Anth/Soc 345: Media, Politics and Propaganda

Winter 2011

Home | Announcements| Lecture materials |Class schedule | Assignments

 

We are the newsmakers (not really ...)

 

According to journalist Ken Auletta, the newsmakers are gaining leverage over journalists. How? Well, first off, he uses the White House--the most important newsmaker, arguably, as his source material.

President Bush sees the press as 'elitist'--the social and economic backgrounds of journalists have nothing to do with Americans. Think about the use of language, here, the good words and bad words. Note the focus on journalists, not the companies they work for, whose owners have much less to do with middle class America than even the most well-known celebrity journalists. According to Auletta, reporters also see White House as impenetrable fortress. Even members of Congress have difficulties getting replies for information to carry out their responsibilities (for instance in committee and investigative work).

Even the 9/11 commission hearing notes, where Bush and Cheney appeared together and where a White House official and one official representing the commission each were allowed to take notes (no video or audio tapes), were taken by the White House and not returned to the commission (which may have to subpoena to get them).

This doesn't mean that media aren't important in informing the public, or that the White House doesn't realize the important role the media plays--it works very hard to manage commercial media. Dan Bartlett, former White House communications director (now a chief advisor), built a full time staff of over 50 employees . Imagine what you could do with fifty employees--call media outlets every morning, like Jack Moody at Fox, set the tone for the day, pass along the talking points, etc.

So with so much emphasis on media, why is it that the president only gave 3 prime time news conferences in 3 years, 11 altogether during that time? According to the White House, Bush prefers different venues to the prime time press conference. The official rationale is that prime time news conferences are seen by journalists as a springboard to stardom (again, focusing on individual journalists). On the other hand, the audience is much larger, and mistakes or misstatements by the president can be greatly magnified. One can also assume that there is a great deal of preparation before prime time news conferences.

Controlling media agenda

When the Bush Administration came to office, they were intent on managing the media. There was often a 'message of the week,' and information was slowly released throughout the week to journalists presumably starved for copy for their papers/outlets. Fridays and weekends were reserved for unpopular press releases and announcements--when there were less journalists covering the White House, and when the public was less likely to be paying attention (see Mark Fiore's parody of the 'weekenders').

The goal was to control engagement with the press. But how?

  • Filter questions, correspondents--the president (or more likely, his spokesperson, then Tony Snow from Fox News), then Dana Perino. doesn't have to call on people likely to ask 'unfriendly' questions. In addition, any 'flak' that is left gets fielded by the president's press secretary. Journalists with 'unfriendly questions,' such as Russell Mokhiber, have also had to re-apply for press credentials on a daily basis. Here's one journalist's view of Ari Fleischer, Bush's first press secretary.
  • Coerce sources--Auletta notes that the White House told the Washington Post that relations might be better between the two if they replaced the correspondent Dana Milbank, who has been critical of the White House's media management tactics).
  • Deliberate leaks--they may appear haphazard or unintentional. Consider the story about George Bush's bicycle accident. He fell off his bike, but got up and finished the ride. He stayed the course. This could have gone unreported, but was a symbol of the president's strong, bold leadership, right? Another more infamous leak was that of Valerie Plame's identity--she was a CIA operative whose identity was revealed after her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, disclosed that the story about Iraq trying to purchase enriched uranium from an African country was fabricated, as were many of the documents, and the White House would have known that even as they were reporting it. The investigation into who leaked the information to neoconservative columnist Robert Novak has led to the indictment of VP Cheney's Chief Advisor I. Lewis 'Scooter' Libby. The VP and the president were aware of the incident, and there is evidence suggesting Cheney was part orchestrator. But all along the public was regularly assured by the White House that 'no one wants to get to the bottom of this more than the president' (said former press secretary Scott McLellan). We have since learned that Bush 'declassified' Plame's identity, so that it wouldn't be a crime to leak it (that's the White House's current legal argument, anyway).
  • Iraq and liberation--one of the ironies of this White House is that it began to believe in its ability to manipulate public opinion through the media (until events began spinning out of control). War planners were quite convinced that 20 million flyers dropped on Baghdad upon the U.S. army's arrival there would ensure they were greeted as liberators. This was 3 years ago. It obviously hasn't worked out that way.
  • Discipline is the key--'message discipline' is the operative term. We've talked about talking points. This is critical to the White House media strategy--everyone stays on talking points. Reporters say that it doesn't much matter who you talk to--higher-ups, lower-downs--they all say essentially the same thing, they're all on message. This helps explain why 'defectors' such as (former National Security Advisor to three presidents) Richard Clarke or (Bush's former Secretary of the Treasury) Paul O'Neill are attacked (ad hominem, remember?). Discipline.
  • Competition-there are lots of media outlets, even if they're all owned by a few corporations . . . and there is intense competition to get the 'scoop.' So sources become more important, and often times reporters will go with stories that are grossly underexamined--to be the first. This happened with the (unproven) story that John Kerry had an affair with a staffer many years ago. It was rumored through the Matt Drudge Report (an online rumor mill), and some papers picked it up and reported it without any verification, because Drudge claimed it was being picked up by several major outlets. The scoop. This includes the exclusive interviews. With Jessica Lynch, G.W. Bush, etc. (he did interviews with Tim Russert, Diane Sawyer and Tom Brokaw in the last year). These are major coups-getting the rights to these interviews becomes a news story in itself.

So . . . news outlets need news--that's what they do. Even if it feels more like a photo opportunity or a campaign speech--they need coverage of some sort, and need it fast. So often times stories get aired or published that later turn out to be largely public relations, propaganda, etc. The Pentagon's Jessica Lynch Saga is a good example (below). But don't forget the link to Stephen Colbert's monologue at the White House Correspondents' Dinner, which seemed to make most of the White House Press Corps nervous. He was roundly panned by mainstream media pundits.

On Saving Private Lynch

Here's a pretty good example of how propaganda makes it into the news. One of the differences in this case was that the truth actually survived the filters--maybe long after the propaganda made the rounds. We've probably all heard of the daring rescue of U.S. Private Jessica Lynch from a hospital in Iraq, where she was apparently being held prisoner. Here's how the story has played out in the press (from the BBC):

 

Home | Announcements | Readings | Lecture materials | Class schedule |
| Assignments | grading procedures | Policies | Web links | News