Product Description

Was the 2000 presidential campaign merely a contest between Pinocchio and Dumbo? And did Dumbo miraculously turn into Abraham Lincoln after the events of September 11? In fact, Kathleen Hall Jamieson and Paul Waldman argue in The Press Effect, these stereotypes, while containing some elements of the truth, represent the failure of the press and the citizenry to engage the most important part of our political process in a critical fashion. Jamieson and Waldman analyze both press coverage and public opinion, using the Annenberg 2000 survey, which interviewed more than 100,000 people, to examine one of the most interesting periods of modern presidential history, from the summer of 2000 through the beginning of 2002. How does the press fail us during presidential elections? Jamieson and Waldman show that when political campaigns side-step or refuse to engage the facts of the opposing side, the press often fails to step into the void with the information citizens require to make sense of the political give-and-take. They look at the stories through which we understand political events--examining a number of fabrications that deceived the public about consequential governmental activities--and explore the ways in which political leaders and reporters select the language through which we talk and think about politics, and the relationship between the rhetoric of campaigns and the reality of governance. They explore the role of the campaigns and the press in casting the 2000 general election as a contest between Pinocchio and Dumbo, and ask whether in 2000 the press applied the same standards of truth-telling to both Bush and Gore. The unprecedented events of election night and the thirty-six days that followed revealed the role that preconceptions play in press interpretation and the importance of press frames in determining the tone of political coverage as well as the impact of network overconfidence in polls. The Press Effect is, ultimately, a wide-ranging critique of the press's role in mediating between politicians and the citizens they are supposed to serve.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #942565 in Books
• Published on: 2002-11-14
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 240 pages

From Publishers Weekly
"The greatest generation was used to storming beachheads. Baby boomers such as myself was used to getting caught in a quagmire of Vietnam where politics made decisions more than the military sometimes." These garbled sentences, from a speech George W. Bush gave a month after September 11, were not dissimilar to those the President had delivered earlier. Yet the U.S. press, which had vigilantly chronicled all of Bush's earlier malapropisms, had decided the president had changed and was now eloquent. This fascinating, well documented and entertaining critique of the national press makes the case that the mainstream media doesn't so much report the news as create it, especially when journalists "transform the raw stuff of experience into presumed fact and arrange facts into coherent stories." University of Pennsylvania communications professor Jamieson and research fellow Waldman focus mainly on how the press reported the 2000 election, the Supreme Court's decision on the Florida vote and its response to national politics after 9/11. In each instance, they uncover and substantiate how the national press shapes the news. During the election, for instance, the press adapted a "frame" for each candidate, presenting Bush as "not too bright" and Gore as "untrustworthy." This "frame" defined most of the coverage, they say. Jamieson and Waldman's analysis is eye opening, and much of it is highly provocative. Intelligent and timely, this is an important addition to the literature on media and current events.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Amateur psychologist, soothsayer, patriot-these are some of the roles adopted by journalists in covering political news, according to Jamieson and Waldman (Annenberg Public Policy Ctr.). By forcing the news into "frames" that correspond to these roles, reporters determine which elements of a story to play up and which to ignore. To illustrate this disturbing phenomenon, the authors cite numerous recent examples, from media complicity in spreading campaign fabrications to the influence of journalists on the outcome of the 2000 presidential election. The only appropriate role for the news media to adopt, the authors maintain, is that of "custodian of fact." Too often, they argue, reporters simply analyze the strategies used by opposing sides rather than sorting out the facts behind the issues. While acknowledging that the truth can be elusive, the authors cite a few exemplary cases of journalistic integrity and fact finding. This important book, which demonstrates that media distortion is far too complex and insidious to be explained by mere liberal or conservative bias, belongs in all journalism collections.
Susan M. Colowick, North Olympic Lib. Syst., Port Angeles, WA
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Jamieson and Waldman, a journalism professor and a researcher, examine how journalists influence public perceptions of issues and, more important, how journalists are influenced by politicians and policymakers. The authors look at a range of issues and time periods but focus particularly on the 2000 presidential election, the controversial Supreme Court decision on that election, and the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. They show how the early stages of public debate often determine how terms are chosen and issues framed in such a way as to present particular points of view. According to the authors, the press often picks up on these frames and perpetuates them as fact; for example, current coverage of the terrorist attacks is often cloaked in patriotism, which precludes deep analysis of policy decisions. The 2000 election was framed in the stereotypes of a dim-witted Bush and a mendacious Gore. Once the frames are set, and in the absence of competitive pressure, reporters do little to further analyze the issues. A savvy critique. Vanessa Bush
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Customer Reviews

Solid, well researched, and balanced
Jamieson and Waldman offer a highly critical overview of media coverage, focusing on the 2000 Presidential election, but also touching on historical issues such as the Nixon Presidency and the Gulf of Tonkin incident. They are equally critical of the coverage given to Bush and Gore, in an impressive display of non-partisanship that is lacking in our media today. They encourage reporters to research the statements by candidates and to not simply accept the frame given to them by interested parties but to investigate and to put a truly fair and balanced frame around it. One issue that they note but could have gone into more detail on is that the media almost universally present issues as a for/against disagreement, whereas in reality there are often (I might argue almost always) more than two points of view on a given issue and the press ignores all but the two that are most easily reduced to sound bites.

A must read for all journalists
The press is in crisis--it no longer serves its most important role, which is to cut through political spin to get at the facts. Jamieson and Waldman make a convincing case that the press is so intent on creating compelling storylines that it has lost its critical edge.

For all journalists out there--please read it!

Consider some of these ideas
The Press Effect suggests the media frames issues and candidates in a way that their future stories on the subjects will tend to fit neatly inside the pre-conceived box. Since the media is a follow-the-leader game, once a frame takes hold it doesn't let go very easily. Jamieson and Waldman use this theory mainly to explore the 2000 Election between Gore and Bush.

Gore's many misstatements through his political career led the press to frame him as dishonest. Bush's flubs through his short political career convinced the press to put him in the frame of unintelligent. The result were campaign stories that asked voters to choose between the smart, but untrustworthy Gore and the dumb but affable Bush. The examples of media coverage in the book support this theory pretty well.

Next the authors cite the examples of Gore's untruths and basically defend each one as a misunderstanding, leaving Gore as a more honest individual than painted by the media. As a reader, I anticipated the authors next explaining that Bush was actually a smarter man than he was given credit for, after all he has an MBA from Harvard. Instead the authors quote a New Yorker article where a reporter cites George W. Bush's average grades at Yale. This is was a surprise, because the story was unverified by Yale and it doesn't take into account that grades have much more to do with ambition and drive than intelligence. There was no attempt to give Bush the same credit that the authors spent giving Gore. An opportunity to support their main thesis was left on the floor, which gives one the feeling that the real purpose of the book is to defend Gore not shame the media. This same pattern is repeated when the authors discuss the Florida recount.

It's unfortunate that Jamieson and Waldman abandon the scholarly for the advocacy role because there is a lot of other research in the book that seems dead on. They bemoan that fact that reporters do a terrible job of verifying the evidence and drawing conclusions. Instead, the authors argue that the media play into the "he said, she said" game of political strategy. The story becomes about how the candidates disagree with each other on their positions more than the actual substance of those positions. They also state that the media loves to play psychologist when they should instead be playing fact-finder.

I found the basic theories in the book supported by good evidence. But the advocacy of Gore and the silence on Bush in the analysis sections detracted from the book's purported goal of exposing the media's laziness. I'm sure that the authors would say that they had no intention of propping up Gore, but parts of the book seem to strengthen the media frame on Bush which weakens the overall argument of the book. This is surprising since Bush could have been defended as easily as Gore.

Anyway, I think the authors do a fine job casting a spotlight on the media's "follow the leader" approach and that's enough recommend it despite my other misgivings.