Media Watch

In making her point, Toner compares the similarities between Obama and Michael Dukakis, the 1988 Democratic-nominee who lost the election to Vice-President George H.W. Bush, which for my money was one of the worst presidential campaigns in modern history. Toner writes:

Like Mr. Dukakis in 1988, Mr. Obama is relatively new to the national scene, and thus vulnerable to being defined by Republican attacks. And like Mr. Dukakis, Mr. Obama lacks experience with the politics of wedge issues on a national stage.

She also writes that "one of the clearest strategic errors of 1988 was the Democrats' failure to realize that such attacks could stick and open the door to broader efforts to portray Mr. Dukakis as fundamentally out of sync with the nation's values." Dukakis made a pledge at the beginning of the campaign not to respond to negative ads, trusting the voters to see through the muck. Part of the trust was based on the assumption that the media would play the role of fact-checker, correcting any distortion of the records of the candidates running for the presidency. A stupid assumption that cost Dukakis dearly.

It is the complicity of the media to shy away from its sacred trust with the American public not to play proxy to any political campaign--and to keep Americans informed of the truths and falsities stemming from the candidates and their supporters.

To underscore this point, we need to return to 1988 to demonstrate just how the media helped candidate Bush win the presidency. What follows next is an examination of that election cycle, by first looking at the Democratic Primary and how Dukakis won, followed by an examination of how the press--moreso than the Bush campaign--rubbed Dukakis out.

Dukakis Becomes the Nominee

This would be an election cycle that was one bad mishap after another for the Democrats. It began with the choice of Dukakis as the nominee--a man not on anyone's radar at the start of the pre-convention process.

In 1987, looking ahead at who would be the likely nominee for both Parties, nearly everyone assumed that the Democrats would choose Gary Hart, a young and attractive Senator from Colorado who performed well in the 1984 race to the Convention. Many compared Hart to JFK, and when the Democrats failed to recruit Mario Cuomo, the popular Governor of New York, attention turned to Hart. In the spring, 1987, rumors circulated that Hart was having an affair with his secretary Donna Rice, which he not only denied, but also took the bold step of daring reporters to "(F)ollow me around. I don't care. I'm serious. If anybody wants to put a tail on me, go ahead. They'll be very bored." a few days later, this picture appeared:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EC9j6Wfdq3o



This allowed Bush to follow up the ad with attacks or gimmicks of his own. As the "New York Times" story notes, Bush charged: "I simply can't understand the kind of thinking that let's first-degree murderers out of jail on a furlough..." In fact, this line of attack was a staple of any campaign stop the Bush-Quayle team made, often coupled with this yarn, told by Kathleen Hall Jamieson of the Annenberg School:

Bush reinforced the notion that these were weekend events by averring that he says to criminals, "Make my day!" while Dukakis says, "Have a nice weekend!"

A gimmick common in campaign stops would feature some police union endorsing VP Bush, such as the Boston police union, which featured a police officer who explained why he or she supported VP Bush: "We're sick and tired of all these drug addicts and all these furloughs for murderers out in the state and we felt we had to send a message."

The thing about the Willie Horton controversy is that very little of the issue, as told by the Republicans and repeated verbatim by the MSM, was true. As Kathleen Hall Jamieson and Paul Waldman document in their very good book, The Press Effect, the Republicans completely distorted the issue for political gain and the news media--both the media from MA and the national media rarely offered a correction or criticism despite knowing the facts for themselves.

The Facts?

• "Willie" never called himself Willie--William was his name and that is what he used. "Willie" was used to make him appear more "black," reinforcing the image that most Americans have of African-Americans (to the fault of local television) that they commit the majority of all crimes in the US.
• He was not a murderer. Horton had been convicted as an "accessory to a felony murder" by acting as a get away driver in a robbery where someone ended up dead. In fact, VP Bush often claimed that Horton had been "found guilty of murdering and torturing a 17 year old kid" despite no evidence to support that claim. As Jamieson and Waldman note, the "Bush campaign whispered to the reporters that Horton had cut off the kid's genitals and stuffed them in his mouth."
• Bush claimed that Horton had jumped furlough and killed more than once, which was not true.
• The furlough program was not unique--there was a similar one in all 50 states and one at the federal level with the approval of the Reagan administration's Justice Department. Furthermore, the furlough program established in MA was not created by Dukakis, but instead was started by his predecessor--a Republican.

So why did either of these two issues work where in one case (Horton) the media knew that Bush and his surrogates were distorting the truth (and in some cases outright lies) and in the other case could have challenged the Bush campaign's emphasis on the symbolic by pressing them on the issues?

The answer? The media refused to be the heavy. When Michael Dukakis swore off slinging mud, and not answering lies with the truth, the media simply did not play the role public agent. This election, as mentioned above, was at the crux of the "liberal media" attack, and thus the media decided--seemingly as a collective--that they would not act in Dukakis's place, which ran the risk of confirming for the Republicans that they favor Democrats, which 1) certainly is not the case and 2) the conservatives already believed the bias anyway (my apologies--there was a sale on "which's" this week).

Hence it is no mystery that the Democrat who did win the presidency--Bill Clinton--established a War Room for the purpose of answering any and all Republican attacks against them, simply not taking on faith that the media would feel obligated under the First Amendment to set the record straight. And the Democrats who lost? Well look at the Kerry campaign and the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. They gained traction because Kerry refused to answer their attack ads until it was too late.

In conclusion, when you read Ms. Toner's "memo," keep in mind what I have written above, and ask yourself what is missing? Despite 20 years of case studies and other research pointing to the media effect in 1988, the media still refuses to accept that it is a variable to be exploited--and for 20 years, the Republicans have been far better at exploiting the media than the Democrats. Since the media won't do it, I encourage you to draw whatever lessons from this that you wish--and share, if you get the chance!

Joe Nocera, the business reporter for the "New York Times" writes today about a new morning show produced by WNYC, a public radio station in New York City that produces and broadcasts "On the Media" (which is, for my money, one of the best critical media programs in the country).

The new show, which will run head to head against NPR's "Morning Edition," is titled "The Takeaway." In order to downplay the focus on the new show as a competitor to "Morning Edition," Laura Walker, the president and CEO of WNYC claims that they are only in it to offer listeners a choice because "Morning Edition" has reached the limits of what it can do and may not be the right sort of news program for the 21st century (again, not get the false impression that The Takeaway is striving to take its place).

If "Morning Edition" has any problems, it isn't one that has anything to do with being stale, but instead everything to do with trying to mimic the kind of garbage we get on any morning television news program, with funny banter between two cookie cutter hosts and a slate of stories that mixes the serious with the fluff. If you want verification that any loss in listeners that "Morning Edition" has suffered over the course of the last few years, then look at the growth in audience size for "The Bob Edwards Show," which is broadcast by XM Radio. In fact, one of the reasons I went to XM was to be able to continue listening to Bob Edwards, who NPR, in a decision that amplified its stupidity, threw overboard in 2004 for their younger, hipper anchors who represent to me everything that is wrong with the mainstream media--particularly electronic media. NPR dumped a sure bet for two airheads that the NPR execs figured would best position them to attract younger listeners (with their disposable income). I can't believe it is a decision that has paid off.

I would expect--and hope--that more and more competition to both "Morning Edition" and "All Things Considered" would come from NPR affiliates all over the country. Thus "The Takeaway" should not be seen as an anomaly but rather a glimpse of things to come.

I will be sitting in as a guest tomorrow morning on the Friday Forum, a show sponsored by the local NPR affiliate in Oxford. You can catch it from 9-10 am (live) and 7-8 pm (repeat).

Yesterday I discussed the signing statement that President Bush issued to H.R. 1593, the "Second Chance Act of 2007" which was a reauthorization bill. I noted that this signing statement was what I call a "rhetorical" signing statement since it was purposively used by the administration to effect a wider audience--thus the signing statement acts as like a pebble dropped into a wading pool, with ripples emerging from where the pebble struck. The ripples, in this case, are the press releases that emerge from Congress and outside interests to generate far greater positive attention for the administration than simply working alone. And I was not disappointed. Since the bill was signed two days ago, a number of organizations have already issued press releases praising President Bush for his signature. A simple Google Search turned up these interest groups:

• The November Coalition
• PR-Inside
• Families Against Mandatory Minimums
• The Center for Moral Clarity
• Justice Fellowship
• The Council of State Governments
• Catholic Charities USA
• Volunteers of America

Many of these groups were then picked up in news stories about President Bush signing the law, thus reinforcing the positive press he received.

For those who wish to see a rare event for President Bush, I have just the thing for you. You are aware of the signing statement and its use by the Bush administration. The President signs a bill and then either qualifies or challenges various provisions of it. All well and good. But what you have not seen much of, in the way of the Bush administration's use of the signing statement, are those signing statements designed for rhetorical purposes.

I have classified the signing statement into two categories: rhetorical and constitutional. The constitutional category covers all signing statements where the president "interprets" or "challenges" one or many provisions of the bill. The president asserts this right by pointing to some part of the Constitution that empowers him. The rhetorical signing statement, on the other hand, makes no constitutional assertions, but is designed to appeal to either a mass or targeted audience. The president may single out individuals for praise or scorn, or the president may highlight his role in bringing all sides together for an important legislation.

Yesterday, the President signed HR 1593, the "Second Chance Act of 2007" which is aimed at giving "prisoners across America a second chance for a better life." Who could be against that?

This signing statement was accompanied with a formal signing ceremony and directed at a mass audience. How do I know this? First, where the ceremony was held. It was held in Room 350 of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, which is a large room designed to accommodate a lot of people, as indicated by this picture:



These formal signing ceremonies that are geared towards mass consumption also contain two other important ingredients: "real" people who benefit from the president's efforts and a smiling group of congresspersons standing behind the president as he signs the bill into law, demonstrating the legislative process by pictures

Real People:



And the smiling congresspersons:



The Bush administration, unlike their predecessors, have not had much use for the rhetorical signing statement which is odd given how it perfected the "staged" event. Nonetheless, the president may be attempting to change the perception that it is doing nothing while the economy falls down around it. Thus this opportunity was designed to make the president look both "presidential" and a "leader."

We all know how dominant character is for press reporting in the general election. Character trait--as giving an insight into the behavior of the future president--became central after James David Barber's seminal publication "Presidential Character" correctly predicted Nixon's malevolence. Barber argued that if you can correctly identify what type of character traits the candidate has, you can uncover governing tendencies once that person wins office. Thus reporters, attempting to uncover those traits by probing all aspects of a candidate's life--what sort of student he or she was like, what publications or speeches he or she has written or given, etc--in an effort to predict the next Nixon. But Barber was right just once. What personal experiences the candidate has had does not always translate into the type of president he or she may be. But from a journalist's standpoint, talking about background or rowdy behavior is much easier than trying to distill the essence of a candidate's position on health care, international relations, or the budget deficit. And for the candidate, it means that it is more important to gloss over your past and stay free of gaffes for fear that the minor slip of the tongue can become a frame to evaluate your slipping chances to be the next president.

This comes to mind in looking at the problem Hillary has created for herself by embellishing her role in events from her past, and how much it parallels a different Democrat who had a similar problem.

Back in 2000, Al Gore was known to misconstrue some events from his past to the point it became a character problem. This was evaluated in Kathleen Hall Jamieson and Paul Waldman's 2002 book, "The Press Effect: Politicians, Journalists, and the Stories that Shape the Political World" (Oxford University Press). They argued that character was the dominant story of both candidates in the 2000 election--for Bush, it was his intellect that was questioned and for Gore, it was a "dishonest schemer who [presented] a false image to the public in order to advance [his] quest for power."

Thus early embellishments such as his role in bringing the Internet to the public and his grandmother singing the "Look for the Union label" song to him when he as a child would work towards the press framing Gore as saying anything to get elected--even if some things that got attributed to him were things he never said. This of course worked for the Bush campaign because they could use the frame against Gore--such as in the debate when Bush challenged Gore's numbers over Medicare, and claimed "fuzzy math" and said:

Look, this is a man who has great numbers. He talks about numbers. I'm beginning to think not only did he invent the Internet, but he invented the calculator.

But what we learned after the fact was the narrative blinded the press to the facts. First, Gore never said he "invented the Internet." He claimed that when he was in Congress, he took the initiative in creating the Internet, which is true. As a Senator, he led the drive to "democratize" the Internet, which at the time was available only to the government and some universities. And yet, as Jamieson and Waldman show, the claim that he "invented" the Internet showed up in 1700 articles between 1999 and November 2000.

Furthermore, the "New York Times" and the "Washington Post" both ran stories deflating claims that Gore supposedly made at an event before High School students that he was responsible for discovering and fixing the "Love Canal" environmental disaster in upstate New York. The High School students called a press conference to challenge both newspapers, arguing that Gore said nothing of the kind. And finally, there was consistently stories that Gore supposedly bragged that he and wife Tipper were the proto-types for the two main characters in the Eric Segal novel, "Love Story." This also was untrue as it pertained to Gore. Instead, a newspaper in Tennessee made this claim--not Gore--and Segal came forward and confirmed that the male character in the novel was partially based on Gore, who was a college chum at Harvard.

Because Gore was never able to get ahead of this narrative, it defined his him and his campaign, which should serve as a warning sign to Mrs. Clinton. She has had back to back news stories where she has had to provide a mea culpa over embellishments. The first occurred when she claimed that, as First Lady, she landed in Bosnia and had to depart the airplane running for cover as bullets rained down upon her and her daughter (and comedian Sinbad). Video, which surfaced quickly after, was the total opposite. And now she apparently relayed a story about a woman who was denied hospital treatment because she did not have insurance, which ultimately cost her not just her life but the life of her unborn baby. It seems that the story, while compelling, is not true. A Clinton spokesperson said:

It's not always possible to fully vet [these stories], but we try. For example, medical records are confidential. In this case, we tried but weren't able to fully vet the story.

If Mrs. Clinton were to win the nomination, I wouldn't be surprised to see this narrative in full force during the general election, employed by Senator McCain and Republicans outside his campaign. And it is a narrative that once in force is difficult to combat. As Gore found out during the 2000 campaign, the narrative of a "scheming liar" goes to the heart of who you are, and unlike the narrative to describe Bush (dunce), Gore was not likely to grow out of it. Malevolence is embedded in our DNA.

A wise sage once warned that you must be careful when picking fights with people who buy ink by the barrel when choosing to take on the press. Apparently the Bush administration has its reasons for singling out the "New York Times" today for a fight. I suppose at this juncture the administration is seeking to rally the base in order to awaken Republicans from the funk they have been in since the 2006 midterms.

The assault, which was linked right off the White House webpage, is titled "Setting the Record Straight: The New York Times Mistakes Its Own Blindness for Presidential 'Invisibility,'" and it even stoops low by referring to the Times as the "Old 'Gray Lady,'" a jab akin to "your mama wears army boots."

It seems that what got under Bush's skin was one article that appeared today by Sheryl Gay Stolberg titled "In Economic Drama, Bush is Largely Offstage" and attacking Bush for not being in tune with the economic hardships facing many Americans. An article, by the way, that was not even on the front page of the Times online. I suppose the administration felt this worked in its favor since anyone wishing to read the article for himself would probably give up after it was not located on the first page he came to in his online search. And the administration was not helping out by putting up a link of its own.

The article begins by citing Bush's surprise that gas prices were topping $4 a gallon, something he claims not to have heard from any of his "people." The article also cites Republicans who are critical of the President, including Kenneth Doberstein, who served as President Reagan's chief of staff in his second term. Doberstein says of Bush:

“He’s over there arguing about who should get into NATO, and the American people are focused on what’s in their pocketbooks. He has talked about the economy, but it is not viewed as being a satisfactory response. Unfortunately, the lasting image is of not knowing of $4-a-gallon gas.”

The administration makes no mention of Doberstein in their criticism of the article. Nor does it mention the criticism they received from another Republican--Peter King of New York--who blamed the President for allowing his surrogates to do the talking on the economy, something that also, in fact, has happened:

“I think for the most part the administration is doing the right thing in addressing the economic problems we have. But I think tactically it would be better if the president himself was more out front, rather than leaving it so much to Paulson. When there is a perceived national crisis, it’s important for the president to be the point man.”

I am not sure if the administration understood the point of the Times article--that the administration is doing any thing in order to avoid dealing with the hard questions of the economy, and it seems to me by attacking the Times publicly only makes their point. Those Americans who are suffering because of the terrible economy--with the Fed Chief declaring a recession--it really isn't going to matter much that the President recently took the heroic step in creating an "Advisory Council on Financial Literacy" that brings "together business experts and faith-based and non-profit organizations to develop recommendations to better educate Americans about matters pertaining to their finances and their future." Forgive us if we don't get off our repossessed couches and give you the credit you so "richly" deserve! And shame on the NY Times for not seeing your initiative!

One of the chronic complaints from critics of the electoral process in the United States is that television advertising plays a disproportionate role in who wins an election, and since television advertising costs so much money, it means that election results are skewed towards the well-financed campaigns. If a couple of long time political strategists have anything to do about it, that might be about to change.

If you watch the talking head cable shows or Sunday talk shows very much, you will recognize the names of Michael Murphy and Bob Shrum. Murphy has long been connected to Republican campaigns while Shrum has been connected with the Democrats, and the two have teamed up with an online advertising agency called Spot Runner to sell generic pre-packaged political ads that are affordable to any campaign--local, state, or national. Depending on what you need and what your budget is, you can either buy a pre-packaged advertisement that touts your credentials of tough on crime for as little as $500. If you want to create your own ad from start to finish, you can spend a couple thousand dollars using Spot Runner, still cheaper than contracting with any other advertising agency.

As Shrum notes:

There are 500,000 elections each year across the U.S., but the truth is, most of those candidates can't afford TV advertising. For better or worse, you're going to start seeing a lot more political TV spots, and I think that's better because this will democratize the system and level the playing field.

Ideally it would be great to see the government step in and mandate free airtime for candidates running for political office, or at the very least air time that costs a nominal fee--$500. In European systems, the government hands over huge blocks of time to the political parties and in some countries it is illegal for an individual candidate to run his own television advertisement. And here in the US--since the government supposedly controls the airwaves--it certainly has the power to make our elections more affordable for anyone to participate, and not just the wealthy few.

My guess is this new venture by the political marketing gurus will be most effective at the state and local level, where campaign budgets are much smaller, and not at the national level where the big money resides. But it is a welcome step nonetheless.

I was watching ABC News this evening and was piqued by two different things that appeared as part of two different stories. Story #1 highlighted a return of the barter economy in the US. For anyone who has family members who either survived the Great Depression or spent a substantial amount of time going to garage sales, they may wonder why I am writing about the barter economy in the past tense. Bartering is simply an act involving an exchange between two or more individuals whereby the "true" cost of a good is realized (what the consumer is willing to pay and what the producer is willing to sell and still make a profit). For those who studied the Soviet Union, you will remember the statistic that 1/3 of the Soviet economy was kept afloat via the underground, or "barter" economy.

So on ABC News tonight, they highlighted upper middle-class individuals in a mall who find out that they can actually negotiate with the staff for a reduced price on a particular good--bartering. Many admitted to having no ideal you could do that, and those who were told about it admitting to being too embarrassed to try. Yet the journalist reporting the story noted that retailers were seeing more people who are negotiating the "suggested retail price," a result of what "some" call "the Ebay phenomenon." Since I generally pay attention to new theories surrounding human behavior, I wondered why I had not come across this particular "phenomenon," especially since so many ("some") were writing and talking about.

So I Googled the phrase "Ebay phenomenon," and I generally got a lot of hits to websites that tell you ways to make money on Ebay (hence anything whereby the average "schlub" can make a lot of money is regarded as queer or atypical, or as a "phenomenon"). A search of Lexis-Nexis turns up nothing related to a connection between using Ebay and bartering for merchandise, although it did turn up a similar story from a year ago--ironically enough on ABC News--about people making a lot of money after cleaning out their closets and selling their old stuff on Ebay.

No, this particular report, with its reference to "some" who are calling the new "bartering" phenomenon the "Ebay phenomenon" is actually a reference to one single story (sub. req.) that appeared today in the "New York Times." Titled EVEN AT MEGASTORES, HAGGLERS FIND NO PRICE IS SET IN STONE, reporter Matt Richtel explores this new trend in bartering, and even finds an expert to give him the full Monty. Richtel interviews "Nancy F. Koehn, a retail historian at the Harvard Business School (and they tell me that my research is too obscure), who tells us that

...the shift to bargaining in malls and on Main Street is a considerable change from even 10 years ago, Ms. Koehn said, when studies showed that consumers did not like to bargain and did not consider themselves good at it. “Call it the eBay phenomenon,” Ms. Koehn said.“The recession is helping to push these seedlings to the surface,” she added. “It’s a real turnabout on the part of the buyer and the seller.”

If I were to be a curmudgeon, I might think that this story was pushed onto ABC News by retailers battling a sluggish economy, looking at any way possible to bring bodies back to the stores, but I am not that cynical.

What should not escape notice, however, is how we should question any report that refers to the allusive "some" or "they," as in "they say..."

The second ABC News story focused on one crackpot scientist who is debunking global warming (and previously debunked Hazard waste residuals and second hand smoke science). The story gave us no sense of just how much evidence exists that separates the two (on one side those who ring the alarm bells about global warming vs. those who tells us to sit tight and continue to buy Hummers). In fact, the story shows a "scientific" conference where this individual was speaking, whereby the conference hall was filled by applauding audience members as this guy spoke.

But this isn't what got my dander up. What did get my dander up (and onto the shoulders of my black T-shirt) was a website used by a researcher for an environmental friendly to find out how much corporate money these "scientists" are taking for speaking out against those who raise the kind of alarm bells that result in regulations and lawsuits. Why is there a need for this kind of third party information in the first place? Because the US media--in their desire for "objectivity," tells only two sides of a story without giving their audience any context for the information. Thus there can be a mountain of information on one side and a penny's worth of information on the other side, and our media will present the two as if they are equal. So when you ask why the US seems to be so far behind the rest of the industrialized world on the issue of global warming is because most Americans have been falsely led to believe that the evidence on that issue is up for debate.

Back to the website. The reporter continued to talk about this website but never once gave its name. They did, however, show a couple of video shots while the "tree hugging" researcher brought it up on his laptop. It is affiliated with Greenpeace, and it is called "Exxon's Secrets" that in this case shows how much money Exxon pays out to hired guns in academia for PR purposes. Try it out. Results might surprise you. Granted, this is not to suggest that you should read the data uncritically, but instead strive towards the more information you have, the better off you will be.

My thanks to the Cincinnati Enquirer's Gregory Korte for giving me a mention in his Monday column. Korte referenced the signing statement, and didn't stop where nearly every other reporter does, and that is at Pulitzer winner Charlie Savage.

Thanks Gregory.