Chapter 10 The News Media: Communicating Political Images

The news is mainly an account of obtruding events, particularly those that are timely,
dramatic, and compelling
These tendencies have their origins in a number of factors, the most significant of which
is that news organizations need to attract an audience in order to make a profit
News and public affairs outlets are known collectively as the press or the news media\
This chapter is going to talk about:

Initially tied to the nations political party system but gradually developed an
independent position

Traditional news organizations have faced increased competition for peoples

attention from cable and the Internet

Have several functionssignaling, common-carrier, watchdog, and partisan

The news audience has been shrinking and fragmenting

Historical Development: From the Nations Founding to Today

Alexander Hamilton persuaded John Fenno to start a newspaper, the

Gaztte of the
United States
, as a means of publicizing the policies of George Washingtons
administration

Thomas Jefferson, dismissed the Gazettes reporting as pure Toryism and

convinced Philip Freneau to start the
National Gazette
as an opposition paper

In this era of the partisan press, publishers openly backed one party or the other

With the invention of the telegraph, editors had access to breaking news about
events outside the local area

Power-driven printing press was equally important in that it enabled publishers to

print the newspapers more cheaply and quickly

A new style of reportingyellow journalismhad emerged as a way of selling

papers

The objective-journalism era

Led some publishers to devise ways of reporting the news more responsibly
Separate the newspapers advertising department from its news department,
thus reducing the influence of advertisers on news content
Objective journalism, which is based on the reporting of facts rather than
opinions and is fair in that it presents both sides of partisan debates
By the 1920s, hundreds of radio stations were broadcasting throughout the
nation
The government did not regulate radio broadcasting, and the result was chaos
Nearby stations often used the same or adjacent radio frequencies, interfering
with each others broadcasts
In 1934, Congress passed the Communications Act and created the Federal
Communications Commission to oversee the process
Television followed radio, and by the late 1950s, more than 90% of American
homes had a TV set
The Fairness Doctrine required broadcasters to afford reasonable
opportunity for the discussion of conflicting views of public importance
The objective-reporting model practiced voluntarily by the newspaper was
imposed by law on broadcasters
The Rise of the New News

During the era of objective journalism, the news was not entirely devoid
of partisanship

Nevertheless, it was usually difficult to tell from their news pages which
party they backed editorially

All of them highlighted the same national stores

Introduction of cable television was transmitted by privately owned write

rather than broadcast over the public airways

In the 1990s, the Internet emerged as ye another source of news and

political commentary

The capital investment can run into the tens of even hundreds of millions
of dollars, the Internet has a low cost of entry
Journalism and Politics

Although the media are not the main source of citizens political opinions, they are
the main source of peoples political perceptions

The news media operate as gatekeepers, they determine which events will be
covered and which ones will not

The news is shaped by the need of news organizations to attract and hold audience
for advertisers

The very definition of newswhat it is and what it is notis built around the need
to attract the audiences attention

This need leads journalists to cover what they call hard eventsdevelopments
that have taken a clear and definable shape within the past 24 hours

Yet journalists do not

completely neglect their duty to
inform the public

The Signaling Function

The medias
responsibilities include a
signaling
functionaltering the
public to important
developments as soon as
possible after they happen
The signaling function is
perfume largely by the
traditional mediathe
wire services, the daily
newspapers, and the television networks
In their capacity as signalers, the media have the power to focus the publics
attention
The term agenda setting has been used to describe the medias ability to
influence what is on peoples minds
By covering the same events, problems, issues, and leaderssimply by giving
them space or time in the newsthe media place them on the public agenda
Even when media portrayals are out of synch with reality, they have an
agenda-setting effect
In vie of the freedom and great number of news organizations, it might be
expected that Americans would be exposed to widely different versions of
national news

the opposite is true

Newspapers and broadcast outlets from coast to coast tend to highlight
national issues and events
Objective journalism is one reason that national news is everywhere pretty
much the same
Reporters at most US news organizations are expected to treat the political
parties and their leaders in a balanced way
Most news outlets lack the resources to gather news outside their own location

and rely for this coverage on the wire services, particularly the Associated
Press (AP)
Local television stations also depend on outside sources for their national
news coverage
Television production is hugely expensive, which limits the ability of local
stations to produce anything expect local news
With so little time for news, the days top stories tend to dominate the
newscasts of all networks
The Common-Carrier Function
The press also exercises a common-carrier function, serving as a conduit
through which political leaders communicate with the public
Citizens cannot support or oppose a leaders plans and actions if they do not
know about them, and leaders require news coverage if they are to get the
publics attention and support
National news focuses largely on the words and actions of top political leaders,
particularly the president
Although officials sometimes succeed in getting favorable coverage, two things
blunt their efforts to manage the news

One is journalists norm of partisan neutrality

Second, although news typically originates in the words and actions of

political leaders, they do not monopolize the news, particularly on
television

One indicator of this format is the shrinking sound bit in presidential

campaigns

In recent campaigns, the average sound bite has been less than ten
seconds

Journalists from politics differently than do officials

Framing is the process of selecting certain aspects of a situation and using

them as the framework for shaping the message

Whereas officials frame politics primarily in the context of the political

game

They focus on political strategy and infighting, portraying politics largely

as a struggle for personal power and competitive advantage

Journalists can report the gametelling the story of which side is

winning and which is losing in an election campaign or policy
disputewithout stepping outside the bounds of objective journalist

This portrayal primes the audience to view politicians more as

strategists than as leaders
The Watchdog Function
The American press has assumed responsibility for exposing incompetent,
hypocritical and corrupt officials.
In this watchdog function, the press stands ready to expose officials who
violate accepted legal, ethical or performance standards
The American news media have rightfully been called a fourth branch of
government
American journalists have not always vigorously fulfilled their watchdog
function
After 911, the news media stepped back from their watchdog role
However, the Iraq invasion was the exception rather than the rule
Journalists are typically skeptical of politicians motives and actions, an
outlook that deepened during the Vietnam War

Even since Watergate, the press usually has been quick to pounce on any sign
of public wrongdoing
The Internet, with citizens acting in the role of journalists, has expanded the
medias watchdog capacity
The Partisan Function
Traditionally, the partisan functionacting as an advocate for a particular
viewpoint or interesthas been the responsibility of political leaders,
institutions, and organizations
Today, the news mediaparticularly the newer of these mediaalso function
in that capacity
Traditional Media: Mostly Neutral

During the era of the partisan press, newspapers sought to guide their
readers opinion

Most newspapers also make the safe choice in elections; they endorse
incumbents of both parties with much greater frequency than they
endorse their challenges

The traditional broadcast television networks do not endorse candidates

and claim to be unbiased, although conservatives dispute the claim

Until recently, the concerns of evangelical Christians were rarely a subject

of broadcast news except in the context of conflict-ridden issues like
creationism and abortion

Nevertheless, scholarly research does not support the allegation that the
traditional media have a substantial and systematic liberal bias

In fact, the television-age president with the worst press coverage was a
Democrat, Bill Clinton

Instead of a strong partisan bias, scholars have highlighted a different

kind of network biasthe networks preference for the negative

The news turned negative at the time of Vietnam and Watergate and has
stayed that way

Over the years, press coverage of Congress has moved from healthy
skepticism to outright cynicism

The networks negativity helps to explain why they are widely perceived
as biased

Research indicates that negative news is perceived differently by those

who support and those who oppose the politician being attacked

Opponents tend to see the criticism as valid whereas supporters tend to

see it as unjustified and therefore biased
Talk Shows: Mostly Conservative

The broadcast networks partisan biasreal and perceivedhas been an

issue for conservatives at least since 1970 when Republican vice
president Spiro Agnew called the networks nattering nabobs of
negativism

On both radio and

television, most of the
successful partisan talk
shows have been hosted
by conservatives

The other two cable news

outlets, CNN, MSNBC,
responded by hiring talk
show hosts of their own,

although they chose different marketing strategies

CNN had a diverse set of hosts while MSNCS has cast itself as the
liberal alternative to FOX
The Internet: Mostly Liberal

Although the 1st

Amendment protects each individuals right to press
freedom, this right in practice was once reserved for a tiny few

Today, because of the Internet, freedom of the press is actively enjoyed by

a larger number of Americans than ever before

It provide the ordinary citizen with an opportunity to be part of the news

system

It has allowed them to engage in unprecedented levels of organizing and

fundraising

When it comes to news, the Internets contribution is not as unique

Although there are literally hundreds upon hundred of websites where

news is regularly posted and examined, Internet news is characterized by
what analysts call the long tail

When news-based websites are arrayed by the number of visitors to each

site, there are a few heavily visited sites on one end and thousands of
lightly visited sites on the other endthe long tail

Some blogs also have substantial audiences, although nothing on the scale
of the largest traditional outlets

Unlike talk shows, most of the successful blogs have a liberal bias

An exception to the liberal bent of the blogosphere is the conservative

Drudge Report, founded by matt Drudge, which gained fame in 1998
when it revealed that President Bill Clinton had an affair with a White
House intern, Monica Lewinsky
The News Audience

The old media system was dominated by the broadcast networks

They had huge daily audiences, enabling them to alter Americans of all ages classes
to the same events

They also provided a platform for political leaders who, through a single statement
or event, could reach tens of millions of citizens

The audience for news and public affairs is far more fragmented than it was a few
decades ago

The audience is spread across dozens of outlets that vary widely in how they
present politics, how they portray political leaders, and what aspects of politics they
highlight

America today has a high-choice media system, one in which peoples media
exposurewhat they see and hear, as well as what they choose not to see and
hereis largely within their control

The Partisan Divide

Americans increasingly rely on sources that communication information that
supports what they already believe

The Information Divide

Although it might be assumed as a consequence that Americans are more
informed about public affairs than ever before, it is not the case
The effect has been to divide Americans in how much attention they pay to
news and how much they know about politics