Once upon a time, James Fallows wrote a mighty Atlantic cover story called "Why Americans Hate the Media". In it, he argued (persuasively) that the American media focuses mainly on the game of politics -- who's winning, candidates' strategies, and superficial analysis -- that really only interests the political and media elites themselves. He might as well have predicted that Americans would begin tuning out en masse and finding alternative outlets that, in turn, would reinforce their existing worldviews.
A few days ago, the Project for Excellence in Journalism released a new report on the coverage of the 2008 presidential campaign showing fairly conclusively that not much has changed since Fallows wrote his piece in 1996:
In all, 63% of the campaign stories focused on political and tactical aspects of the campaign. That is nearly four times the number of stories about the personal backgrounds of the candidates (17%) or the candidates’ ideas and policy proposals (15%). And just 1% of stories examined the candidates’ records or past public performance, the study found.
All of these findings seem to be at sharp variance with what the public says it wants from campaign reporting. A new poll by The Pew Research Center for the People and the Press conducted for this report finds that about eight-in-ten of Americans say they want more coverage of the candidates’ stances on issues, and majorities want more on the record and personal background, and backing of the candidates, more about lesser-known candidates and more about debates.
The methodology is worth a glance, but it encompasses every major print, TV and radio news outlet -- and some minor ones too. Coverage is judged by a team of independent content analysts whose ratings have high intercoder reliability.
So, out of the candidates the media chooses to focus on, who's getting the kid gloves and who's feeling the press assault?
Just five candidates have been the focus of more than half of all the coverage. Hillary Clinton received the most (17% of stories), though she can thank the overwhelming and largely negative attention of conservative talk radio hosts for much of the edge in total volume. Barack Obama was next (14%), with Republicans Giuliani, McCain, and Romney measurably behind (9% and 7% and 5% respectively). As for the rest of the pack, Elizabeth Edwards, a candidate spouse, received more attention than 10 of them, and nearly as much as her husband.
Overall, Democrats also have received more positive coverage than Republicans (35% of stories vs. 26%), while Republicans received more negative coverage than Democrats (35% vs. 26%). For both parties, a plurality of stories, 39%, were neutral or balanced.
Most of that difference in tone, however, can be attributed to the friendly coverage of Obama (47% positive) and the critical coverage of McCain (just 12% positive.)
And now, back to your regularly scheduled campaign commentary!
The "brains" surrounding Hillary Clinton didn't make any friends last week at Conde Nast when they balked on a firm, longstanding commitment to let the candidate pose for Vogue, while the astute Julia Reed hung ten waiting to write about her and photog Annie Leibovitz had her cameras at the ready for nothing. Handlers for the senator suddenly decided Vogue would be "too elitist" and Hillary might come off as "too glamorous." Hmmm, after those hideous Al Gore-type pantsuits, like the one she wore at her 60th birthday fund-raiser, I think Mrs. Clinton could use a touch of glamour. Elitists vote too, you know.
Wait -- she's rejecting an offer to participate in a tightly controlled, media-constructed glamour boost? Is that your final answer, Hillary?
Much has been written about the Clinton propaganda machine and, more recently, the Obama PR coup running up to yesterday's MSNBC debate. With all the hype you'd think John Edwards' spinmeisters are holed up in a podunk shopping center in North Carolina somewhere.
Actually, they are. And when an enterprising student in the University of North Carolina journalism school pursued a hard-hitting video report on the choice of that apparently affluent location to house The Man From Poverty's campaign, she witnessed the full wrath of his public relations operation:
[Professor C. A.] Tuggle said they threatened to cut off access to Edwards for UNC student reporters and other student groups if the piece aired.
"My gosh, what are they thinking?" Tuggle said. "They're spending this much time and effort on a student newscast that has about 2,000 viewers? They're turning a molehill into a mountain."
Behold the ruthless Edwards campaign. Ready to root out negative press, no matter how trivial or banal. No dicking around with glossy effluvia -- like men's fashion magazines.
Q: Brian Williams, I'm curious, when can we expect the first commercial break during this MSNBC presidential debate?
A:We have built two or three rather short breaks into tonight’s program, this two-hour debate tonight. And we’re going to choose to take the first of them right now, mostly so everyone can take a breath, on this hot stage, on this otherwise cool night in Philadelphia. We will continue with our debate, from the campus of Drexel University in Philadelphia, right after this.
Q: Hot? As in Dennis Kucinich's wife?
A:This is what happens late at night in a hot room.
... Think you could check him out? I don't know him, or anything. He likes to collect butterflies, read radical texts and blow people up. A friend of a friend, really. Hope that narrows things down a bit: "A friend of a friend of mine is a member of al Qaeda involved in a bombing in Bali," [Japan's justice minister Kumio] Hatoyama said, adding the alleged member of the terrorist network had gone in and out of Japan a number of times two or three years ago.
Later on Monday, Hatoyama held another news conference and tried to clarify his comments, saying, "I am not a friend of the terrorist and I do not know him personally."
According to Hatoyama, he does know a man in a butterfly collectors group he belongs to who said he received a message from a man believed to be involved with a terrorist organization.
It's been a tough month for us Swiss, countering (or, in my case, admitting the truth of) notions that our tiny nation's people are a generally insular, xenophobic lot whose demeanor is shaped more by the motherland's slowly melting glaciers than its abundance of sweet, succulent milk chocolate.
But it turns out they also happen to be extremely healthy. Finally some flattering news, confirming what I've insisted for years: Switzerland has the best darn health care system in the world. You wouldn't know that from Sicko, because the Swiss distrust their government almost as much as we do and prefer their health care delivered in nice, privatized packages.
Which is presumably why the Bush administration is sending Health and Human Services Secretary Michael O. Leavitt to see what's so great about the Swiss (and the Dutch, but we'll ignore them for now). He wouldn't admit as much, but Mitt Romney's Massachusetts health care plan (and Arnold Schwarzenegger's in California) was heavily influenced by the consumer-based, private system that Switzerland boasts, and the basic ideas have been promoted on both the left and the right for some time. Now, of course, these ideas are the sole domain of the Democratic candidates for president.
It's almost the kind of development that makes you wonder if there's a consensus building in Washington.
You'd think with a widely publicized hunting trip on the horizon, and frothy-mouthed media mavens eagerly clawing for post-buckshot story material, that Dick Cheney's entourage would have at least scrubbed the Clove Valley Rod and Gun Club for controversy before his arrival.
Apparently Confederate Heritage Month came early this year in rural New York, as it often does, and Mr. Cheney's hunt-crisis-management office is again fighting an impending public firestorm after a photographer spotted a Dixie battle flag hanging in the gun club's garage. Can this story get any better? Darth Vader hates Muslims, eats babies and supports slavery!
No one so far has pointed out the obvious, which is that hunting folk north of the Mason-Dixon line don't tend to pine for the Lost Cause ... but then again, neither do wine-swilling Californians married to French imperialists.
"I am calling on Vice President Cheney to . . . denounce the club and apologize for going to a club that represents lynching, hate and murder to black people," the Rev. Al Sharpton said in a statement.
In Lesley Stahl's segment with "Sarko the American" in Sunday's 60 Minutes, the French president smoothly deflected a question about his personal life ... by removing his mic, standing up and shaking the visibly flummoxed reporter's hand before walking off with his entourage. There was a time when American presidents were supposed to be the ones with bad manners -- but now, it seems, that most American of French leaders is beating us at our own game. See his performance in all its glory:
After reading David Brooks's column today -- one of his periodic forays into amateur pop psychology, this time poking literary fun at all the confusing little gizmos that have irreversibly altered our lives -- I'm tempted to imagine his reaction upon discovering the Internet.
Was it a pleasant experience, inspiring him to write of this bold new frontier, a medium whose limitless possibilities will fundamentally define our character for this next American century? Or perhaps it disturbed him, prompting him to worry that we're in effect uploading our civil society where it can only be viewed through a Web browser, in a form that even Tocqueville, logged in through a prison computer, would never recognize today?
Whatever he thought then, his attention has since moved on to GPS systems and iTunes, and the idea that we're dependent on technology to the point where we rely on it not only to tell us what we want to know, but what we want. Wielding his well-worn rhetorical playbook, Brooks writes: "Wherever there is a network, I’ll be there. Wherever there’s a TiVo machine making a sitcom recommendation based on past preferences, I’ll be there. Wherever there’s a Times reader selecting articles based on the most e-mailed list, I’ll be there."
Well, he's there all right, sitting at #1 on the Most E-mailed list, just as he preordained. I'd speculate about whether Brooks is prescient, but unfortunately his predictive powers don't extend much further than the reading habits of New Yorkers.
Senators, take note: If you need an American hero to honorably defend the use of torture, call Jack Bauer. Next season on 24: truth, justice, the American way, and the vicarious thrill of mutilating bad guys! Check out the trailer (less-annoying YouTube version below), which, besides confirming that the show has officially jumped the shark (if it hadn't already), features a Congressional hearing that I'd love to see in real life:
I guess I'm just surprised that the show is again tackling the issue of torture. It's done it all before, to the point where the executive producer finally admitted last season that it was getting old. Is it just something that viewers don't tire of? Maybe -- whether and under what circumstances torture is acceptable is far from settled in this country. Ask Michael Mukasey.
The Evolution of John McCain continued yesterday as the senator backed out of voting -- either yea or nay -- on the DREAM Act, which he had previously sponsored. He could have voted if he'd wanted to, of course; the New York Sun reports that he "rearranged his campaign schedule to return to Washington yesterday for a vote on a judicial nomination, but he did not stick around for a key vote just an hour later."
Why would a man who staked part of his presidential ambitions on defending a path to legal citizenship duck out of a fairly unobjectionable piece of that agenda? DREAM would allow illegal immigrants who came to America before they were 16 (i.e., with their parents) to apply for legal residency as long as they've lived here for five years and have been through two years of college.
The problem for Fred Thompson and the other immigration panderers in the Republican field is that people who'd benefit from the law are precisely those who don't fit the mold of the lazy Mexican who speaks no English and brings disease over the border.
It doesn't matter, though. McCain has proved, again, the limits of his principles in the face of competitive pressure.
SEATTLE -- The Washington State flag bears the likeness of our first president, a man who voluntarily stepped down from office in the hope that his seat would never resemble a throne. How depressing, then, that until this year the logo of King County (home of Washington's largest city) was a crown: George Washington, if he weren't already invincible, would be turning over in his grave.
Did Seattle come to its senses? Not really. Instead, the county decided to "rename" itself after Martin Luther King Jr., a man who had little connection to the area and whose civil rights campaign might as well have never existed for residents of the Northwest. Forget the crown: the new logo, unveiled this year, features Dr. King's face.
The Reverend now presides over a city with a colorblind school system.
(The Seattle Monorail and the Space Needle contributed research for this blog post.)
Political operatives used to be content dredging up the dead to stuff the ballot box. Cold hard stiffs, however, aren't as useful when it comes time to raise cold hard cash. (Blame the death tax!) Fortunately, some especially fertile donors have hit upon a solution: writing checks for their young children.
The Washington Post, for instance, found a two-year-old generous enough to donate the maximum $2,300 to Barack Obama. ("Obama Baby" YouTube video forthcoming? Who wants to bet how long it'll take?) In completely unrelated news,
the amount written by those identifying themselves as students on contribution forms has risen dramatically this year, according to an analysis by the Center for Responsive Politics. During the first six months of the 2000 presidential campaign, students gave $338,464. In 2004, that rose to $538,936.
This year, the amount has nearly quadrupled, to $1,967,111.
The Post explains why all this is happening:
Congress tried to outlaw political contributions from those under age 18 as part of the McCain-Feingold Act in 2002, but the Supreme Court struck down that provision as an infringement on the constitutional rights of minors. With that ruling in mind, the Federal Election Commission wrote new regulations two years ago that tried to balance what it considered a legitimate desire among some children to make political contributions against the possibility that parents would seek to pad their donations by funneling money through children.
If you build a wall, they'll find a way around it. My brother's dog tends to lean Democratic, by the way....
The latest Dutch import to these shores is a Kurt Cobain lookalike who can levitate himself using the powers of his mind, or something. Watch what happens when he does it in front of the White House:
Can you figure out how he does it? And if the White House can play host to a flying, unkempt Dutchman, can bipartisan unity be far behind?
(Or is this all a distraction from more pressing domestic and international issues? Hey, worked for me.)
J.P. is right on about Hollywood's supposed aversion to moral issues or Christian themes. Did anyone at the Values Voter summit see The Passion of the Christ?
Studio executives certainly did. Almost immediately after the stunning success of Mel Gibson's film, Hollywood began looking for the next big religious hit. Who wouldn't? We're a nation of Christians; why not try to cash in on the greatest stories ever told? (Answer: Historically, Hollywood has. The Ten Commandments ... It's a Wonderful Life ... The Greatest Story Ever Told....)
That's why The Nativity Story was rushed to screens -- amid several competing nativity scripts circulating around Hollywood -- in 2006. (It was generally considered a flop.) Philip Anschutz has been financing Christian-themed movies for several years, and while he might not be considered part of the "elite," you can bet they paid attention to the success of the first Chronicles of Narnia installment.
Before Stephen Colbert ever threw his hat in the ring, everyone's favorite childhood humor columnist had already announced -- via McClatchy Newspapers -- his intention to run for president. Shunning TV debates, Dave Barry is going directly to the people by answering questions from readers:
Q: When elected, will you by presidential mandate redesign the Food Pyramid? It’s a disgrace. The big part at the bottom contains radishes, broccoli and artichokes. All the good stuff such as cheese and butter only gets that tiny little triangle at the top.
A: When I am president we will have a Food Trapezoid, which will be at least 80 percent beer.
This all begs the question: Was Dave Barry ever funny?
No matter what your political leanings, it was an exciting weekend for democracy around the world. Let's recap:
-- Polandforcibly tears apart its ruling Siamese twins -- former child actors the Kaczynski brothers, who grip both the presidency and the premier's office with their vindictive claws -- by ousting the prime minister and giving a plurality of seats to the free-market, pro-European Union Civic Platform party. Analysts expect warmer relations with Brussels and a ticket back to Poland for its 900 troops stationed in Iraq. (In related news, confused Polish grandmothers seem to have misplaced their ID cards.) (In other related news, Poland's youth is awesome. Instead of riot on the street to protest job uncertainty, they peacefully vote in a bunch of guys who want to cut taxes. And they steal their grandmothers' ID cards.)
-- Switzerland rediscovers its xenophobic roots, and junks its rule-by-consensus tradition, by awarding the anti-immigrant Swiss People's Party the largest share of any party in the lower house (which allocates seats proportionally) since World War I. "Foreigners" (as non-citizen residents are commonly called) should keep a leash on their children: if a new measure is enacted, entire families could get deported for the actions of their "black sheep" children. The party's other proposal is to ban the construction of minarets on mosques. Immigrants needn't worry, however; there are plenty of other European countries in which to seek refuge ... except France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, Denmark, Hungary, Spain....
-- The United States of America (or, as much of it as could fit into the Washington Hilton) takes a straw poll and finds that Mitt Romney will be the next president ... if liberals, Catholics, Protestants, Jews, and Wall Street Republicans all stay home next November, and if pro-Mitt religious conservatives can stuff the ballot online the week before.
-- China's Communist Party adds four leaders to the Politburo Standing Committee, which is chosen by the Central Committee, which is chosen by the Party Congress ... or something.
It's an ironclad rule of politics that every movement loves to parade its converts. For this crowd, even a Spanish-speaking actor from Mexico can be embraced ... as long as he embraces Jesus.
Religious right, meet your favorite man from down under: Eduardo Verástegui, star of the movie Bella.
Out among the various exhibitors here at the Washington Briefing (the usual suspects: Exodus, the foundation for sexual orientation rehabilitation, was "out" in full force) stands a lone man selling the lessons of his life. He grew up in Baltimore County and has a message about conservatism that he hopes will galvanize poor blacks to take control of their lives -- and join the Republican Party, of course.
This is not a message too many people will be receptive to, but I had a nice conversation nonetheless with David S. Higgins, the author of Poor, Black, and Conservative. He told me about what he sees as a correlation between liberal policies and the eroded social fabric in cities such as New Orleans and Baltimore. (It wasn't an especially rigorous analysis, but he showed the zeal of the convert, and who can argue with that?)
So I had to ask: What does he think of HBO's The Wire? Higgins said it was an accurate picture of the social and political conditions of inner-city Baltimore ... and the failure of liberal governance to solve its problems. This view isn't shared by the show's creators, self-professed liberals all, but they likely harbor the same cynicism toward grand reformational schemes.
When I asked Higgins how conservative policies could solve the problems of a place like East Baltimore, he talked mainly about the beneficial effects of a strict justice system on crime. I think a closer look would reveal, as The Wire dramatizes, that just such a system -- like the war on drugs -- perpetuates the cycle of poverty rather than helping people lift themselves out of it.
"Please know this: You have absolutely nothing to fear from me," Mayor Giuliani tried to reassure the values voters. Liberals are emphatically not comfortable with him, he claimed. "If you think that, just read any New York Times editorial while I was mayor of New York City."
What, you mean like this one ("Mr. Giuliani should be applauded for talking about workfare seriously")? Or this one ("Mayor Rudolph Giuliani has engineered a constructive first step toward deficit reduction")?
Romney's running against his state, Rudy against his city. The mayor's problem, though, is that more liberal New Yorkers than he'd care to admit privately believed he was doing necessary work to clean up their city -- enough New Yorkers, as it happens, to elect and then re-elect him. Even that perennial flogging horse, The Times, hasn't hesitated to point that out.
The schizophrenic nature of conservatives' attitude toward the media was on full display this morning during a panel called "Spin City: Countering the Media's Primetime Bias" at the Washington Hilton. Are the journalists dutifully covering the summit "remarkable professionals," as one announcer enthused, or are they just part of the "lame-stream media" (John Fund, showing off his best one-liner, apparently).
The event itself is largely a show for the media. Organizers rely on it. Yet the way to get the base riled up is to simultaneously rip on the media. It's more accurate to say that they love the conservative media and hate the MSM, but we're at the point where it's become a tic rather than a coherent criticism. All a panelist has to do is mention "The New York Times" or make a derisive sneer about the "mainstream media" -- which, like clockwork, sends the audience into fits of applause.
Kind of like the Hillary jokes, which still, some 10 years later, apparently provide speakers with well-worn (and well-received) material to be recycled, over and over, in the most environmentally conscious of ways. Mike Huckabee just came on stage and delivered possibly the third Florida ballot joke in the past hour. I guess it's kind of like liberals and O'Reilly and/or Bush bashing.
Rudy Giuliani gave a remarkable speech earlier this morning. It's a bit jarring to hear "America's Mayor" speak in such overtly religious terms, but there he was, talking about "my belief in God and my reliance on His values" and describing Christianity's foundation as "the most profound act of love in history."
He had to pull off a tricky balancing act before the "values voters," and he did as well as anyone could have expected. The pitch was clear: He cleaned up Times Square, got rid of the pornographers and made New York a safe city to visit. He and the religious conservatives may have differences on the legality of abortion, but they all want the number of abortions to decrease, right? An "80% friend" doesn't make him a "100% enemy," he said.
Throw in a few slightly veiled jabs at Mitt Romney ("I'll always be honest with you"), some references to Ronald Reagan and a strong verbal commitment to Israel and the war on terror, and his entreaty to social conservatives was complete.
Giuliani delivered it with what appeared to be genuine sincerity, but speaking so openly about God obviously makes him feel uncomfortable. He referred continually to written notes -- a sign that this was not his typical stump speech -- and spoke about being raised in an "environment" in which religious beliefs were expressed privately. The problem with this crowd, however, is that they won't buy a candidate who claims his upbringing some four decades ago made him reluctant to express his love for God in public today. And the most stirring, religiously inspired speeches come from the heart, not prepared talking points.
At the end of the speech, Giuliani earned a standing ovation. But at the end of the day, there are other candidates who can offer similar assurances on Israel and terrorism -- and the conservative social agenda -- without the cultural baggage.
Our intrepidlivebloggers will have to settle for catching Tom Tancredo gorging on Mexican food or perhaps Sam Brownback straining to enjoy a victory lap.
For now, then, a preview of who might offer this afternoon's most interesting thought-fodder: Rep. Ron Paul, that populist libertarian who managed to out-fundraise John McCain last quarter by tapping his grassroots base of exotic dancers and unemployed capitalists.
Paul is arguably unique among modern presidential candidates as an advocate for federal restraint and constitutional checks and balances. This should be music to conservatives' ears, especially the values crowd that shares his views on abortion, gay marriage and immigration. But that's where it gets unpredictable: where a Tancredo or a Hunter would advocate federal measures to enact their moral program, Paul separates his personal views on social issues with the procedural barriers erected by the Founders.
So even if he believes marriage should be restricted to a union between a man and a woman, he'd never support a federal amendment saying so. Similarly, he believes abortion should be left to the states.
Beyond that, social issues don't seem to fire him up the way, say, the gold standard does. Does this mean he'll be met with skepticism when he speaks later today? Or will he be lauded for wanting to bring debates over morality back where they belong -- with individual communities and families?
Depends on what the values voters really want. If Pat Robertson's Regent University School of Law is any indication, they're more concerned with religious fealty than adherence to the Constitution. And there's those exotic dancers to worry about.
The New York Times reports today about conditions on the ground that could send Sen. John McCain lapsing into post-traumatic flashbacks:
With its early date, Southern location and reputation for road testing conservative credentials, the South Carolina primary is a proving ground for any Republican who longs to be president.
But as Mr. McCain seeks the Republican nomination again, the state is also a painful symbol of the brutality of American politics, the place that derailed his 2000 bid and, ultimately, helped reshape him into the candidate he is today.
While he may be all God and family at today's Washington Briefing festivities, McCain is haunted by the notion that many of these social conservatives are the same people who smeared him as an unpatriotic, gay father of illegitimate children as he fought Bush for the GOP nomination.
He would do well to remember the lessons from last time the Straight Talk Express descended upon that perilous territory, bogging down the campaign and spitting out his volunteer troops like so much 'baccy. Without an exit strategy or a plan to secure the region, McCain was reduced to a whimpering, shell-shocked mess.
This time he'll come prepared, and I'd recommend he borrow from another Southern Strategy that once proved so brutally effective: scorched earth. General Sherman, meet General McCain.
