VI.                Interpreting Political News

1.       New stories are apt to be accepted by the public without question, and Americans tell pollsters that they thing that TV is more reliable than newspapers, but lately, many people have felt that the media tends to cover one side of stories more than it is fair—the exact opposite of what the media thinks of itself.

                                                               i.      The question is whether or not the media is totally accurate or not, and in studies, the media seems to be a lot more liberal on many controversial issues.

2.       There are three types of stories, and these types of news can have different types of influences from the media, simply because of their characteristics and importance:

                                                               i.      Routine stories are easily described by acts or statements and are not really significant.

                                                             ii.      Feature stories are not routinely covered by reporters and reporters must take the initiative write about them and persuade their editors to print them.

                                                            iii.      Insider stories involve information that is not usually made public but has been suddenly “leaked,” thus indicating that someone on the inside has helped the reporter.

3.       Routine stories can actually be misinterpreted if the facts are not totally reported, as was the case of the Tet Offensive in Vietnam. 

4.       Since feature and insider stories must be chosen, they can be greatly affected by political bias.

                                                               i.      Some selected stories will be common, though, since sometimes, the press wants to focus on the same story because it is a great newsmaker.

5.       If a nonroutine story is major news, the media will all cover it, but with slightly varying degrees and views…each group putting a different version and opinion to the story.

                                                               i.      Every reader or viewer should keep in mind: what beliefs or opinions led the editors to run a certain story, how representative of expert and popular opinion are the views of the people quoted in the story, and what adjectives are being used to color the story?

6.       Insider stories are the trickiest, because there involves a motive for the insider to “leak” a story, and many times, reporters will not reveal the insider.

7.       There are so many news leaks because each branch of gov’t has different power, and those different branches compete for power by leaking news so that one can seem more powerful than another.

                                                               i.      In other countries, where the power is centralized, there is less competition and less leaks (plus, there are laws preventing this more than in the U.S.).

                                                             ii.      However, ever since the Vietnam War, the Watergate scandal, and the Iran-contra affair, the press has been less willing to simply accept leaks at face value and more likely to see if the stories are actually true—thus becoming an adversarial press.

8.       Now, as the press is really distrustful of politicians, it is more likely to seize any little error made by a politician and maybe blow it into epic proportions, covering all goofs and mess-ups.

                                                               i.      After Bill Clinton became president, the press started to uncover his sexual escapades, the Whitewater deals, and Hillary Clinton’s profits in commodities trading, and turned on him.

                                                             ii.      People’s confidence in big business (which includes the media) and the gov’t has eroded, and as a result, people are not trusting the news as willingly as before.

9.       With this adversarial media likely to stay for a long time, many candidates have turned to attacking their opponents on a personal level because such tactics work: they DO help them win; but such tactics do come with a price: reduced voter turnout.

10.   Reporters must balance between not expressing their personal views too much in stories (or risk losing their sources) and keeping a source (and risk becoming its mouthpiece), but luckily for them, Congress has become a goldmine for sources, because there are so many (thousands) of potential sources.

                                                               i.      Press officers sometimes try to win journalistic friends by releasing background stories, or stories that proportionately and anonymously explain a current policy.

11.   The ultimate weapon of the government’s effort to shape the press is the president: he can favor friendly reporters and tongue-lash unfavorable ones.

                                                               i.      The press and the president do not trust one another, but they need one another, and resulting relationship is almost always rocky but necessary.