CAMPBELL PUBLIC AFFAIRS INSTITUTE Commentaries on the American Presidency April, 2004 The Press and Presidential Politics Charlotte Grimes When it comes to the press and presidential politics, it’s necessary to consider both the ideal and the real. Knight Chair in Political Reporting In the ideal, journalists pursue the press’ classic roles of witness and watchdog. They see themselves as serving as a surrogate for the public in following candi- The Newhouse School of dates’ campaigns. They record events. They are fact-checkers on candidates’ claims. They are professional devil’s advocates, testing the hypothesis of candidates’ pro- Public Communications, posals by seeking diverse perspectives and the insights of experts on complicated Syracuse University issues. They dig into candidates’ records, character and rhetoric – holding them accountable to the public. They provide what press scholar Michael Schudson calls “public knowledge”: our shared information about people, issues and events.1 They [email protected] see themselves as gathering, checking and disseminating the independent, disinter- ested, impartial information necessary for people in a democracy to be self-govern- ing. Leonard Downie Jr. and Robert G. Kaiser of the Washington Post put the journal- ists’ view of their work vividly: “Independent, aggressive journalism strengthens American democracy, improves the lives of its citizens, checks the abuses of pow- erful people, supports the weakest members of society, connects us all to one anoth- er, educates and entertains us. News matters.”2 In the real, the roles of witness and watchdog are sometimes – and increasingly – distorted, subverted and manipulated. Today, journalists function in a craft that’s being profoundly reshaped by the relentless 24-hour news cycle, pressure from Wall Street for profits, the Internet and increasing acceptance of virtual journalism – a simulation of the real thing that blends entertainment, gossip and commentary with the news. Indeed, the press – specifically protected by the First Amendment – has all but lost its distinctive identity in an amorphous cacophony of “the media.” The media of news, entertainment, talk and call-in shows and Web bloggers, are now a deafening echo chamber, endlessly mixing fact with opinion. Minor stories of candidates’ gaffes or political trivia lose their proportionality, distorted into a fun- house mirror of inaccurate reflections. Errors, gossip, innuendo and unsubstantiat- ed allegations quickly imbed in the public consciousness, with little chance for jour- Campbell Public Affairs Institute nalists to correct or refute them as part of valuable public knowledge. They become The Maxwell School of Syracuse University 306 Eggers Hall viruses in the public discourse that are almost impossible to kill. Syracuse, New York 13244 315-443-9707/ Fax 315-443-9734 And in the real world of today’s media conglomerates, journalists are an endangered http://www.campbellinstitute.org minority within their news organization’s parent company – a source of profit but less investment. Their public service mission is hedged around by the parent com- pany’s multiple other goals and operations, some of which present the journalists with serious opportunities for of con- flicts of interest. Caught between the ideal and the real are candidates and the public – though neither is an entirely innocent bystander. The public’s insistence on “news on demand” fuels the 24-hour news cycle. Investors’ expectations for return on their money have stepped up Wall Street pressure for profits from media companies, who have helped keep their margins high by cuts in staffing for labor-intensive newsgathering. The talk shows that offer anonymous callers the chance to share their own viewpoints and even unsupported suspicions are wildly popular, even viewed by some as “empower- ing” ordinary people to participate in political discussions. Many newspaper readers and TV viewers place a low value on disinterested reportage, preferring – as the Project for the Excellence in Journalism calls it – a “journalism of affir- mation” that reinforces their own views and opinions (Witness the popularity of Fox News, almost a return to the par- tisan press of the 1800s).3 And candidates are quick to feed the echo chamber with their own “spin” and allegations, to exploit the time pressures of a 24-hour news cycle on a shrinking press corps, and to manipulate the broader media as well as the press with increasing control over the flow of information. All in all, not a great time or environment for the press and presidential politics. Some of the concerns are not new. Like every profession, journalism has never completely fulfilled its ideals. A cen- tury ago, Joseph Pulitzer was already warning of similar dangers. In 1904, Pulitzer wrote: “Our Republic and its press will rise or fall together. An able, disinterested public-spirited press, with trained intelligence to know the right and courage to do it, can preserve that public virtue without which popular government is a sham and a mockery. A cyn- ical, mercenary, demagogic press will produce in time a people as base as itself. The power to mould the future of the Republic will be in the hands of the journalists of future generations.”4 By 2004, Pulitzer’s warning has found new expression. Among the leading researchers and philosophers of the mod- ern press is The Project for Excellence in Journalism, a non-partisan group headed by long-time journalist Tom Rosenstiel in affiliation with the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts. In March 2004, the group released an exhaustive survey, The State of the News Media 2004, rang- ing across newspapers, magazines, network TV, cable TV, the Internet, ethnic and alternative newspapers. The report concludes that, once again: “Journalism is in the midst of an epochal transformation, as momentous probably as the invention of the telegraph or television.”5 For the press and presidential politics, this latest transformation – into a “multi-media” world of print, TV, radio and Internet – offers opportunities for improving coverage, for living up to journalism’s ideals. But the newest transfor- mation is also likely to highlight the real-world problems for the press amid the pressures of speed, profit and repeti- tion. And going into the new era, the press and presidential politics carry the legacies of earlier epochs. THE EPOCH OF TEDDY WHITE AND TV For the presidential coverage that’s all too familiar today, the watershed year was 1960. That year, two forces coin- cided in the press. One was a man whom Robert G. Kaiser of the Washington Post once described as a “little bundle of energy with the cheeks of a chipmunk bulging between his gold-rimmed glasses.”6 The other was television. In 1960, Theodore White was hard at work on the first in what would become a series of books on The Making of the President. And after it was published in 1961, political reporting would never be the same. Before White’s book, journalists largely reported on the public aspects of presidential campaigns – the stump speech- es, the charges and counter charges, the rallies and events – in what has often been derided as “stenographic” cover- age. The New Hampshire primary, which now looms so large, was a minor blip on the radar for the press and the can- 2 didates. And journalists pretty much ignored the lengthy preparations before candidates actually declared themselves as official candidates. In The Making of the President, 1960, Teddy White blew the lid off the public aspects of the campaigns. He had nego- tiated access to the behind-the-scenes maneuvering for John F. Kennedy’s presidential bid that started long before the campaign itself. White told of the strategies, the tactics, the planning in vivid detail. In almost a novelist’s style, he conveyed the behind-the-scenes story with flair, liveliness and – most importantly – drama. His colleagues were agog. The public was enchanted. The book won the 1962 Pulitzer Prize for non-fiction and became a best-seller. And succeeding generations of political reporters grew up with Teddy White as their role model. “After the appearance of the 1960 book, no serious political reporter could ever again wait until the election year began to follow a presidential campaign. We now give readers and viewers many months of coverage during the pre- election year,” wrote Kaiser of The Washington Post on White’s legacy. Added Kaiser: “White made the process of selecting presidents a story in its own right. Today we cover the stages of this process ritualistically, moving by the hundreds and thousands across the early playing fields that White worked with only a handful of others in 1960. Now, reporters descend on Des Moines months before the first caucuses, then move in a giant herd to New Hampshire and beyond.”7 It was the beginning of the constant campaign that is the hallmark of today’s presidential politics. In journalism’s ideals of witness and watchdog, White may not have been a toothy watchdog. His books were some- times criticized as lacking in criticism of candidates, too often romanticizing them and their striving for public office. But he was one helluva of a witness, capturing down to the minute – 8:43 a.m. – on Election Day, 1960, when JFK cast his own vote for the presidency. In the real world of the press and presidential politics, White’s revolutionary coverage soon came under the pressures of popularity, daily deadlines and lesser talents. It would be unfair to blame White for all the sins of later journalists. But his fingerprints remain on much of today’s coverage and his groundbreaking work helped lay the foundations for several of presidential coverage’s modern, and often troubling, characteristics. Among them: The rise of the political correspondent as pseudo-political scientist White mastered the art of blending social science research – polls, demographics, history – into his books.