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CONSTITUTIONAL
RIGHTS FOUNDATION
Bill of Right in Action Winter
1996 (13:1) ELECTION ISSUES
This issue of the Bill of Rights in Action is made possible by a generous grant from the W.M. Keck Foundation. POLITICAL
SCANDALS, SCOUNDRELS, Public distrust of elected officials and political candidates is growing. Media critics say negative press coverage is contributing to this trend and is weakening American democracy. Should journalists change the direction of their reporting? Many Americans believe politicians are dishonest, hypocritical, and power-hungry. Americans did not always think this way. When John F. Kennedy was president, for example, 75 percent of Americans indicated that they trusted the government to do the right thing. Today that figure has dropped to 25 percent. A recent opinion poll reported that nearly 80 percent of the public gave elected officials in Washington a low rating on honesty and ethics. What has produced this widespread distrust among the American people? Certainly, the Vietnam War and Watergate cover-up ended a long period of public confidence in political leadership. Also, since Watergate, the nation's press has become much more aggressive and negative in its political reporting. Some media critics, including journalists, argue that the press undermines our democratic system by spending too much time focusing on scandals and portraying public life as little more than a game among scheming politicians. Defenders of the press, however, say that the news media are simply fulfilling their role as watchdogs on the government. The Influence of Watergate The resignation of President Richard M. Nixon during the Watergate scandal resulted partly from the investigative work of two Washington Post reporters, Robert Woodward and Carl Bernstein. Helping to bring down a president made them media stars. They made an impression on a whole generation of journalists. After Watergate, journalists, especially those covering national news, became more skeptical and wary of politicians manipulating them. The press actively tried to expose government abuses. One consequence of this has been more negative political reporting. While demanding an open and more honest government, reporters sought out the mistakes, inconsistencies, and ethical faults of political leaders. Historians point out that the press has always been aggressive. Virtually every president, starting with George Washington, has become a target for the press. The tabloid press, which thrives on sensational news reporting, was invented over 100 years ago. Is Press Coverage Worse Today? But the aggressiveness of the press is not what concerns today's media critics. They worry about the decline in thoughtful reporting on serious public issues. Frequently, they say, newspaper and TV news editors cut back on this type of news coverage because it is too boring or lacks the drama of conflict. Indeed, the media have grown much more competitive in the last 30 years. With today's technology, news can be broadcast around the world as it happens. People expect--and receive--instantaneous reports on assassinations, floods, airplane crashes, even wars. They can receive the information in many new ways--from cable television, satellite dishes, the Internet. Talk radio and tabloid TV news shows, such as "A Current Affair," have grown in popularity. At the same time, fewer people are reading newspapers and watching network TV news. The drop is especially pronounced among people under 30. Trying to keep up with the competition, many newspapers and networks have made their news features shorter and jazzed them up with graphics, pictures, and diagrams. In short, they are trying to make the news more entertaining. Does this mean serious journalism giving way to sensationalism? One study of press coverage between 1972 and 1992 revealed that news stories about domestic and foreign questions being considered by Congress dropped significantly. On the other hand, stories about political conflict and ethical misbehavior of elected leaders increased. Senator Alan K. Simpson (R-Wyo.), a strong critic of the media, recently made this remark about reporters covering Congress: They don't want to know whether anything was resolved for the betterment of the United States. They want to know who got hammered, who tricked whom. . . . They're not interested in clarity. They're interested in confusion, and controversy and conflict. Media critics believe the same is true of reporters from the major newspapers and TV networks who cover the White House. In recent years, those on the White House beat have been mostly reporters who covered the president during his election campaign. For the most part, these reporters know how to cover campaign politics--who did what to whom, who's up, who's down. But, say critics, these reporters are not particularly expert in the domestic and foreign policy issues that dominate presidential decision-making. Thus, according to the critics, politics--not policy--tends to color much of their White House reporting. In fact, critics believe serious policy analysis is giving way to covering politics as a horse race. Defenders of the media believe the critics are overgeneralizing. They admit that some newspapers and networks may cover politics as a horse race. But they cite many examples of in-depth policy coverage. The New York Times, Washington Post , and Los Angeles Times devote much ink to policy issues. Every night on television, "Nightline" explores issues. C-SPAN televises complete speeches and policy forums and debates. The defenders say the best-ever political coverage and reporting is going on today. But, they say, people must seek it out in the highly competitive news business. Should the Media Report on the Private Lives of Politicians? Another problem critics see in post-Watergate journalism is the greater interest in reporting on the personal lives of politicians. President Franklin D. Roosevelt's legs were paralyzed from polio. He wore leg braces and often used a wheelchair. But reporters and photographers never revealed his disability to the public, because they apparently believed it would weaken the president's image as a strong leader. Such a conspiracy of silence by the press would be unthinkable in today's highly competitive news environment. Scandals and sexual misbehavior have increasingly become acceptable topics for the mainstream press to cover. That President John F. Kennedy had affairs with women was not considered newsworthy more than 30 years ago. Today, President Clinton's marital problems while governor of Arkansas and the Monica Lewinsky investigation continue to be the subject of news media stories. Larry Sabato, professor of political science at the University of Virginia, has criticized the press for its current tendency to jump quickly into a scandal story. Sabato says that scandals frequently explode into media "feeding frenzies" where every tidbit of gossip is reported. This type of reporting, he says, gives a great deal of newspaper space and air time to matters that have little to do with the real problems of the country. Carl Bernstein, one of the reporters who investigated the Watergate story, wrote recently that "we tell our readers and viewers that the trivial is significant and the lurid or loopy is more important than real news." But William Safire, a columnist for the New York Times, takes a different view. He argues that political scandal reporting often contributes to the continuous cleansing of American politics. The question seems to boil down to what is newsworthy. A president covering up crimes (as in Watergate) is clearly newsworthy. So is any behavior that affects public policy. The debate is over personal behavior that doesn't seem to affect policy. Were Kennedy's affairs newsworthy? Should reporters have revealed them? Do politicians have any right to privacy? Is it right for the news media to withhold information from the public? These questions do not have easy answers. Defenders of the media argue it is better to err on the side of giving the public too much information than too little. Critics say that media scandalmongering is souring people's view of the democratic process. Campaign Games Press coverage of political campaigning began to change even before Watergate. Theodore White's book The Making of the President 1960 and Joe McGinniss's The Selling of the President 1968 both gave an inside look at how campaigns operate. Many political reporters soon adopted the new "inside politics" approach by concentrating on the tactics and manipulations involved in campaigning for public office. Press accounts began to depict election campaigns as high stakes games dominated by personality clashes and the political horse race among the candidates. The press, say critics, often ignored the voters and the issues that concerned them. Critics say reporting election campaigns as only a game often resulted in candidates coming across in a negative light. A study of major newsmagazine coverage of the 1992 presidential campaign showed that references to Bush and Clinton were 60-percent negative. A similar study of TV network news shows during the Republican primaries in the spring of 1996 indicated that campaign news stories were 3-to-1 negative. "There can be no doubt that the change in the tone of election coverage," says Syracuse University political scientist Thomas Patterson, "has contributed to the decline in the public confidence in those who seek the presidency." Journalists defend their coverage of political tactics and manipulation. Every campaign employs "spin doctors," whose job is to manipulate the media. The press, they say, is merely exposing "the man behind the curtain," the manipulators of the press. Many journalists argue that knowledge of campaign tactics makes citizens more sophisticated and informed. Sound Bites Media critics believe it's difficult for citizens to stay informed when candidate reporting is reduced to fragmentary "sound bites." A sound bite is a recorded segment of uninterrupted speech. In 1968, the average presidential candidate sound bite on network evening news programs lasted 42 seconds. By the 1992 election, the average sound bite time had been pared down to 7.3 seconds. While the candidates have been talking less on TV news, political reporters have been saying more. In 1992, TV reporter comments took 72 percent of election coverage air time. Typically, a TV reporter tells a news story using sound bites to illustrate his or her points and then often ends with an interpretation of what the candidate is saying and doing. This kind of reporting is more lively and interesting to the viewer. But critics say sound bites keep citizens from judging the actual words and views of the candidates themselves. Changes in Political Reporting During the last few years, media critics have called for significant changes in how the news, especially political news, is reported. They want:
Some journalists have attempted to change reporting by creating a movement called public (or civic) journalism. Public journalism places much emphasis on finding out what problems matter the most to people and then helping them work out solutions. So far, public journalists have been experimenting mainly at the local newspaper level. Davis "Buzz" Merritt, editor of the Wichita (Kansas) Eagle and one of the founders of public journalism, launched "The People Project: Solving It Ourselves" in 1992. This, like other public journalism projects throughout the country, involved a series of articles dealing with city problems and solutions based on the experiences and ideas of Wichita citizens. The thing that made this different from traditional reporting was that the newspaper played an activist role in organizing public forums where citizens had the opportunity to struggle with the problems facing their community. An example of this new approach to political news reporting is PBS's "Democracy Project," which devoted 100 hours of prime time during the 1996 presidential election campaign "listening to people rather than to talking heads, Washington experts, [and] politicians." Traditional journalists resist participating in efforts that try to influence the way our political system works. Instead, these journalists prefer to play the role of public watchdog, reporting the news as it happens in a detached and objective way. As "60 Minutes" senior correspondent Mike Wallace puts it, "our job is to report, to explain, to illuminate." Reporters like Wallace believe that setting up undertakings like the "Democracy Project" moves the press from reporting the news to helping to make it. If this happens, journalist objectivity may suffer. David Broder, a well-respected reporter for the Washington Post, speaks for those who want to change political reporting. He worries that "it will be written at some future point about my generation of political reporters that we covered everything, but we didn't notice that support for representative government and democracy was collapsing." For Discussion and Writing
A C T I V I T Y What is Newsworthy? Form small groups and discuss whether or not the following pieces of information should be included in journalists’ coverage of political election campaigns. Discuss the reasons why or why not these items are newsworthy.
This article includes background information and arguments on three important issues that recent political candidates have discussed. Issue: Affirmative Action Broadly defined, affirmative action refers to any steps taken to increase the number of minority persons and women who are hired, promoted, admitted to college, or awarded government contracts. Affirmative action began in the 1960s and 1970s as an attempt to bring African Americans, other minorities, and women more fully into the mainstream of American life. These groups historically had been victims of discrimination, which blocked them from certain jobs, professions, universities, and other opportunities. Affirmative action was viewed as a way to undo the injustices of the past. Quotas, reserving a specific number of places for a particular group, are illegal. But starting in the 1970s in the Nixon administration, federal laws pressured employers to develop affirmative action plans designed to seek, hire, and promote qualified minority and woman workers. These efforts were eventually expanded to university admissions and government contracting. In reaching out to bring more minorities and women into the mainstream, affirmative action programs sometimes alienated other groups, notably white males. Members of these groups charged that affirmative action was using race and gender to discriminate against them, something that they called "reverse discrimination." Recent Supreme Court decisions have severely restricted, but not outlawed, government-sponsored affirmative action programs. A closely decided case in 1995 held that government affirmative action based on race is unconstitutional unless it was established for "the most compelling reasons." In the meantime, Congress and the states are debating whether affirmative action has outlived its original purposes and should be abolished.
Issue: Federal Tax Cut In 1962, President John F. Kennedy, a Democrat, said that the best way to raise more tax revenue for the government was to cut taxes. He argued that cutting taxes would mean more cash in the hands of individuals and businesses, which would then make more purchases and investments. This, in turn, would cause the economy to grow along with a resulting increase in tax payments as more people became employed. This theory is called "supply-side economics." Kennedy's supply side view worked in the 1960s. Tax rates were cut and tax revenues went up by 16 percent in four years due mainly to economic growth. In the early 1980s, President Ronald Reagan, a Republican, also promoted the supply-side theory of a tax cut to spur economic growth. But this time something very different happened. After income taxes were slashed by 30 percent over three years, and the capital gains tax on profits from the sale of investments was also reduced, tax revenues did not increase enough to match federal government spending, particularly defense spending. In fact, spending greatly outstripped tax revenues, causing the annual government budget deficit to explode. This deficit had to be made up by borrowing the difference. The resulting national debt reached almost $5 trillion by the early 1990s. In 1993, President Bill Clinton and a Democrat-controlled Congress started to reduce the yearly deficit by cutting some spending and raising taxes, particularly on people with higher incomes. When the Republicans gained control of both houses of Congress in 1994, they once again pushed the idea of federal income and capital gains tax cuts to stimulate economic growth.
Issue: National Missile Defense In 1972, the United States and the Soviet Union agreed not to build any nation-wide defense system to protect their homelands from nuclear missile attack. The purpose of this agreement, known as the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty, was to prevent a new expensive missile race to overcome such a defense system. Despite the ABM Treaty, President Ronald Reagan in the 1980s backed the development of a space-based defensive weapons system that would protect the United States against any missile attack. This Strategic Defense Initiative (also popularly called "Star Wars") mainly concentrated on scientific research and development costing $35 billion over a 10-year period. This large-scale effort was abandoned after the break-up of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War. Today, so-called "rogue nations" like North Korea and Iran are trying to develop their own nuclear missiles, which may pose an eventual threat to the United States. The National Missile Defense Program was originally a technology development effort designed to address such threats. In 1996, at the direction of the Secretary of Defense, NMD was designated a Major Defense Acquisition Program with a budget of about $3 billion a year to spend on technological research, development and acquisition of a "thin" National Missile Defense. This system could protect against a small number of missiles launched by a "rogue nation," but not a massive attack as was envisioned in President Reagan's "Star Wars" program. In 1999, NMD was commissioned to put into place a missile defense system by 2003 at a cost of $9 billion. In 2003, officials will discuss the option of building an even more extensive system of missile defense by 2005 for an additional $4 billion dollars.
For Discussion and Writing
For Further Information Vote Smart Website: This site provides Internet links to sources on many Campaign '96 issues. A C T I V I T Y Taking A Stand On The Issues A. Meet in small discussion. Each group should select one of the
B. Meet as a class to discuss each issue question. Have each group report back its findings. After discussing each question, take a class vote on it. Political advertising on television has become increasingly negative. Is this bad for democracy? Consider these two excerpts from 1996 Dole and Clinton TV political ads: "Pledge" Clinton: "I will not raise taxes on the middle class." "Hold" Announcer: "The same old politics--Dole attacks Clinton. Hold
it. . . . Dole voted to raise payroll taxes, social security taxes. .
. $900 billion in higher taxes. Both ads are examples of negative political advertising, which attempts to persuade citizens to vote for one candidate by attacking the opponent's character or views. All this happens with a minimum of words in about 30 seconds. Of course, negative political campaigning in the United States is as old as the country itself. The election of 1800 between John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, for example, was one of the most negative in our history. Although the candidates themselves remained above the fray, their supporters spewed venom. Adams was denounced as a traitor to the American Revolution who wanted to install himself as king. Jefferson was attacked as an anti-Christian, adulterer, and dangerous radical whose election would lead to a reign of terror. Today's attack ads on television may seem mild in comparison. But they have added a new dimension to the election process. Some worry that the increasingly negative 30-second political TV "spots" provide the only information that many people use in deciding how to vote--or even whether to vote at all. From Ike to "Willie" Horton The first political advertisements for a television audience appeared in 1952 as part of General Dwight D. Eisenhower's Republican presidential campaign against Democrat Adlai Stevenson. Eisenhower (often called "Ike") filmed 40 TV spots in a New York City studio during a single day. For each ad, he simply faced the camera and read from scripted cue cards. Tourists visiting New York were then recruited to be filmed asking Ike questions. The questions and Ike's answers were edited together along with an announcer's voice over. Eisenhower won by a landslide. He probably would have beaten Stevenson even without the TV spots. But after 1952, American political campaigning would never be the same. In the 1956 election rematch between Eisenhower and Stevenson, TV campaigning took a negative turn when the Democrats used the first TV attack ads against Ike's running mate, Vice President Richard M. Nixon. Playing on voters' fears about the health of Eisenhower, who had recently suffered a heart attack, the Democrats produced a TV spot in which an announcer asked, "Nervous about Nixon? President Nixon?" From this time on, both major political parties have increasingly resorted to negative TV spots to attack each other. The most famous TV attack ad took place during the 1964 contest between the incumbent Democratic president, Lyndon Johnson, and Republican Senator Barry Goldwater. Goldwater had the habit of making provocative "shoot-from-the-hip" remarks like the one in which he said that the United States could lob nuclear missiles into the men's room of the communist leaders in Moscow. Building on Goldwater's well-known hawkish views, Democratic campaign strategists developed a devastating attack ad, which did not even name the Republican candidate. The TV spot began with the camera on a little girl alone in a field counting, "One, two, three. . . ," as she picks petals off a daisy. The little girl looks up startled as the camera moves to her face and eye until the screen goes black. A man's voice is then heard counting, "Ten, nine, eight. . .," until a nuclear bomb is shown exploding. As the bomb blossoms into its mushroom shape, President Johnson speaks: "These are the stakes--to make a world in which all of God's children can live, or to go into the dark. We must either love each other, or we must die." The obvious implication was that if Goldwater were to become president, he would start a nuclear war. Known as "Daisy," this spot was aired one time by the Democratic Party (although it appeared a number of other times on news programs). Outraged, the Republicans threatened to sue for libel. By all accounts, the nastiest TV political ad campaign in recent times occurred during the 1988 presidential race between Vice President George Bush and Michael Dukakis, the governor of Massachusetts. Early in the campaign, Bush trailed Dukakis in the polls. Republican strategists decided to attack Dukakis on emotional issues such as crime. A pro-Bush political action committee financed the most effective attack ad, which centered on the story of one criminal. William Horton, an African-American, had been sentenced to prison in Massachusetts for killing a person during a robbery. Under a state furlough program, Horton was allowed to spend 48 hours outside of prison. Horton violated the conditions of his furlough, raped a white woman, and assaulted her boyfriend. The TV ad developed by the political action committee contrasted the positions on the death penalty held by Bush (for) and Dukakis (against). The ad further charged that, "Dukakis not only opposes the death penalty, he allowed first-degree murderers to have weekend passes from prison." A black-and-white mug shot of "Willie" Horton then appeared on the TV screen. After relating Horton's crimes against his two white victims, the spot ended by showing an unflattering photo of Dukakis with the caption, "Weekend prison passes. Dukakis on crime." Nothing was really untruthful about this TV spot, but a great deal was left unsaid. The Massachusetts prison furlough program had been created by the previous Republican governor, not Dukakis. Also, most other states as well as the federal government operated successful furlough programs. Finally, many accused the ad-makers of intentionally selecting a black criminal for the spot to stir up racial fears and prejudice among white voters. Attack Ads and Democracy The majority of TV spots shown during presidential election campaigns still tend to be positive, showing what a candidate stands for and why people should vote for him. But campaign media specialists like to "go negative." Negative ads stick in people's memories. They take advantage of the tendency of people nowadays to vote against rather than for someone. Most importantly, these ads seem to work. What effect do attack ads have on democracy? The most recent academic study on this question revealed that negative political advertising reinforces the view that the political system is corrupt and all politicians are crooks. The study also showed that up to 5 percent of the voters are so turned off by negative ads that they decide not to vote. These tend to be mostly moderate and independent voters. Thus, attack ads may be driving many moderate voters away from the polls. Should anything be done about attack ads? First of all, the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution protects all political speech. So attack ads cannot be outlawed. Further, many argue that they are part of the rough-and-tumble democratic process. They may even have value if they are truthful and point out flaws in candidates or their positions. Since 1990, some newspapers and TV stations have started analyzing the truthfulness of campaign spots. In their political coverage, they have included an "Ad Watch" feature, which analyzes the factual content of TV campaign spots and reports any that are inaccurate or misleading. According to a number of campaign media consultants, the Ad Watch effort forced them to be more careful about their TV spot attacks. Ad Watch does seem to have the potential for reducing inaccuracy, deception, and negativity in political advertising. More importantly, citizens must learn to view 30-second TV spots more critically to see if they contain useful information. And citizens must depend on more than these spots to judge the candidates. For Discussion and Writing
For Further Information Political Ad Critic: A site containing video clips of advertising spots employed by candidates in several elections. A C T I V I T Y The Spot In this activity, students examine ads for federal, state, and local candidates. A. Students should view the ads for two opposing candidates in at least one federal, state, and local election. Ads can be found at Political Ad Critic. After viewing each spot, the students should meet in small groups and answer the evaluation questions listed below. The class as a whole should then discuss the answers to each question. TV Spot Evaluation Questions
B. After the class has evaluated real political TV spots, the students should meet in small "media consulting" groups. Each group will write a 30-second script for political candidate. Each group will then role-play its spot before the class. C. After performing their role plays, the students should discuss these questions:
Officers: Susan Troy, President; Knox Cologne, Immediate Past President; Publications Committee: Jerome C. Byrne, Chairperson; Paul Cane, Gerald Chaleff, Peggy Saferstein, Marvin Sears, Eugene Shutler, Lloyd M. Smith, Marjorie Steinberg, Lois Thompson. Staff: Todd Clark, Executive Director; Marshall L. Croddy, Director of Program and Materials Development; Carlton Martz, Writer; Bill Hayes, Editor; Cristy Lytal, Web Editor; Andrew Costly, Production Manager; Gerald Chaleff, CRF Board Reviewer. © 1996, Constitutional Rights Foundation,
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