CANDIDATES’ USE OF NEWS MEDIA

CANDIDATES’ USE OF NEWS MEDIA

Setting the Agenda

Campaign strategists devote considerable energy to examining how to most effectively use news coverage to create a positive and electable image of their candidate. This is both much cheaper and more believable than using

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advertising. Use of the news for political gain can be done in many different ways, some of which are an integral part of the daily life of newsmakers. For example, an elected official may have more or fewer news conferences, depending on the desire for coverage. An incumbent has considerable advantage over the challenger in such matters. For example, while Democratic presidential candidates were squabbling among themselves in early summer 1972, Republican candidate (and incumbent president) Richard Nixon captured media attention with his historic trip to China. His landmark voyage opened up the world’s largest country to the West and contrasted sharply to the petty bickering of his Democratic opponents attacking each other in their primary campaigns. Ronald Reagan tried to divert media attention from the unfolding Irancontra scandal in early 1987 by becoming more active and outspoken in seeking an arms control agreement with the Soviet Union, His historic trip to Moscow in spring 1988 contrasted to the Democratic primary squabbles going on at the time.

In any political system, but especially in totalitarian ones, it is not uncommon for a leader to whip up support and mute discontent by emphasizing or even provoking a foreign “enemy” Iraq, under Saddam Hussein, and Iran, under the Ayatollah Khomeini, periodically invoked the American “bogey man” to distract from dissatisfaction with failing domestic policies and political repression, whereas Argentina’s military government in part provoked the Falklands/Malvinas War with Britain in 1982 to unite the country and mute criticisms of the economy and its own major human rights abuses. In the Cold War era, right-wing dictatorships used to blame all of their problems on communism, whereas communist states blamed the American CIA or international capitalism.

Candidates help to set an agenda by telling us what issues are important in the campaign. Ronald Reagan in 1980 and 1984 told us that it was important to “feel good” about America, and that struck a responsive chord in a nation weary of inflation, Watergate, and international terrorism. The same appeal by George H.W.Bush in recession-weary 1992 failed to resonate with voters who did not “feel good” about their economic distress. In 1984 Walter Mondale tried unsuccessfully to argue that honesty was an important issue, even to the point of saying that he might have to raise taxes. It is a reality that, in setting the agenda in terms of issues, candidates must consider not only what they believe is important, but also what they believe the public wants to hear.

Framing the Candidates Pinocchio and Dumbo. Candidates can come to have a prevailing image

that becomes the frame through which their actions are viewed. For example, in the 2000 U.S. Presidential election, Democrat Al Gore came to have the

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“lying panderer” or “Pinocchio” frame, while Republican George W.Bush had the “inexperienced dolt” or “Dumbo” frame (Jamieson & Waldman, 2003). Bush was seen as more trustworthy and Gore as more knowledgeable. Such frames may evolve from the media’s attempt to play amateur psychologist and identify and explore the candidates’ character. All too often, however, the deep probing of character and its potential effects on qualifications for office do not occur, leaving the frame with a life of its own with everyone interpreting the candidates’ actions simplistically around it.

Because of the Pinocchio frame, Al Gore’s statements were scrutinized much more carefully than George Bush’s for possibly misleading information. For example, Gore was often chastised for claiming to having invented the Internet. His actual statement, made in an interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, was, “During my service in the U.S. Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet” (Jamieson & Waldman, 2003, p. 48), reflecting that he had in fact played a large role in securing funding for expanding that new system. Once the word “invented” became a part of that statement, however, there was no correcting it. Because of the wellknown principle of thought, the confirmation bias, we tend to seek, notice, and remember information consistent with our prior beliefs and forget or ignore information incongruent with those same beliefs.

On the other hand, George Bush’s malapropisms like “misunderestimate” were given much more attention than Gore’s. The confirmation bias is also at work here with both journalists and the public. Bush’s, but not Gore’s, speech errors were front-page news, as was his poor performance on an impromptu test of naming world leaders.

These frames are reinforced not only by many journalists but also by comedians. David Letterman and Jay Leno continually poked fun at Bush’s intelligence and speech and at Gore’s exaggerations and stiffness. Since the early nineties, TV comedy and talk shows have become increasingly important formats not only for what they say about the candidates but also as expected venues for the candidates to visit. In recent elections, visiting Jay Leno and MTV has been as necessary as visiting the Iowa caucus and New Hampshire primary Some have argued that this development only goes to show that political news, and perhaps news more broadly (e.g., John Stewart’s satirical news “The Daily Show”), has become subordinate to entertainment and just another part of television’s overriding aim of entertaining its audience (Taylor, 2000).

Changing Frames. Sometimes for various reasons a frame may become undesirable or cease to be useful. One of the most dramatic illustrations of this occurred in the U.S. in 2001. Although the dim, inexperienced “Dumbo” image of George W.Bush persisted several months into his Presidency, the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 changed all that. Suddenly, we did

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not want Dumbo or the Sheriff of Mayberry leading us in those tragic times where difficult decisions had to be made. Overnight, the descriptions of Bush in the press radically changed. His speech errors were no longer noted. He was described with new language, like “eloquent,” “thoughtful,” and a “strong leader,” Many wrote about how the President had been transformed by September 11, but there are some good arguments that it was actually the reporters who had been transformed (Jamieson & Waldman, 2003). Comedians also changed; Bush was the butt of 32% of all late-night jokes in 2001 up until September 11, but only 4% thereafter

Although the predominant frame before the attacks was Dumbo, afterwards we did not want to think of our leader in that way, so the idealized frame of the wise and strong leader took hold. Using the confirmation bias, reporters and the public noted Bush’s statements and behaviors that fit this new image and neglected those congruent with the old Dumbo frame.

Creating Pseudo-Events

In case normal news coverage is not enough, “pseudo-events” may be created to capture media coverage and, in effect, produce many hours of free advertising. For example, when Bob Graham ran for governor of Florida in 1978, he began as an unknown state legislator with 3% name recognition and 0% of the projected vote. How he overcame this was largely due to his “work days” project. During the campaign he worked for 100 days doing different jobs around the state, one job per day, apparently to learn the demands and needs of different sectors of the electorate. These were heavily covered by the media and worked greatly to Graham’s advantage, in spite of the obvious self-serving motivation behind them. He defused some of the predictable criticism of opportunistic gimmickry by dressing appropriately and actually working a full eight hours on each job. The first nine days were done before the media were invited in, so Graham had time to fine-tune his procedure. Photos from the work days were of course used in his campaign advertising, but, more importantly, they were also widely covered as news. In his speeches he made references to insights he had gained from these days, and he continued them intermittently after becoming governor, all in all confirming the impression that he had actually learned from them and was not merely dealing in transparent political grandstanding. All in all, it was a brilliant example of the use of news media for one’s own political gain; no amount of paid advertising could have bought what he gained for free in the news coverage.

Some new opportunities for pseudo-events appeared in the U.S. beginning in 1992 with the advent of “talk-show politics.” Candidates Clinton, Bush, and Perot all were interviewed on MTV, “Larry King Live” and other

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entertainment talk shows. In fact, these programs opened new avenues for the candidates to present themselves as “real people” who were very approachable. Lasting images remained from some of these appearances. When amateur musician Clinton donned sunglasses and played the saxophone with the band on “The Arsenio Hall Show,” the contrast of the energetic and hip young baby-boomer candidate with the aging and cautious George H.W. Bush and the stodgy and curmudgeonly Ross Perot was striking.

Creating pseudo-events can backfire, however. In 1988, modest-sized candidate Michael Dukakis sat in a tank to try to project a “strong on defense” image but instead looked more like a small turtle sticking his head out of a large shell. Likewise, Ivy Leaguer George Bush Sr.’s occasional attempts to don cowboy boots and eat pork rinds to appear like a “true Texan” did not always ring true. His son George W.Bush came across more believably in this role.

Dealing With Attacks From the Opponent

In the 1992 Democratic primary campaign, candidate Bill Clinton had been accused of an extramarital affair that allegedly occurred years before. The forum he chose to respond to this was a 60 Minutes TV newsmagazine interview where he and wife Hillary admitted that there had been “problems” in their marriage but said that those had been worked through and they were thoroughly reconciled. It was a masterful combination of confession and avoidance of admitting critical information. Clinton’s story of how his daughter Chelsea hugged him after hearing of the accusations melted people’s hearts. They were ready to forgive, interpreting what they saw on TV as sincere repentance and love for family. Shortly after the interview, the alleged affair ceased to be a campaign issue. It is hard to see how it could have been so effectively refuted and defused in a traditional press conference or political beat reporting interview. Later, when confronted with other allegations of personal and real estate scandal, Clinton apparently forgot his own lesson and did not meet criticism so directly.

How a political candidate responds to attacks from the opposition can be very important. Although an attack left unchallenged may be believed uncritically by the electorate, an overly vicious or petty response may actually engender support for the opponent. An incumbent has less flexibility than a challenger in handling attacks. In some cases it may be better to ignore or brush off an attack than to “dignify” it with a response, such as challenger Ronald Reagan’s oft-repeated “Well, there you go again” response to President Jimmy Carter in the 1980 debates. On the other hand, an incumbent’s attack on a challenger is not always so easily dismissed by the latter. Candidate Reagan’s criticism of President Carter in 1980 for the

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failure to bring home the Iranian hostages became a substantive one, in spite of the fact that neither he nor anyone else offered any idea of what could be done to free them.

There always exists the danger of a backlash of sympathy for the opponent if an attack is perceived as too unfair. This tends to keep potential mudslinging in check. However, sometimes this fear may also suppress useful dialogue. For example, in the 1988 Democratic primary other Democrats were somewhat reluctant to squarely attack Jesse Jackson, the only African-American candidate, for fear of being labeled racist. However, this caution also led to their being less public debate about Jackson’s platform. If a candidate is not attacked by opponents, the perception is of a less-than-serious campaign. In fact, if a candidate is far ahead in the polls, he or she usually refrains from attacking the opponent, because an attack only tends to legitimatize that opponent.

The Need to Be Taken Seriously

For lesser-known candidates, the most difficult aspect of the campaign is convincing the media to take them seriously. If the public and the media do not perceive someone as having a realistic chance of winning, the public acceptance or rejection of that candidate’s stand on issues or themselves as persons is largely irrelevant. Although polls showed that large numbers of Americans favored the positions of moderate Independent candidate John Anderson in the 1980 presidential race, less than 10% eventually voted for him, largely because they felt that he had no chance of winning. In 1992, early summer polls showed Ross Perot’s support substantial enough to conceive of his winning the presidency. However, his support gradually waned by November, although he still acquired a larger share of the vote (around 20%) than any other third-party candidate in modern times. When he ran again in 1996, he failed to do as well. Because no one besides a Republican or Democrat has been elected President in the United States since 1848, people perceive such an eventuality as highly unlikely, a social perception that can quickly become a self-fulfilling prophecy.