The media landscape is obviously vastly different than it was a decade ago. Talk radio, blogs and Fox News have made it much easier for diverse political opinions to be heard, but one exchange on a late night “comedy” show this week reinforced my belief that the leaps and bounds conservatives have made are only tiny first steps in the overall goal of media and communications parity.
Recently a reader emailed me the following question, “When the media will print nothing positive for the President, how do we get the message out?”
The truth is that the message problems Republican Presidents, as well as Republican candidates and conservatives in general, face is actually much worse than the media not running any positive news about them. Not only have positive stories about the economy and Iraq been scarce (even when there has been good news to report), but an outright hostility for Republicans permeates outlets far beyond the traditional news media.
In the past a major problem Republicans faced was getting the news reported in a balanced fashion and getting some stories reported at all. Today with talk radio, blogs and Fox News, those previously unreported stories are now available to the public, but the communications/message war is no longer fought primarily on traditional news programs. Along with alternative sources of information like the internet and cable news television, news (or some facsimile thereof) is now communicated more than ever before through entertainment programming.
Even those who don’t read newspapers or watch television news programs get a dose of news on shows such as Good Morning America, The View, Oprah Winfrey and the Late Show with David Letterman. Fictional dramas such as Law and Order, and even some situation comedies, routinely reference items from the news and politics as well.
In many cases the information viewers receive through non-news shows is more influential and persuasive than that received on traditional news programming because it is generally presented as a matter of fact with little, if any, presentation of an opposing viewpoint. Polls show the public is increasingly distrustful of journalists, but viewers of entertainment programs are not in the same skeptical mode they might be in when viewing a news program. Performers on non-news programs are not held to the same level of scrutiny that journalists on news shows are held. A prime example could be seen this week on David Letterman’s late night CBS show.
Former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan appeared on the David Letterman show Wednesday night to promote his new book, What Happened. In the “interview” McClellan nodded his head in agreement and chuckled at every insult Letterman hurled at the President and Vice President including the question “Is Cheney a goon?”
Nowhere in the exchange was animosity for the administration and a lack of any objectivity seen more than at the end of the segment when Letterman asked McClellan the following: “My feeling about Cheney, and also Bush, but especially Cheney, is that he just couldn’t care less about Americans. And the same is true with George Bush and all they really want to do is kiss up to the oil people so they can get some great annuity when they are out of office. Here ya go Dick, nice job” [Audience applause]. “Here’s a couple of billion for your trouble. I mean he pretty much put Halliburton in business and the outsourcing the military, ah, ah, resources to private mercenary groups and so forth. Is there any humanity in either of these guys?”
McClellan responded, “Look I still have personal affection for the President. I can’t speak to the Vice President’s thinking that well because he is someone that keeps things to himself and he believes in doing it his way and he doesn’t care what anyone else thinks. He’s going to do it the way he feels is best and that’s not always what’s in the best interest of this country, as we’ve seen.”
Letterman: “Well, you told me backstage that you thought he was a goon.”
Continued... |