[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 92 (Friday, July 15, 1994)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: July 15, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
     AMERICANS MAY NOW OBTAIN A DIFFERENT POINT OF VIEW ON POLITICS

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                         HON. MICHAEL G. OXLEY

                                of ohio

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, July 14, 1994

  Mr. OXLEY. Mr. Speaker, I would like to call the article, ``New Book 
Bolsters Clinton Complaints on `Cynical' Media,'' by Morton M. 
Kondracke, in the July 14 issue of Roll Call, to the attention of my 
colleagues. A new book titled ``Out of Order,'' by Thomas E. Patterson, 
suggests that reporters don't report the news so much any more; instead 
they editorialize the news. Patterson's book proves that much of what 
is being broadcast or printed in the media is negative when it comes to 
covering politics. The author states that one of the largest problems 
with today's coverage of news is that the media too often doesn't allow 
politicians to be heard. Perhaps Professor Patterson's book and Morton 
Kondracke's review will help in giving Americans a different point of 
view.

        New Book Bolsters Clinton Complaints on `Cynical' Media

       President Clinton charges that journalists don't so much 
     report the news anymore as editorialize about it, and that 
     they are making Americans cynical about politics. An 
     important new book suggests he's absolutely right.
       The book is ``Out of Order'' (Knopf) by Syracuse University 
     professor Thomas E. Patterson. It shows that during the 1992 
     race, 80 percent of presidential campaign stories on the 
     front page of the New York Times were interpretive accounts 
     stressing the reporter's opinions, while in 1960, almost all 
     stories were descriptive accounts largely based on the words 
     of candidates and other politicians.
       What's more, analyzing more than 4,200 campaign stories in 
     Time and Newsweek from 1960 to 1992, Patterson finds that 
     until 1976, ``good news'' about candidates and their 
     campaigns dominated, whereas from 1980 on, articles have been 
     mainly negative, sometimes savagely so.
       Television coverage is much the same, Patterson shows, with 
     correspondents regularly opining that candidates purposely 
     mislead votes, don't stand for anything, lack a clear agenda, 
     or have character flaws making them unfit to govern.
       Patterson's book documents increasing negative ``advocacy 
     coverage'' in campaigns, but other data indicate that the 
     tendency carries over into coverage of government--possibly 
     because the same reporters cover campaigns, the White House, 
     and Congress.
       According to the Center for Media and Public Affairs, 62 
     percent of 1993 network news stories on the Clinton 
     presidency were negative. Coverage of Democrats in Congress 
     was 60 percent negative and 75 percent negative for 
     Republicans.
       During a radio interview with St. Louis station KMOX on 
     June 24, Clinton blasted radio talk-show host Rush Limbaugh, 
     rightwing preacher Jerry Falwell, and the mainstream media. 
     What he said about the media was all but ignored.
       Explaining citizen cynicism, Clinton said, ``If you look at 
     the information they get, at how much more negative the news 
     reports are, how much more editorial they are, and how much 
     less direct they are . . . you can't blame them for 
     responding that way.''
       Curiously, the Center for Media and Public Affairs finds 
     that the overall content of TV coverage of the Whitewater and 
     Troopergate scandals from last November through this May has 
     been equally balanced for and against Clinton--although 
     obviously the subject matter of the stories works against 
     Clinton.
       But during the two months prior to Clinton's complaint in 
     St. Louis, TV scandal reporting had turned decidedly negative 
     for Clinton, by a margin of 61 percent to 39 percent. By far, 
     ABC News has been toughest on Clinton and CBS the most 
     favorable.
       Patterson's book, while coming from the vantage point of 
     campaigns, is a 300-page vindication of Clinton's basic point 
     of view.
       ``There is a danger to democracy in both the unrelenting 
     negativism of the press and the increased inability of 
     candidates to avoid the press's scrutiny,'' he writes. 
     ``Candidates have to communicate with an electorate that is 
     continuously warned by the press to mistrust them. A wall of 
     suspicion is thus created, and disbelief sets in.''
       Possibly Patterson's most damning findings are that the 
     media nowadays won't even let a politician be heard.
       In 1968, the average TV soundbite featuring a presidential 
     candidate's own words was 42 seconds long. In 1988 and 1992, 
     the average was less than ten seconds.
       For every minute that the candidates spoke on the evening 
     news in 1988 and 1992, Patterson reports, journalists who 
     were covering the campaign talked for six minutes.
       Newspapers are little better. In 1960, the average 
     continuous quote or paraphrase of a candidate's words in a 
     front-page New York Times story was 14 lines long. By 1972, 
     the average had fallen to six lines.
       ``The candidate's words are now usually buried in a 
     narrative devoted primarily to expounding the journalist's 
     view,'' says Patterson. And usually the journalist's view, he 
     says, is that politicians are trying to put something over on 
     the public.
       Patterson writes that the fundamental problem with 
     presidential politics today is that the media have taken over 
     the candidate-judging role formerly occupied by party 
     leaders--largely as a consequence of the 1968 McGovern-Fraser 
     reforms in the Democratic party.
       The media, naturally inclined toward ``news'' rather than 
     underlying issues and toward ``horse race'' coverage rather 
     than substance--and increasingly driven toward scandal and 
     personality--simply is not cut out for the role of chief 
     arbiter of politics, Patterson writes. The remedy he 
     recommends: shortening campaigns.
       That's a distant cure, though. What America needs most is 
     for TV and print editors to order their reporters to quit 
     being de facto columnists and to go back to telling people 
     what happened yesterday, rather than what to think about 
     tomorrow.

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