With all of the forms of media available to today’s American, entertainment becomes important. While media outlets will report an issue, they will oftentimes add controversial interpretation to add an entertainment element. Many times news outlets pair political pundits from different sides of an issue to create an argument. For instance, with the recent Jena 6 case, CNN paired together African-American liberal Michael Eric Dyson and white conservative Ann Coulter. These types of contrasting opinions are needed for media to maintain a level of interest. People want to be entertained, and in this era where media outlets compete with each other for attention, newspapers, magazines, and TV news programs need to have content that is going to have appeal and more importantly is going to sell.
I noted in the introduction that the media has a large role in shaping public opinion. To investigate this claim I conducted an informal experiment. I asked 6 of my friends whom they believed was currently winning the Democratic primary. None of them are political science majors but do pay some attention to politics. All six of my friends answered that they believed Barack Obama was currently winning. When I informed them that Hillary Clinton still had the lead, but that Barack was closing in, they all responded similarly. “I thought Barack was winning.” This mistake in fact isn’t surprising considering that after the Iowa primary many news outlets claimed Clinton to be dead in the water. The polls before the New Hampshire primary predicted a Clinton defeat and were decidedly incorrect. With Clinton getting the negative publicity following comments here husband made, its not surprising that anyone would mistake the leading candidate for a candidate with a troubled campaign. With today being Super Tuesday across the country we will get to see if the results my informal experiment are representative of the nation or just my friends. One thing is for certain in American media and politics today. For a candidate to be successful they must learn how to properly manipulate the media.
Works Cited

Goodwin, Michael. “After Iowa, Barack Obama is on a Roll and Hillary Clinton is on the ropes.” New York Daily News. Jan 4, 2008

West, Darrell M. The Rise and Fall of the Media Establishment. Wadsworth/Thomson: Belmont, CA. 2001