The Press in the 1972 Campaign

• n 1 e m a n fall1973 The Press in the 1972 Campaign: The Harvard Conference on Campaign Decision-Making 1973 Nieman Convocation What Ever Happened to Humor in the Media? Panelists Russell , Baker, John Kenneth Galbraith, Robert Manning and Robert Yoakum Can People and This Planet Co-exist? Panelists Gerald Holton, Jean Mayer, I Matthew S. Meselson, George W. Rathjens, Carroll M. Williams r e or t s n1en1an ABOUT THIS ISSUE Long ago, in quite another world, the "managers" of the reports 1972 presidential campaigns-of the spectacular Nixon-Agnew victory and also assorted Democratic failures-gathered in the Harvard Faculty Club for two days of reflection on how it all had happened. The time was January 1973, the co-sponsors, Harvard's Institute of Politics and Nieman Foundation; the fall 1973 participants, eighteen campaign managers plus four political reporters who were there to direct the discussion. vol. XXVII no. 3 At the time some of us marveled at three things: the remark able brevity, intelligence, and candor of the participants; the fast pace of the give-and-take (no moments of boredom, almost no speeches); and the rare phenomenon of some 75 Harvard teachers and students sitting mute as observers for two days. In retrospect one can still marvel at everything save the candor: those who managed the President's re-election did not, it turns Contents out, tell all. Nonetheless, the record-deftly edited by Janet Fraser and introduced by Ernest May-seems to us important, an instruc 3 The Press in the 1972 Campaign tive venture in collaboration between politicians and journal ists, with the University serving as middle ground. So from 9 What Ever Happened to Humor that record we publish Chapter V in its entirety as it appears in the Media? in the book CAMPAIGN '72: The Managers Speak. Further extracts will appear in a future issue. 18 The Press and the NAACP- William Gordon By the time of the Nieman Convocation at the end of May, Judge Sirica, the Washington Post, and several others had changed the American political landscape. The health of the 21 Can People and This Planet Co-exist? First Amendment was still on our minds, hence our wide ranging panel on the subject (see NR for June 1973). But so 26 Viewpoint-John F. Burby was the gloom of super-seriousness. Where were the wit, humor, pungency in reporting and commentary that usually 27 tend to preserve our national sense of perspective? To judge Associate Nieman Fellows by the results of our panel on "What Ever Happened to Humor in the Media?" that sense of perspective is still in good shape. 28 Book Reviews-Herbert Brucker on So we offer our readers the edited but unsanitized transcript of Rutland; Carl Sims on Goldman; that discussion. Ray Jenkins on Martin; Jo Thomas on We also offer, since as always "the future lies ahead," a discussion of that familiar and usually avoidable question, O'Brien; Jonathan Yardley on Wicker; "Can People and This Planet Co-exist?" The answer, in recent James Thomson on Marnell times, is maybe. But our panelists did much, we think, to bridge the gap between Lord Snow's "Two Cultures;" and we 36 Notes on Contributors present the transcript of their discussion with pride. Following the custom of some quarterlies, we start with this number to designate by season rather than month, i.e., the September issue becomes Fall; the December one, Winter; Editor-James C. Thomson Jr. March will be Spring; and June, Summer. Executive Editor-Tenney K. Lehman Nieman Fellows Jack Burby and William Gordon have made some discoveries-about former academics (instead of journal Nieman Reports is published quarterly by the Nieman Founda ism school graduates) as first-rate reporters, and about the tion at Harvard University, 48 Trowbridge Street, Cambridge, NAACP's durable relationship with the press. We are pleased Massachusetts 02138. Subscription $5 a year; add 40¢ for foreign to present their findings, and will welcome others from the mailing. Single copies $1.25. Third class postage paid at Boston, Niemans and non-Niemans who seek out our mailbox. Massachusetts. Copyright © 1973 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. - J.C.T., Jr. nieman reports 3 The Press in the 1972 Campaign Introductory Note: In January 1973, for the first time in Newsweek, Dick Dougherty [McGovern's press secretary] American history, principal participants in a major election guesses that 90 per cent of the reporters covering George met to discuss the science and the art of campaign strategy: McGovern voted for him. I'm not sure that's correct-! the planning, calculation, contrivance, miscalculation, and think it was considerably less than that-but Dougherty mischance that determine what the electorate sees. Cam ends up by asking why they didn't write it that way if they paign managers, pollsters and journalists met to compare were that much for him. Finally he suggests that what we notes on their techniques and tactics and on their successes need is more advocacy journalism. We wonder whether and failures as they reviewed the events of the primaries and the press, in fact, does have an ideological bias, to the left or election. any other direction. It would seem that initially the press The straightforward exchanges took place at the Harvard ignored McGovern entirely and went to Muskie, who was Conference on Campaign Decision-Making, a two-day supposed to be the centrist. Then we rediscovered McGov seminar sponsored jointly by the Institute of Politics in the ern and found him to be one of the great geniuses of our fohn Fitzgerald Kennedy School of Government and the time, along with his agents-Gary Hart, Frank Mankie Nieman Foundation for Journalism. Eighteen key people wicz, and the rest. Then we decided finally that McGovern participated, including those in the campaigns of Nixon, and his people were bumblers. We went full circle on Mc McGovern, Wallace, Muskie, Humphrey, Jackson and Mc Govern and everyone else. I think the best thing is to let Closkey. Four political correspondents-David Broder, you all beat us over the head if you like, except of course fames Naughton, Alan Otten and James Perry-guided the the four of us who are here. proceedings. The transcript of the conference has been edited (by Max M. Kampelman (adviser to Humphrey). I would cer Ernest R. May and Janet Fraser) and published in a book, tainly like to challenge anybody who would try to state that CAMPAIGN '72-The Managers Speak (Harvard Uni the answer to the problem of the press is advocacy journalism. versity Press, 1973 ). Especially pertinent to the news media The problem, it seems to me, is the reverse. I sense that the is Chapter Five-The Press in the Campaign-reprinted in tendency toward advocacy journali sm is there-both on the its entirety in the following pages. Additional excerpts will air and in the print media. And even though frequently appear in the Winter issue of Nieman Reports. that advocacy happens to be on my side, I think jt's a dis service to our democratic institutions. I don't like it; it's an James M. Perry (National Observer ) . Our discussion here easy temptation. suggests that the voters may not have been very interested But there's another problem, which is exemplified by the in Vice President Agnew, but members of the press damn nature of the press bus in a campaign. They're all together well were. I suppose you could go back to the [1969] speech and there's a crowd up ahead, for example, and somebody in which particularly television journalism was attacked looks up and says, "That's a helluva big crowd," and every for having an alleged leftward bias. In a recent column in body says, "Yes, it's a big crowd." If this fellow had stood 4 nieman reports up and said, "What a lousy crowd," everybody would have On the other hand, I'll have to support Max Kampelman said, "Yes, it's a lousy crowd." It's a natural thing to reflect about the so-called pack journalism. Of course, you have what you hear among your colleagues because you cer to distinguish between the electronic media, the print media, tainly know they're not biased-you respect their profes the editors, the columnists, the reporters. The people who sionalism. But I think there is a herd instinct in journalism, write political columns in this country are, by and large, and it is reflected in the kinds of things you're talking about. dead wrong-the so-called columnists. The people who re It's interesting to me that Jim Perry described what "we" port politics are, by and large, excellent. But there are the did. There was a kind of uniformity-going to Muskie, lazy ones who want to see what Johnny Apple [of the New ignoring McGovern, going to McGovern, and completely, Yark Times] is going to say and what Dave Broder is going consistently ignoring Humphrey throughout the whole to say and then write their stories. I have literally seen re campaign. A professor at Johns Hopkins got some graduate porters gather around Johnny Apple as he files his lead on students in political science to study four or five newspapers, the phone, and then go back to their typewriters and type including the Washington Post and the New York Times. their stories. If Johnny Apple says that George McGovern made a "surprisingly strong showing" in Iowa, that is going Our discussion here suggests that the voters to appear in all kinds of papers, just because they heard him may not have been very interested in Vice say it.

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