Wednesday, February 20, 2013
Same Old Song and Dance
If you are an Aerosmith fan like me, then you know the song "Same Old Song and Dance" off the Get Your Wings album. That is the song in my head as I read the recent Politico
expose on the levels of press management to which the Obama
administration has reached, outstripping and outpacing anything
attempted by his predecessor(s). If you have been following the press
and the presidency as I have, you will know that this is a familiar
tune, starting with the authors of the textbook in press management, the
Reagan administration.
The Reagan administration--with the Great Communicator at center--was masterful in managing the press, creating a number of new techniques to give the president control over his message--things such as the "Message of the Day", calling the press on deadline to release news, and inventing persons such as the "Chicago Welfare Queen" in order to demonize welfare recipients as well as the entire welfare system. Despite the fact the press knew that no such person existed, they would often continue to report on the 'Welfare Queen" in Reagan's speeches as if she did exist.
The press responsibility of playing watchdog had so faltered in Reagan's 8 years that Mark Hertsgaard titled his 1988 book on the press and the Reagan administration On Bended Knee, claiming that when the press comes to challenge the president, they do so from a subordinate position.
In the Bush I administration, despite the fact that he served only one term in office (and blamed the media for that), many marveled at the ability of the president to control the press, particularly where it came the use of military force. Thus during the march to war with Iraq in 1991, the Bush administration carefully controlled the political debate in a way that the argument was whether the US should use unilateral force to eject Hussein or use multilateral force to eject him. Thus at the center of the debate, beyond dispute, was the use of force. The debate was not whether we should use force or should continue economic sanctions. And then when we got to the war, the Bush administration was masterful in controlling press access to the battlefield, as well as sanitizing the ugliness of war--smart bombs, guided missles, Patriot Missles, and referring to body bags as "human remains pouches".
Next came Clinton. Despite his rocky start, Clinton smartly went out and stocked his office with folks from the Reagan administration, including David Gergen, who exerted message discipline and regulated press access. The Clinton administration also took advantage of the variety of new news formats in order to make their case with the American public--appearing on "Larry King Live", "Arsenio Hall", and "Oprah Winfrey". Clinton understood that these formats would enable him to reach audiences who normally do not pay attention to the news and at the same time avoid tough questioning. Furthermore, the Clinton administration made extensive use of the "Satellie Media Tour", which allowed the White House to connect with local audiences through local television news stations and talk radio stations. Clinton invited Talk Radio to come to the White House and broadcast live from the White House lawn during their effort to overhaul health care in 1993. During impeachment, the White House built a War Room that created two different kinds of presidential communication: The War Room, run by folks such as Paul Begala and Rahm Emanuel, would deal with the ugliness of the Monica Lewinsky controversy. They would engage in the bare knuckled tactics of battling Ken Starr and the House Republicans. Clinton would lead the other type of communication, which was strictly presidential--above the fray, on the business of governing, and leading the U.S. into the 21st Century. The brilliance of the Clinton media machine was captured by Howard Kurtz in the book Spin Cycle.
And then we get George W. Bush, and people marveled (at least in the first term) at his masterful handling of the press. In large part, Bush was helped by the 9/11 attacks, which sent his public opinion numbers into the stratosphere. It would take awhile for the press to write critical stories of the administration for fear of being branded al Qaeda surrogates. But even without those terrible attacks, Bush would have been just as masterful in his press management abilities.
First, Bush had a knack for handling the press, and most importantly, with cutting down on unauthorized leaks from the White House. During his father's administration, W was brought in to stop leaks, something that he got very good at doing. So he did not have to worry about leaks in the way other presidents did. And clearly Bush was helped by a very good communications team, whose point man was Ari Fleischer. Jonathan Chait, writing for The New Republic, chronicled Fleischer's brilliance in handling the press in a 2002 article titled "The Peculiar Duplicity of Ari Fleischer".
The Bush administration would insist on top-down message control. For instance, the only person authorized to speak daily to the press was the press secretary. All of the agencies would get their message marching orders from the White House Office of Communication. And in a particularly brilliant move, the White House also insisted on picking the press secretaries and deputy press secretaries at all the bureaucratic departments and agencies, making sure there were Bush loyalists in place to keep an eye on a potential cabinet member about to "go native". The Bush first term media manipulation successes were documented very well by Ken Auletta in his piece, Fortress Bush. My favorite line from a reporter--it doesn't matter who you speak to inside the Executive Branch, they all say the same thing. It is as if there is a mind meld in place. In addition, the Bush administration also took advantage of the rise of conservative media--in particular, Fox News and Rush Limbaugh. The administration would create an echo effect in all of its messages, a strategy documented by Kathleen Hall Jamieson and Joseph Cappella in their book, Echo Chamber: Rush Limbaugh and the Conservative Media Establishment.
Which brings us to the Obama administration and this treatise by Politico on how they are the zen masters--Jedi Priests of media manipulation and management not seen by any president yet. As I said, same old song and dance. So why is it that each new president excels over his predecessor, regardless of party? I can think of at least four reasons to provide light to this question:
1) The Building Blocks answer--each new president comes into office with a lot of information about what does and does not work. Thus a new president, if he is smart, will not start from scratch, but instead build upon the successes of his predecessor. Take two presidents--Carter and Clinton. Carter decided to take the media playbook, and chuck it right over the rails of the yacht Sequoia just before he sold it. As John Maltese argues in Spin Control, Carter made a decision to mothball the Office of Communications and instead speak plainly to the American public. As a result, he lost control of his image and his message, and ultimately his presidency. Bill Clinton, when he came into Office in 1993, almost repeated Carter's mistake by not tending to the messaging needs of his administration. Only after the disaster of health care and the Republican victories in 1994 did Clinton right his ship. Each president wants to make life easier for his successor (if you believe Nancy Gibbs and Michael Duffy), thus each leaves a president a number of strategies to deal with the Congress and with the press. Wise presidents make use of those strategies and build upon them.
2. Resources. The communications resources that a president amasses is something that has continued to grow from Reagan through Obama. The president has a lot of control over information, which is ultimately what the press is after. By controlling how that information is handled and released, a president can go along way in controlling the way the news is framed. Control the frame and you control the agenda. And isn't agenda control the essence of political power anyway? Resources is a two edged sword. For the news media, it means a lack of resources. As a result of corporate downsizing, newsrooms and reporters are expected to do more with less. James McCartney and John Herbers were already sounding the warning siren back in 1999, when they wrote that in DC, not only were entire news bureaus disappearing, but those who stayed were saddling their reporters with more beats. Rather than a reporter covering a physical beat such as the State Department, now one reporter was tied to the "National Security Beat", covering State, Defense, National Security Agency, CIA, and the White House. Naturally where a reporter is taxed this way, his or her critical abilities are greatly diminished. The dwindling supply of resources in our newsrooms is a problem that continues to get worse, and so long as the balance favors the president, so will the president's ability to dazzle all of us with media control.
3. Technology: This is ever increasing the advantage into the hands of those with information. Technology has helped the president get around the press and connect directly with whichever citizenry they are trying to reach. As I mentioned above, Reagan, Bush I, and Clinton all used satellite link ups to connect directly with local television, where the questions would be soft and their message controlled (see "Spin" for a glimpse).
After the introduction of the Internet, and with the advent of communication technology, Presidents have found new ways to work their message without bothering with the filter. Many of the techniques used on the campaign are exported directly into the White House. Thus Obama has spent more time with Reddit, Tumblr, Twitter, and Facebook than he has with the New York Times or ABC News. In fact, back in 2010, Lloyd Grove of "The Daily Beast" pronounced the White House press corps dead and the dawn of the "filterless presidency".
In addition to expanding technology, there has also been the fragmentation of the media universe. In addition to the problems of polarization, media segmentation allows presidents to reach out to specific audiences. Whether it is the Golf Channel, the NASCAR channel, or Lifetime, presidents do not need the filter in the way they once did. The dramatic changes over the last three decades in our media environment has meant easier times for a president and his communications team.
4. Public Disdain: And of course the last thing that has aided presidents in their ability to control the press is the continuing public disdain for the "Fourth Estate". James Fallows, writing back in the mid-90s, identified a half a dozen reasons why Americans hated the press--from the continuing rise of infotainment to the refusal of the press to hold itself to the same standard it judges others. For Fallows, these were deep seated problems that have extended over decades, and until the press begins to deal with the problems, they simply will not have the support of the American public. Fast forward to today, and these problems have only gotten worse, as documented in this insightful study by Jonathan Ladd.
This is not just an academic problem. The press needs the support of Americans if they are to fulfill their First Amendment obligations to challenge power. Those in positions of power--say presidents--are likely to take the press seriously if they believe that Americans are taking their side. But that has not happened in a long time. Most Americans today believe the press is immoral, likely to cover up mistakes, and biased. Thus in Gulf War I, when the press complained about being kep in pools far away from the fighting, most American complained that they were interfering with the war effort, something that "Saturday Night Live" picked up on in a skit on the press briefing before the War began. The questions the press asked: "What date are we going to start the ground attack?", "where would you say our forces are most vulnerable to attack?", and "what would be the one piece of information that would be most dangerous for the Iraqi's to know?".
So if you think you have seen the last of these articles on president and media management, trust me, you haven't. Instead, Same old song and dance.
The Reagan administration--with the Great Communicator at center--was masterful in managing the press, creating a number of new techniques to give the president control over his message--things such as the "Message of the Day", calling the press on deadline to release news, and inventing persons such as the "Chicago Welfare Queen" in order to demonize welfare recipients as well as the entire welfare system. Despite the fact the press knew that no such person existed, they would often continue to report on the 'Welfare Queen" in Reagan's speeches as if she did exist.
The press responsibility of playing watchdog had so faltered in Reagan's 8 years that Mark Hertsgaard titled his 1988 book on the press and the Reagan administration On Bended Knee, claiming that when the press comes to challenge the president, they do so from a subordinate position.
In the Bush I administration, despite the fact that he served only one term in office (and blamed the media for that), many marveled at the ability of the president to control the press, particularly where it came the use of military force. Thus during the march to war with Iraq in 1991, the Bush administration carefully controlled the political debate in a way that the argument was whether the US should use unilateral force to eject Hussein or use multilateral force to eject him. Thus at the center of the debate, beyond dispute, was the use of force. The debate was not whether we should use force or should continue economic sanctions. And then when we got to the war, the Bush administration was masterful in controlling press access to the battlefield, as well as sanitizing the ugliness of war--smart bombs, guided missles, Patriot Missles, and referring to body bags as "human remains pouches".
Next came Clinton. Despite his rocky start, Clinton smartly went out and stocked his office with folks from the Reagan administration, including David Gergen, who exerted message discipline and regulated press access. The Clinton administration also took advantage of the variety of new news formats in order to make their case with the American public--appearing on "Larry King Live", "Arsenio Hall", and "Oprah Winfrey". Clinton understood that these formats would enable him to reach audiences who normally do not pay attention to the news and at the same time avoid tough questioning. Furthermore, the Clinton administration made extensive use of the "Satellie Media Tour", which allowed the White House to connect with local audiences through local television news stations and talk radio stations. Clinton invited Talk Radio to come to the White House and broadcast live from the White House lawn during their effort to overhaul health care in 1993. During impeachment, the White House built a War Room that created two different kinds of presidential communication: The War Room, run by folks such as Paul Begala and Rahm Emanuel, would deal with the ugliness of the Monica Lewinsky controversy. They would engage in the bare knuckled tactics of battling Ken Starr and the House Republicans. Clinton would lead the other type of communication, which was strictly presidential--above the fray, on the business of governing, and leading the U.S. into the 21st Century. The brilliance of the Clinton media machine was captured by Howard Kurtz in the book Spin Cycle.
And then we get George W. Bush, and people marveled (at least in the first term) at his masterful handling of the press. In large part, Bush was helped by the 9/11 attacks, which sent his public opinion numbers into the stratosphere. It would take awhile for the press to write critical stories of the administration for fear of being branded al Qaeda surrogates. But even without those terrible attacks, Bush would have been just as masterful in his press management abilities.
First, Bush had a knack for handling the press, and most importantly, with cutting down on unauthorized leaks from the White House. During his father's administration, W was brought in to stop leaks, something that he got very good at doing. So he did not have to worry about leaks in the way other presidents did. And clearly Bush was helped by a very good communications team, whose point man was Ari Fleischer. Jonathan Chait, writing for The New Republic, chronicled Fleischer's brilliance in handling the press in a 2002 article titled "The Peculiar Duplicity of Ari Fleischer".
The Bush administration would insist on top-down message control. For instance, the only person authorized to speak daily to the press was the press secretary. All of the agencies would get their message marching orders from the White House Office of Communication. And in a particularly brilliant move, the White House also insisted on picking the press secretaries and deputy press secretaries at all the bureaucratic departments and agencies, making sure there were Bush loyalists in place to keep an eye on a potential cabinet member about to "go native". The Bush first term media manipulation successes were documented very well by Ken Auletta in his piece, Fortress Bush. My favorite line from a reporter--it doesn't matter who you speak to inside the Executive Branch, they all say the same thing. It is as if there is a mind meld in place. In addition, the Bush administration also took advantage of the rise of conservative media--in particular, Fox News and Rush Limbaugh. The administration would create an echo effect in all of its messages, a strategy documented by Kathleen Hall Jamieson and Joseph Cappella in their book, Echo Chamber: Rush Limbaugh and the Conservative Media Establishment.
Which brings us to the Obama administration and this treatise by Politico on how they are the zen masters--Jedi Priests of media manipulation and management not seen by any president yet. As I said, same old song and dance. So why is it that each new president excels over his predecessor, regardless of party? I can think of at least four reasons to provide light to this question:
1) The Building Blocks answer--each new president comes into office with a lot of information about what does and does not work. Thus a new president, if he is smart, will not start from scratch, but instead build upon the successes of his predecessor. Take two presidents--Carter and Clinton. Carter decided to take the media playbook, and chuck it right over the rails of the yacht Sequoia just before he sold it. As John Maltese argues in Spin Control, Carter made a decision to mothball the Office of Communications and instead speak plainly to the American public. As a result, he lost control of his image and his message, and ultimately his presidency. Bill Clinton, when he came into Office in 1993, almost repeated Carter's mistake by not tending to the messaging needs of his administration. Only after the disaster of health care and the Republican victories in 1994 did Clinton right his ship. Each president wants to make life easier for his successor (if you believe Nancy Gibbs and Michael Duffy), thus each leaves a president a number of strategies to deal with the Congress and with the press. Wise presidents make use of those strategies and build upon them.
2. Resources. The communications resources that a president amasses is something that has continued to grow from Reagan through Obama. The president has a lot of control over information, which is ultimately what the press is after. By controlling how that information is handled and released, a president can go along way in controlling the way the news is framed. Control the frame and you control the agenda. And isn't agenda control the essence of political power anyway? Resources is a two edged sword. For the news media, it means a lack of resources. As a result of corporate downsizing, newsrooms and reporters are expected to do more with less. James McCartney and John Herbers were already sounding the warning siren back in 1999, when they wrote that in DC, not only were entire news bureaus disappearing, but those who stayed were saddling their reporters with more beats. Rather than a reporter covering a physical beat such as the State Department, now one reporter was tied to the "National Security Beat", covering State, Defense, National Security Agency, CIA, and the White House. Naturally where a reporter is taxed this way, his or her critical abilities are greatly diminished. The dwindling supply of resources in our newsrooms is a problem that continues to get worse, and so long as the balance favors the president, so will the president's ability to dazzle all of us with media control.
3. Technology: This is ever increasing the advantage into the hands of those with information. Technology has helped the president get around the press and connect directly with whichever citizenry they are trying to reach. As I mentioned above, Reagan, Bush I, and Clinton all used satellite link ups to connect directly with local television, where the questions would be soft and their message controlled (see "Spin" for a glimpse).
After the introduction of the Internet, and with the advent of communication technology, Presidents have found new ways to work their message without bothering with the filter. Many of the techniques used on the campaign are exported directly into the White House. Thus Obama has spent more time with Reddit, Tumblr, Twitter, and Facebook than he has with the New York Times or ABC News. In fact, back in 2010, Lloyd Grove of "The Daily Beast" pronounced the White House press corps dead and the dawn of the "filterless presidency".
In addition to expanding technology, there has also been the fragmentation of the media universe. In addition to the problems of polarization, media segmentation allows presidents to reach out to specific audiences. Whether it is the Golf Channel, the NASCAR channel, or Lifetime, presidents do not need the filter in the way they once did. The dramatic changes over the last three decades in our media environment has meant easier times for a president and his communications team.
4. Public Disdain: And of course the last thing that has aided presidents in their ability to control the press is the continuing public disdain for the "Fourth Estate". James Fallows, writing back in the mid-90s, identified a half a dozen reasons why Americans hated the press--from the continuing rise of infotainment to the refusal of the press to hold itself to the same standard it judges others. For Fallows, these were deep seated problems that have extended over decades, and until the press begins to deal with the problems, they simply will not have the support of the American public. Fast forward to today, and these problems have only gotten worse, as documented in this insightful study by Jonathan Ladd.
This is not just an academic problem. The press needs the support of Americans if they are to fulfill their First Amendment obligations to challenge power. Those in positions of power--say presidents--are likely to take the press seriously if they believe that Americans are taking their side. But that has not happened in a long time. Most Americans today believe the press is immoral, likely to cover up mistakes, and biased. Thus in Gulf War I, when the press complained about being kep in pools far away from the fighting, most American complained that they were interfering with the war effort, something that "Saturday Night Live" picked up on in a skit on the press briefing before the War began. The questions the press asked: "What date are we going to start the ground attack?", "where would you say our forces are most vulnerable to attack?", and "what would be the one piece of information that would be most dangerous for the Iraqi's to know?".
So if you think you have seen the last of these articles on president and media management, trust me, you haven't. Instead, Same old song and dance.
