{"id":420,"date":"2015-07-16T23:03:02","date_gmt":"2015-07-16T23:03:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.candelalearning.com\/masteryusgovernment1x6xmaster\/?post_type=chapter&#038;p=420"},"modified":"2019-05-31T21:39:05","modified_gmt":"2019-05-31T21:39:05","slug":"reading-the-presidency-in-the-information-age","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/atd-herkimer-americangovernment\/chapter\/reading-the-presidency-in-the-information-age\/","title":{"raw":"C. Reading: The Presidency in the Information Age","rendered":"C. Reading: The Presidency in the Information Age"},"content":{"raw":"<div id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_n01\" class=\"learning_objectives editable block\">\r\n<h2 class=\"title\">Learning Objectives<\/h2>\r\n<p id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_p01\" class=\"para\">After reading this section, you should be able to answer the following questions:<\/p>\r\n\r\n<ol id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_l01\" class=\"orderedlist\">\r\n \t<li>What are the basic purposes of the White House communications operation?<\/li>\r\n \t<li>How do presidents interact with the media?<\/li>\r\n \t<li>How does the White House press corps interact with the president?<\/li>\r\n \t<li>What challenges did President Obama face from the media, and how did he deal with them?<\/li>\r\n \t<li>What are the consequences of media coverage for the presidency?<\/li>\r\n<\/ol>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<p id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_p02\" class=\"para editable block\">The White House communications operation has four basic purposes.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<ul id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_l02\" class=\"itemizedlist editable block\">\r\n \t<li><strong class=\"emphasis bold\">Advocating.<\/strong> Promoting the president\u2019s policies and goals.<\/li>\r\n \t<li><strong class=\"emphasis bold\">Explaining.<\/strong> Providing information, details, answering questions.<\/li>\r\n \t<li><strong class=\"emphasis bold\">Defending.<\/strong> Responding to criticism, unanticipated events, cleaning up after mistakes, and challenging unfair news stories.<\/li>\r\n \t<li><strong class=\"emphasis bold\">Coordinating.<\/strong> Bringing together White House units, governmental agencies (bureaucracies), allies in Congress, and outside supporters (interest groups) to publicize and promote presidential actions.<span id=\"paletz_1.0-fn13_067\" class=\"footnote\">[footnote]These are taken from Martha Joynt Kumar, <em class=\"emphasis\">Managing the President\u2019s Message: The White House Communications Operation<\/em> (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007), xx\u2013xxi and chap. 1.[\/footnote]<\/span><\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<p id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_p03\" class=\"para editable block\">How is the White House organized to go about achieving these purposes?<\/p>\r\n\r\n<div id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s01\" class=\"section\">\r\n<h2 class=\"title editable block\">Media Interactions: White House Press Operations<\/h2>\r\n<p id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s01_p01\" class=\"para editable block\">Presidents decide whether, when, where, at what length, and under what conditions they will talk to reporters. Most presidential interactions with the media are highly restricted and stage-managed.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<div id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s01_s01\" class=\"section\">\r\n<h3 class=\"title editable block\">Press Conferences<\/h3>\r\n<p id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s01_s01_p01\" class=\"para editable block\">In the best-known form of press conference, the president appears alone, usually before television cameras, to answer questions on the record from the assembled reporters who can ask anything on their minds for a given period of time (usually up to an hour). Presidents generally hold such press conferences when they need to respond to important issues or mounting criticism\u2014or if they have been accused of avoiding direct questions from the press.<\/p>\r\n<p id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s01_s01_p02\" class=\"para editable block\">Press conferences allow presidents to dominate the news, pay obeisance to or at least acknowledge the importance of a free press, galvanize supporters, and try to placate opponents. Presidents, as much as reporters, control press conferences. They make opening statements. They choose who asks questions\u2014at his first press conference President Obama recognized the presence of the new media by taking a question from a writer for the influential online-only news outlet the <a class=\"link\" href=\"http:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em class=\"emphasis\">Huffington Post<\/em><\/a>. They can recover from a tough question by finding someone to toss them a softball. Follow-up questions are not guaranteed. Presidents can run out the clock, blather on in evasive or convoluted language, and refuse to take or answer questions on a subject.<span id=\"paletz_1.0-fn13_068\" class=\"footnote\">[footnote]Jarol B. Manheim, \u201cThe Honeymoon\u2019s Over: The News Conference and the Development of Presidential Style,\u201d <em class=\"emphasis\">Journal of Politics<\/em> 41 (1979): 55\u201374.[\/footnote]<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n<div id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s01_s01_f01\" class=\"figure medium editable block\"><\/div>\r\n<p id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s01_s01_p03\" class=\"para editable block\">Nonetheless, press conferences have risks for presidents. Since reporters\u2019 questions have become more challenging over time, presidents shy away from press conferences more and more.<span id=\"paletz_1.0-fn13_069\" class=\"footnote\">[footnote]Steven Clayman and John Heritage, \u201cQuestioning Presidents: Deference and Adversarialness in the Press Conferences of Eisenhower and Reagan,\u201d <em class=\"emphasis\">Journal of Communication<\/em> 52 (2002): 749\u201375.[\/footnote]<\/span> Increasingly, they rely on joint press conferences, most often with foreign leaders. Such press conferences add questioners from another press corps, limit the number of questions to a handful, and reduce the amount of time for the president to answer questions.<\/p>\r\n<p id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s01_s01_p04\" class=\"para editable block\">Presidents favor ever more controlled interactions with reporters. Most typically, they make a brief statement or give a speech without answering questions, or pose in a photo opportunity, where they are seen but not heard. Controversial announcements may be made in writing so that television news has no damaging footage to air.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<blockquote>\r\n<p class=\"para editable block\">It is a rare day when the president is not seen by reporters. But it is also a rare day when his appearance is not a scripted one. The White House goal is to have the president publicly available, but to do so with his having as little vulnerability to error as the staff can fashion.<span id=\"paletz_1.0-fn13_070\" class=\"footnote\">[footnote]Martha Joynt Kumar, \u201cThe Daily White House Press Briefings: A Reflection of the Enduring Elements of a Relationship,\u201d unpublished paper, April 1999, 9.[\/footnote]<\/span><\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<div id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s01_s02\" class=\"section\">\r\n<h3 class=\"title editable block\">Press Secretary<\/h3>\r\n<p id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s01_s02_p01\" class=\"para editable block\">The most visible member of a White House publicity apparatus\u2014and the key person for reporters\u2014is the presidential press secretary.<span id=\"paletz_1.0-fn13_071\" class=\"footnote\">[footnote]Woody Klein, <em class=\"emphasis\">All the President\u2019s Spokesmen<\/em> (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2008).[\/footnote]<\/span> The press secretary is \u201cresponsible for creating and disseminating the official record of the president\u2019s statements, announcements, reactions, and explanations.\u201d<span id=\"paletz_1.0-fn13_072\" class=\"footnote\">[footnote]Martha Joynt Kumar,<em class=\"emphasis\">Managing the President\u2019s Message: The White House Communications Operation<\/em> (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007), 179.[\/footnote]<\/span> The press secretary has three constituencies with different expectations of him: \u201cthe president, White House staff, reporters and their news organizations.\u201d<span id=\"paletz_1.0-fn13_073\" class=\"footnote\">[footnote]Martha Joynt Kumar, <em class=\"emphasis\">Managing the President\u2019s Message: The White House Communications Operation<\/em> (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007), 180.[\/footnote]<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n<div id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s01_s02_n01\" class=\"callout block\">\r\n<h3 class=\"title\">Link:\u00a0White House Press Briefings<\/h3>\r\n<p id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s01_s02_p02\" class=\"para\">Search the archives of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.whitehouse.gov\/briefing-room\/press-briefings\">press briefings<\/a>.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n<p id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s01_s02_p03\" class=\"para editable block\">In every presidency starting with Ronald Reagan\u2019s, press secretaries begin their day with meetings with the central coordinator of policy and message, the White House chief of staff, and other senior staffers to study overnight news developments (a news summary is circulated each day to senior staff), forecast where stories are going, and review the president\u2019s schedule. Press secretaries next prepare for their first interaction with reporters, the morning\u2019s daily, less formal discussion known as the <span class=\"margin_term\"><a class=\"glossterm\">gaggle<\/a><\/span>.<span id=\"paletz_1.0-fn13_074\" class=\"footnote\">[footnote]See Howard Kurtz, <em class=\"emphasis\">Spin Cycle: Inside the Clinton Propaganda Machine<\/em> (New York: Free Press, 1998), and Kumar, \u201cDaily White House Press Briefings: A Reflection of the Enduring Elements of a Relationship,\u201d unpublished paper, April 1999.[\/footnote]<\/span> Cameras are not allowed into the gaggle. Reporters use tape recorders only to gather information, not for sound bites.<\/p>\r\n<p id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s01_s02_p04\" class=\"para editable block\">The press secretary begins the gaggle by reviewing the president\u2019s schedule before entering into a fast-moving question-and-answer session. The gaggle benefits reporters: it provides responses to overnight news, gives guidance for the workday ahead, reveals the line the White House is pushing and allows them to lobby for access to the president. The gaggle helps press secretaries too by enabling them to float ideas and slogans and, by hearing what\u2019s on reporters\u2019 minds, prepare for the afternoon briefing.<\/p>\r\n<p id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s01_s02_p05\" class=\"para editable block\">The press secretary leads this more official 12:30 p.m. briefing, which is as close as anything to a daily enunciation of White House policy. Here, cameras are allowed; the briefing is broadcast live on cable television if news is brewing. The session is transcribed and disseminated (electronically and on paper) to reporters at the White House and beyond. The press secretary spends the hours between the gaggle and the briefing looking for answers to questions raised (or anticipated) and checking with other spokespersons elsewhere in the administration, such as at the Departments of State and Defense.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<div id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s01_s02_f01\" class=\"figure medium editable block\"><\/div>\r\n<p id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s01_s02_p06\" class=\"para editable block\">Briefings do not always benefit the White House. The presence of television cameras sometimes pushes reporters to be\u2014or act\u2014tough and combative for viewers. Reporters try to throw the press secretary off balance or to elicit a juicy or embarrassing admission. Briefings offer reporters a rare chance to quiz officials on matters the White House would prefer not to discuss. Press secretaries are often unresponsive to reporters\u2019 questions, stonewall, and repeat set phrases. During a single briefing when he was peppered by questions about President George W. Bush\u2019s National Guard service, press secretary Scott McClellan dutifully uttered the phrase \u201cThe president met all his responsibilities\u201d some thirty-eight times.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n<div id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s01_s03\" class=\"section\">\r\n<h3 class=\"title editable block\">Office of Communications<\/h3>\r\n<p id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s01_s03_p01\" class=\"para editable block\">The press secretary on the front line is not always the key public relations strategist. Richard Nixon was the first president to craft long-range communication strategies. A bevy of public relations veterans defined a White House priority or storyline, coordinated who said what, and planned public schedules of administration officials. They brought local reporters from outside Washington to the capital. The aim was to emphasize a single White House position, woo softer local news, and silence contrary messages in the administration.<\/p>\r\n<p id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s01_s03_p02\" class=\"para editable block\">Such tasks were given to the newly established <span class=\"margin_term\"><a class=\"glossterm\">Office of Communications<\/a><\/span>\u2014retained by all subsequent presidents. Directors of communications rarely interact with reporters on a regular basis; their job is to stress the big picture. Even when Nixon\u2019s first successors, Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter, pledged open and free interactions with reporters, they found they had to reopen the Office of Communications for central control of the all-important message.<\/p>\r\n<p id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s01_s03_p03\" class=\"para editable block\">Another lasting innovation of the Nixon presidency is the <span class=\"margin_term\"><a class=\"glossterm\">line of the day<\/a><\/span>. Specific topics and storylines are repeated throughout the administration as the focus for all discussion on that day. Presidents use the Office of Communications to centralize a marketing strategy on issues. They are often open about this. In 2002, White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card said the Bush administration waited until after Labor Day to lobby Congress to authorize war against Iraq because, in his words, \u201cFrom a marketing point of view . . . you don\u2019t introduce new products in August.\u201d<span id=\"paletz_1.0-fn13_075\" class=\"footnote\">[footnote]Quoted in Elisabeth Bumiller, \u201cBush Aides Set Strategy to Sell Policy on Iraq,\u201d <em class=\"emphasis\">New York Times<\/em>, September 7, 2002, A1.[\/footnote]<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n<div id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s01_s04\" class=\"section\">\r\n<h3 class=\"title editable block\">\u201cManipulation by Inundation\u201d<\/h3>\r\n<p id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s01_s04_p01\" class=\"para editable block\">The public must be reached <em class=\"emphasis\">through<\/em> the news media. Reagan\u2019s election took such efforts to new heights. Like Nixon, Reagan downgraded the news conference in favor of stage-managed appearances. A press officer who worked for both presidents noted a crucial distinction. The Nixon administration was restrictive, but he said:<\/p>\r\n\r\n<blockquote>\r\n<p class=\"para editable block\">The Reagan White House came to the totally opposite conclusion that the media will take what we feed them. They\u2019ve got to write their story every day. . . . Hand them a well-packaged, premasticated story in the format they want, they\u2019ll go away. The phrase is \u2018manipulation by inundation.\u2019<span id=\"paletz_1.0-fn13_076\" class=\"footnote\">[footnote]Les Janka, quoted in Mark Hertsgaard, <em class=\"emphasis\">On Bended Knee: The Press and the Reagan Presidency<\/em> (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1988), 52.[\/footnote]<\/span><\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n<p id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s01_s04_p02\" class=\"para editable block\">Reagan\u2019s lesson has been learned by subsequent presidents and media advisors. Presidents rarely have to \u201cfreeze out\u201d given reporters (when officials do not return their calls). Staff do sometimes cajole and berate reporters, but frontal assaults against the press usually only occur in clear cases of journalistic bungling.<\/p>\r\n<p id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s01_s04_p03\" class=\"para editable block\">More typically, presidents and their staffs try to manage the news. Presidents cultivate reporters, columnists, and pundits: they host lunches, dine with them, and hold off-the-record sessions. The staff members anticipate what reporters will ask in briefings and prepare the president accordingly. They design events to meet news values of drama, color, and terseness. And they provide a wealth of daily, even hourly, information and images.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n<div id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s01_s05\" class=\"section\">\r\n<h3 class=\"title editable block\">The End Run around White House Reporters<\/h3>\r\n<p id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s01_s05_p01\" class=\"para editable block\">Inundation is not sufficient. George W. Bush was typical of all presidents when he groused in 2003 to a regional reporter:<\/p>\r\n\r\n<blockquote>\r\n<p class=\"para editable block\">There\u2019s a sense that people in America aren\u2019t getting the truth. I\u2019m mindful of the filter through which some news travels, and sometimes you have to go over the heads of the filter and speak directly to the people.<span id=\"paletz_1.0-fn13_077\" class=\"footnote\">[footnote]Quoted in Elisabeth Bumiller, \u201cTrying to Bypass the Good-News Filter,\u201d<em class=\"emphasis\">New York Times<\/em>, October 20, 2003, A12.[\/footnote]<\/span><\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n<p id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s01_s05_p02\" class=\"para editable block\">All new presidents try novel strategies to do an end run around what they always perceive to be a biased press. President Franklin D. Roosevelt relished behind-the-scenes Oval Office conferences to woo Democratic-leaning reporters (and bypass Republican-leaning editorial pages).<\/p>\r\n<p id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s01_s05_p03\" class=\"para editable block\">President Richard Nixon shunned press conferences and sought other ways to get his messages out, such as through star-struck local news. President Bill Clinton instituted cozy miniconferences with other world leaders and brought in local television weather reporters for a confab on global warming. Nowadays, the White House deals directly with the regional and local press, special-interest media, and ethnic news organizations.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<div id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s02\" class=\"section\">\r\n<h2 class=\"title editable block\">Media Interactions: The White House Press Corps<\/h2>\r\n<p id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s02_p01\" class=\"para editable block\">Presidents head the state, government, and their political party. So almost anything they do or that happens to them is newsworthy.<span id=\"paletz_1.0-fn13_078\" class=\"footnote\">[footnote]Stephen J. Farnsworth and S. Robert Lichter, <em class=\"emphasis\">The Mediated Presidency: Television News and Presidential Governance<\/em> (Lanham, MD: Rowman &amp; Littlefield, 2006).[\/footnote]<\/span> They are the sole political figures whose activities are followed around the clock. Presidents fit news values perfectly. The ongoing saga of a familiar hero engaged in myriad controversies and conflicts, international and domestic, is far simpler to explain and present than complex scenarios of coalition-building in Congress.<\/p>\r\n<p id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s02_p02\" class=\"para editable block\">About seventeen hundred reporters are granted White House press passes. But the key members of the White House press corps are the few dozen regulars assigned to go there day in and day out and who spend their work days there.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<blockquote>\r\n<p class=\"para editable block\">A White House press pass provides merely the privilege to wait\u2014wait for a briefing; wait to see the president; wait until a press conference is called; wait to see the press secretary; wait to see senior officials; wait to have phone calls returned. There may be propinquity to power, but there is little control over when and how the news is gathered.<span id=\"paletz_1.0-fn13_079\" class=\"footnote\">[footnote]Martha Joynt Kumar, \u201cThe President and the News Media,\u201d in <em class=\"emphasis\">The Presidency and the Political System<\/em>, 6th ed., ed. Michael Nelson (Washington, DC: CQ Press, 2000) 835\u201380 at 867.[\/footnote]<\/span><\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n<p id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s02_p03\" class=\"para editable block\">The regulars make up an intimate society with its own culture, norms, manners, friendship networks, and modes of interaction. The White House layout reinforces this in-group mentality. The briefing room, where press secretaries and reporters meet daily, is a claustrophobic, cluttered space with forty-eight scuffed and battered seats. Beyond the dais at one end, reporters can wander down the hall to buttonhole press officers, though they cannot go much farther (the Oval Office, just fifty feet away, is inaccessible). Hallways leading to two floors of press rooms are in the back; the rooms are crammed with desks and broadcasting equipment for the use of reporters. Along the corridor are bins that contain press releases, official statements, and daily schedules (which are also available electronically). Outside, on a once graveled-over and now paved section of the lawn named \u201cPebble Beach,\u201d rows of television cameras await television reporters.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<div id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s02_f01\" class=\"figure medium editable block\">\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_421\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"201\"]<a href=\"https:\/\/s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com\/courses-images-archive-read-only\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/607\/2015\/07\/21191949\/2885798185_b2fe0721fc_o.jpg\"><img class=\"wp-image-421 \" src=\"https:\/\/s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com\/courses-images-archive-read-only\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/607\/2015\/07\/21191949\/2885798185_b2fe0721fc_o.jpg\" alt=\"Photo of a line of reporters along a sidewalk outside the White House\" width=\"201\" height=\"151\" \/><\/a> The White House accommodates television reporters to allow them to do their \u201cstand-ups\u201d with the august background of the White House portico. This area can become packed with reporters when big stories are developing.[\/caption]\r\n<p class=\"para\">Rather than foster enterprise, the White House herds reporters together, gives them all the same information, and breeds anxiety by leading them to believe they may be missing the big story everyone else is chasing.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<div id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s03\" class=\"section\">\r\n<h2 class=\"title editable block\">Media Interactions: Negotiating News at the White House<\/h2>\r\n<p id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s03_p01\" class=\"para editable block\">Reporters submit to the conditions established by presidents and their staffers in receiving information. But they are less docile when they actually assemble that information in White House news.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<div id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s03_s01\" class=\"section\">\r\n<h3 class=\"title editable block\">Cooperation and Conflict<\/h3>\r\n<p id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s03_s01_p01\" class=\"para editable block\">The relationship between the White House and its press corps is ongoing. The \u201cvillage\u201d feel to the newsbeat includes presidents and their staffers. But while this day-to-day continuity favors cooperation, the divergent interests and notions of the White House and reporters makes for a constant tension. Reporters do not like appearing as \u201cmouthpieces\u201d for presidents. They embrace the notion of acting as watchdogs and seek ways to present an independent and critical account whenever possible in their White House stories.<\/p>\r\n<p id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s03_s01_p02\" class=\"para editable block\">What reporters consider news and what presidents consider news are often at odds. Presidents love to speak at length, be alone at center stage, favor nuance if not ambiguity, and focus on questions of policy. Reporters like terse sound bites, dramatic conflict, clear-cut comments, and a new installment on how the president is doing politically.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n<div id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s03_s02\" class=\"section\">\r\n<h3 class=\"title editable block\">Assembling the Story<\/h3>\r\n<p id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s03_s02_p01\" class=\"para editable block\">Reagan\u2019s first White House spokesperson, Larry Speakes, had a plaque on his desk that read: \u201cYou don\u2019t tell us how to stage the news, and we won\u2019t tell you how to cover it.\u201d Though he was being playful, Speakes revealed how the White House and the press corps each control one part of the news.<\/p>\r\n<p id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s03_s02_p02\" class=\"para editable block\">The White House controls whether, when, how, and where White House officials will meet reporters and what information to release. Pictures and video of the president are packaged along with slogans that make a visual case regardless of the angle the reporter advances. Clinton\u2019s aides affixed captions to the presidential podium during ceremonies to underscore the theme they wished to communicate. George W. Bush\u2019s assistants went one better, crafting twenty different canvasses that could be placed behind him, each emblazoned with a motto of the day, such as \u201cProtecting the Homeland\u201d or \u201cCorporate Responsibility.\u201d Dan Bartlett, then Bush\u2019s director of communication, defended such branding: \u201cThe message should be seen and read and understood on TV. It\u2019s a good reinforcement.\u201d<span id=\"paletz_1.0-fn13_080\" class=\"footnote\">[footnote]Quoted in Anne E. Kornblut, \u201cPresident Is Keeping His Messages Front and Center,\u201d<em class=\"emphasis\">Boston Globe<\/em>, July 23, 2002, A4.[\/footnote]<\/span><\/p>\r\n<p id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s03_s02_p03\" class=\"para editable block\">But reporters take the raw material provided by presidential news operations and craft it into a coherent and dramatic story. In a typical television news story, the president\u2019s words and images make up a tiny fraction of the allotted time. Television reporters add old video, interview critics in Congress, cite poll numbers, and give their own interpretations. Even on cable television news, which often airs presidential remarks live during the day, reporters and commentators will hash over and contest the White House \u201cangle.\u201d Presidential statements have a different effect once placed into the news media\u2019s sometimes dramatically divergent context.<\/p>\r\n<p id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s03_s02_p04\" class=\"para editable block\">The dilemma for presidents, as Clinton\u2019s press secretary Mike McCurry noted, is that \u201cninety percent of what happens at the White House is pure boredom.\u201d<span id=\"paletz_1.0-fn13_081\" class=\"footnote\">[footnote]Quoted in Andrew Miga, \u201cWhite House Drama More Colorful than the Real White House,\u201d <em class=\"emphasis\">Boston Herald<\/em>, September 23, 1999, 3.[\/footnote]<\/span> Reporters need drama. If presidents do not fit the heroic roles of \u201cdecisive problem solver\u201d and \u201crepresentative of the nation,\u201d they can be slotted into a less positive frame. Politics will displace policy; criticism and conflict overwhelm praise and unity. Even in presidents\u2019 supposed \u201choneymoon\u201d periods, critical coverage is not unknown. Presidents are, then, in the unenviable position of needing the news and being routinely in its spotlight without being able consistently to control the images of themselves and their policies in that news.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<div id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s04\" class=\"section\"><\/div>\r\n<div id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s04\" class=\"section\">\r\n<h2 class=\"title editable block\">President Obama and the Media<\/h2>\r\n<p id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s04_p01\" class=\"para editable block\">During his first term in office, President Obama could claim several significant accomplishments. They included health-care reform, an economic stimulus program, financial regulation, educational innovations, consumer protections, the withdrawal of combat troops from Iraq, banning torture of prisoners in US custody, ratification of a new strategic arms reduction treaty with Russia, and repeal of the \u201cDon\u2019t ask, don\u2019t tell\u201d law.<\/p>\r\n<p id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s04_p02\" class=\"para editable block\">These accomplishments, except for the killing of Osama bin Laden, were not as widely recognized as they could have been. One reason was, as the president told a reporter,<\/p>\r\n\r\n<blockquote>\r\n<p class=\"para editable block\">we probably spent much more time trying to get the policy right than trying to get the politics right. . . . And I think anybody who\u2019s occupied this office has to remember that success is determined by an intersection in policy and politics and that you can\u2019t be neglecting of marketing and P.R. and public opinion.<span id=\"paletz_1.0-fn13_082\" class=\"footnote\">[footnote]Peter Baker, \u201cWhat Does He Do Now?,\u201d <em class=\"emphasis\">New York Times Magazine<\/em>, October 17, 2010, 42.[\/footnote]<\/span><\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n<p class=\"para editable block\">His media operation was accused of being reactive instead of proactive in responding to reporters and of lacking the skill to promote and the language to sell the president, his policies, and his party.<\/p>\r\n<p id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s04_p03\" class=\"para editable block\">Compounding this neglect, the media environment imposed four challenges to any attempts by President Obama to communicate effectively with the American public.<\/p>\r\n<p id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s04_p04\" class=\"para editable block\">First, presidents\u2019 prime-time addresses, even when carried by all networks, reach a smaller portion of the audience than they did in years past.<span id=\"paletz_1.0-fn13_083\" class=\"footnote\">[footnote]Joe S. Foote, <em class=\"emphasis\">Television Access and Political Power: The Networks, the Presidency, and the \u201cLoyal Opposition\u201d<\/em> (New York: Praeger, 1990); and Matthew A. Baum and Samuel Kernell, \u201cHas Cable Ended the Golden Age of Presidential Television?\u201d <em class=\"emphasis\">American Political Science Review<\/em> 93 (March 1999): 99\u2013114.[\/footnote]<\/span> The profit-minded media discourage presidents from taking too often to the airwaves. When presidents request air time, broadcast television networks can conclude the subject is not adequately newsworthy and turn them down.<\/p>\r\n<p id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s04_p05\" class=\"para editable block\">Second, the news media are more than ever obsessed with conflict. As President Obama observed to Bob Schieffer, \u201cthe twenty-four-hour news cycle and cable television and blogs and all this, they focus on the most extreme elements on both sides. They can\u2019t get enough of conflict.\u201d<span id=\"paletz_1.0-fn13_084\" class=\"footnote\">[footnote]CBS, <em class=\"emphasis\">Face the Nation<\/em>, September 20, 2009.[\/footnote]<\/span><\/p>\r\n<p id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s04_p06\" class=\"para editable block\">Third, the media are more and more partisan\u2014intensely so. For President Obama, this means virulent attacks and relentless denunciations by <a class=\"link\" href=\"http:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Fox News<\/a>, America\u2019s most watched cable news channel; the editorial page of the <a class=\"link\" href=\"http:\/\/online.wsj.com\/home-page\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em class=\"emphasis\">Wall Street Journal<\/em><\/a>, America\u2019s most widely circulated newspaper; and a conservative chorus led by <a class=\"link\" href=\"http:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/home\/today.guest.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Rush Limbaugh<\/a> on talk radio. In addition, a bevy of more or less partisan commentators and pundits subject presidential speeches, press conferences, and statements to constant analysis and dissection.<\/p>\r\n<p id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s04_p07\" class=\"para editable block\">Fourth, the media audience is increasingly dispersed, fragmented, and sometimes separated into mutually exclusive segments. People are divided by whether they read newspapers (and which ones), the kinds of movies and television programs they watch, their level of involvement with social media, the websites they follow, and much more.<\/p>\r\n<p id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s04_p08\" class=\"para editable block\">Given this media environment, President Obama faced two daunting problems: (1) to reach as many of the various audiences as possible and (2) to do so with messages in support of his personal, political, and policy objectives.<span id=\"paletz_1.0-fn13_085\" class=\"footnote\">[footnote]This discussion is based on Ken Auletta, \u201cNon-Stop News,\u201d <em class=\"emphasis\">New Yorker<\/em>, January 25, 2010, 38\u201347.[\/footnote]<\/span><\/p>\r\n<p id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s04_p09\" class=\"para editable block\">One approach was to take advantage of new technologies through an Office of New Media. The president\u2019s inauguration was the first to be put on YouTube, as are his weekly radio addresses. The\u00a0<a class=\"link\" href=\"http:\/\/www.whitehouse.gov\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">White House website<\/a> contains the president\u2019s activities and agenda and features videos. Text messages and Twitter alerts are sent out to the president\u2019s followers under his name. He also conducted the first Internet video news conference by an American president.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<h3>Video Clip: President Barack Obama's Inaugural Address<\/h3>\r\nhttps:\/\/youtu.be\/3PuHGKnboNY\r\n\r\nA second approach is to appear in many media venues. On September 20, 2009, President Obama gave separate back-to-back interviews advocating his health-care proposal to each of the hosts of the Sunday morning talk shows. (The interviews had been taped the previous Friday in the Roosevelt Room in the White House).\r\n<h2>Video Clip: Sunday with Obama\u2014September 20, 2009<\/h2>\r\nhttps:\/\/youtu.be\/9zV6eFd4RIU\r\n\r\nIn seeking and finding audiences, the president has ranged far beyond Sunday morning interview programs. He has appeared on the late-night television talk shows of <a class=\"link\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nbc.com\/the-tonight-show\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Jay Leno<\/a> and <a class=\"link\" href=\"http:\/\/www.cbs.com\/late_night\/late_show\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">David Letterman<\/a>,\u00a0<a class=\"link\" href=\"http:\/\/www.thedailyshow.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em class=\"emphasis\">The Daily Show with Jon Stewart<\/em><\/a>, Oprah, and the morning talk show <em class=\"emphasis\"><a class=\"link\" href=\"http:\/\/abc.go.com\/daytime\/theview\/index\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The View<\/a>,<\/em> and gave an interview on <a class=\"link\" href=\"http:\/\/www.amw.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em class=\"emphasis\">America\u2019s Most Wanted<\/em><\/a>.\r\n<p id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s04_p12\" class=\"para editable block\">The president reached new audiences, appeared in comfortable settings, and was usually treated with deference and respect. Conversation took place in a relaxed atmosphere. He discussed his accomplishments and displayed mastery of policies yet at the same time was humanized as a family man with a sense of humor.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<div id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s04_f02\" class=\"figure medium editable block\">\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"201\"]<img class=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/2012books.lardbucket.org\/books\/21st-century-american-government-and-politics\/section_17\/35128425943fdde1b1fc716679df3f9b.jpg\" alt=\"Photo: President Barack Obama records an episode of The View at ABC Studios in New York, N.Y., July 28, 2010. Pictured, from left, are Whoopi Goldberg, Barbara Walters, Joy Behar, Sherri Shepherd, and Elisabeth Hasselbeck.\" width=\"201\" height=\"134\" \/> President Obama has ventured far and wide in the media landscape to find audiences\u2014including to The Daily Show and\u00a0The View.[\/caption]\r\n<p class=\"para\">There are risks. Appearances on entertainment shows and casual familiarity with hosts can undermine the majesty of the office. Commercial interruptions can diminish presidential dignity. Some interviewers may question the president\u2019s policies and competence, as Jon Stewart has done. Others may even challenge the president\u2019s authority, as Bill O\u2019Reilly did in a fifteen-minute interview conducted just before Fox televised the 2011 Super Bowl.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<div id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s05\" class=\"section\">\r\n<h2 class=\"title editable block\">Media Consequences<\/h2>\r\n<p id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s05_p01\" class=\"para editable block\">The president\u2019s visibility in the news is a double-edged sword. The news personalizes the presidency and presents the office through the individual president. There is high pressure for dramatic action and quick results. The constant presence of the White House press corps means that reporters clamor for presidential reaction to and action about any breaking news\u2014which can easily overwhelm the president\u2019s agenda.<\/p>\r\n<p id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s05_p02\" class=\"para editable block\">The media encourage presidents to find policy areas that enable them to play the role of bold, public-minded leader. But because reporters seek conflict and drama at the White House news beat, stories are subject to what columnist Jonathan Alter has termed \u201cthe manic-depressive media.\u201d<span id=\"paletz_1.0-fn13_086\" class=\"footnote\">[footnote]Jonathan Alter, \u201cThe Manic-Depressive Media,\u201d <em class=\"emphasis\">Newsweek<\/em>, February 8, 1993, 29.[\/footnote]<\/span> In the way the media frame stories, each event is a make-or-break moment for the president, suitable for triumph or humiliation. Highs are higher; lows are lower. New issues that emerge can change the president\u2019s depiction in the news.<\/p>\r\n<p id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s05_p03\" class=\"para editable block\">Success in news coverage should not be equated with policy success. Consider the news image of the elder George Bush in the fall of 1990. The news contrasted his glory in the Gulf War against his bungle on the budget. From the start, Bush laid out a straightforward line in the 1990 crisis leading up to the war\u2014push Iraq out of Kuwait\u2014with such clarity and intransigence that it perfectly fit the media frame of decisive action. But when Bush engaged in complex budget negotiations with key members of Congress, the news media found him looking confused and waffling. The war was a media success; the budget was a media failure. But was the war a policy success and the budget a policy failure? Not necessarily. The war solved few of the problems that provoked Iraq\u2019s invasion of Kuwait and almost led to civil war in Iraq. The budget agreement stanched the growth of the budget deficit and led to its later erasure.<\/p>\r\n<p id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s05_p04\" class=\"para editable block\">It is hard for presidents to resist the temptation to appear in the news constantly, even though chasing after the readily available publicity might push them in policy directions that are far from desirable. If they want media attention, they must either opt for charged, straightforward issues and clear-cut commitments or make complex issues seem simpler than they are. They and their staffers try to package actions to balance the complexity of policies against the simplicity of news (and commentary), the need to keep options open as long as possible against the news media\u2019s desire for drama, conflict, and closure.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<div id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s05_n01\" class=\"key_takeaways editable block\">\r\n<h2 class=\"title\">Key Takeaways<\/h2>\r\n<p id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s05_p05\" class=\"para\">Presidents interact with the media through press conferences, the press secretary, the Office of Communications, manipulation by inundation, and end runs around White House reporters. The White House press corps, in search of dramatic stories, is engaged in ongoing conflict and cooperation with the White House. President Obama encountered several problems with the media that he tried to resolve through new technologies and appearing in many media venues. It can be difficult for presidents to balance their policy interests with the media\u2019s criteria of news and expectations of dramatic action and quick results.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>","rendered":"<div id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_n01\" class=\"learning_objectives editable block\">\n<h2 class=\"title\">Learning Objectives<\/h2>\n<p id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_p01\" class=\"para\">After reading this section, you should be able to answer the following questions:<\/p>\n<ol id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_l01\" class=\"orderedlist\">\n<li>What are the basic purposes of the White House communications operation?<\/li>\n<li>How do presidents interact with the media?<\/li>\n<li>How does the White House press corps interact with the president?<\/li>\n<li>What challenges did President Obama face from the media, and how did he deal with them?<\/li>\n<li>What are the consequences of media coverage for the presidency?<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/div>\n<p id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_p02\" class=\"para editable block\">The White House communications operation has four basic purposes.<\/p>\n<ul id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_l02\" class=\"itemizedlist editable block\">\n<li><strong class=\"emphasis bold\">Advocating.<\/strong> Promoting the president\u2019s policies and goals.<\/li>\n<li><strong class=\"emphasis bold\">Explaining.<\/strong> Providing information, details, answering questions.<\/li>\n<li><strong class=\"emphasis bold\">Defending.<\/strong> Responding to criticism, unanticipated events, cleaning up after mistakes, and challenging unfair news stories.<\/li>\n<li><strong class=\"emphasis bold\">Coordinating.<\/strong> Bringing together White House units, governmental agencies (bureaucracies), allies in Congress, and outside supporters (interest groups) to publicize and promote presidential actions.<span id=\"paletz_1.0-fn13_067\" class=\"footnote\"><a class=\"footnote\" title=\"These are taken from Martha Joynt Kumar, Managing the President\u2019s Message: The White House Communications Operation (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007), xx\u2013xxi and chap. 1.\" id=\"return-footnote-420-1\" href=\"#footnote-420-1\" aria-label=\"Footnote 1\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[1]<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_p03\" class=\"para editable block\">How is the White House organized to go about achieving these purposes?<\/p>\n<div id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s01\" class=\"section\">\n<h2 class=\"title editable block\">Media Interactions: White House Press Operations<\/h2>\n<p id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s01_p01\" class=\"para editable block\">Presidents decide whether, when, where, at what length, and under what conditions they will talk to reporters. Most presidential interactions with the media are highly restricted and stage-managed.<\/p>\n<div id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s01_s01\" class=\"section\">\n<h3 class=\"title editable block\">Press Conferences<\/h3>\n<p id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s01_s01_p01\" class=\"para editable block\">In the best-known form of press conference, the president appears alone, usually before television cameras, to answer questions on the record from the assembled reporters who can ask anything on their minds for a given period of time (usually up to an hour). Presidents generally hold such press conferences when they need to respond to important issues or mounting criticism\u2014or if they have been accused of avoiding direct questions from the press.<\/p>\n<p id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s01_s01_p02\" class=\"para editable block\">Press conferences allow presidents to dominate the news, pay obeisance to or at least acknowledge the importance of a free press, galvanize supporters, and try to placate opponents. Presidents, as much as reporters, control press conferences. They make opening statements. They choose who asks questions\u2014at his first press conference President Obama recognized the presence of the new media by taking a question from a writer for the influential online-only news outlet the <a class=\"link\" href=\"http:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em class=\"emphasis\">Huffington Post<\/em><\/a>. They can recover from a tough question by finding someone to toss them a softball. Follow-up questions are not guaranteed. Presidents can run out the clock, blather on in evasive or convoluted language, and refuse to take or answer questions on a subject.<span id=\"paletz_1.0-fn13_068\" class=\"footnote\"><a class=\"footnote\" title=\"Jarol B. Manheim, \u201cThe Honeymoon\u2019s Over: The News Conference and the Development of Presidential Style,\u201d Journal of Politics 41 (1979): 55\u201374.\" id=\"return-footnote-420-2\" href=\"#footnote-420-2\" aria-label=\"Footnote 2\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[2]<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s01_s01_f01\" class=\"figure medium editable block\"><\/div>\n<p id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s01_s01_p03\" class=\"para editable block\">Nonetheless, press conferences have risks for presidents. Since reporters\u2019 questions have become more challenging over time, presidents shy away from press conferences more and more.<span id=\"paletz_1.0-fn13_069\" class=\"footnote\"><a class=\"footnote\" title=\"Steven Clayman and John Heritage, \u201cQuestioning Presidents: Deference and Adversarialness in the Press Conferences of Eisenhower and Reagan,\u201d Journal of Communication 52 (2002): 749\u201375.\" id=\"return-footnote-420-3\" href=\"#footnote-420-3\" aria-label=\"Footnote 3\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[3]<\/sup><\/a><\/span> Increasingly, they rely on joint press conferences, most often with foreign leaders. Such press conferences add questioners from another press corps, limit the number of questions to a handful, and reduce the amount of time for the president to answer questions.<\/p>\n<p id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s01_s01_p04\" class=\"para editable block\">Presidents favor ever more controlled interactions with reporters. Most typically, they make a brief statement or give a speech without answering questions, or pose in a photo opportunity, where they are seen but not heard. Controversial announcements may be made in writing so that television news has no damaging footage to air.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p class=\"para editable block\">It is a rare day when the president is not seen by reporters. But it is also a rare day when his appearance is not a scripted one. The White House goal is to have the president publicly available, but to do so with his having as little vulnerability to error as the staff can fashion.<span id=\"paletz_1.0-fn13_070\" class=\"footnote\"><a class=\"footnote\" title=\"Martha Joynt Kumar, \u201cThe Daily White House Press Briefings: A Reflection of the Enduring Elements of a Relationship,\u201d unpublished paper, April 1999, 9.\" id=\"return-footnote-420-4\" href=\"#footnote-420-4\" aria-label=\"Footnote 4\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[4]<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s01_s02\" class=\"section\">\n<h3 class=\"title editable block\">Press Secretary<\/h3>\n<p id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s01_s02_p01\" class=\"para editable block\">The most visible member of a White House publicity apparatus\u2014and the key person for reporters\u2014is the presidential press secretary.<span id=\"paletz_1.0-fn13_071\" class=\"footnote\"><a class=\"footnote\" title=\"Woody Klein, All the President\u2019s Spokesmen (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2008).\" id=\"return-footnote-420-5\" href=\"#footnote-420-5\" aria-label=\"Footnote 5\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[5]<\/sup><\/a><\/span> The press secretary is \u201cresponsible for creating and disseminating the official record of the president\u2019s statements, announcements, reactions, and explanations.\u201d<span id=\"paletz_1.0-fn13_072\" class=\"footnote\"><a class=\"footnote\" title=\"Martha Joynt Kumar,Managing the President\u2019s Message: The White House Communications Operation (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007), 179.\" id=\"return-footnote-420-6\" href=\"#footnote-420-6\" aria-label=\"Footnote 6\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[6]<\/sup><\/a><\/span> The press secretary has three constituencies with different expectations of him: \u201cthe president, White House staff, reporters and their news organizations.\u201d<span id=\"paletz_1.0-fn13_073\" class=\"footnote\"><a class=\"footnote\" title=\"Martha Joynt Kumar, Managing the President\u2019s Message: The White House Communications Operation (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007), 180.\" id=\"return-footnote-420-7\" href=\"#footnote-420-7\" aria-label=\"Footnote 7\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[7]<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s01_s02_n01\" class=\"callout block\">\n<h3 class=\"title\">Link:\u00a0White House Press Briefings<\/h3>\n<p id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s01_s02_p02\" class=\"para\">Search the archives of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.whitehouse.gov\/briefing-room\/press-briefings\">press briefings<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s01_s02_p03\" class=\"para editable block\">In every presidency starting with Ronald Reagan\u2019s, press secretaries begin their day with meetings with the central coordinator of policy and message, the White House chief of staff, and other senior staffers to study overnight news developments (a news summary is circulated each day to senior staff), forecast where stories are going, and review the president\u2019s schedule. Press secretaries next prepare for their first interaction with reporters, the morning\u2019s daily, less formal discussion known as the <span class=\"margin_term\"><a class=\"glossterm\">gaggle<\/a><\/span>.<span id=\"paletz_1.0-fn13_074\" class=\"footnote\"><a class=\"footnote\" title=\"See Howard Kurtz, Spin Cycle: Inside the Clinton Propaganda Machine (New York: Free Press, 1998), and Kumar, \u201cDaily White House Press Briefings: A Reflection of the Enduring Elements of a Relationship,\u201d unpublished paper, April 1999.\" id=\"return-footnote-420-8\" href=\"#footnote-420-8\" aria-label=\"Footnote 8\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[8]<\/sup><\/a><\/span> Cameras are not allowed into the gaggle. Reporters use tape recorders only to gather information, not for sound bites.<\/p>\n<p id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s01_s02_p04\" class=\"para editable block\">The press secretary begins the gaggle by reviewing the president\u2019s schedule before entering into a fast-moving question-and-answer session. The gaggle benefits reporters: it provides responses to overnight news, gives guidance for the workday ahead, reveals the line the White House is pushing and allows them to lobby for access to the president. The gaggle helps press secretaries too by enabling them to float ideas and slogans and, by hearing what\u2019s on reporters\u2019 minds, prepare for the afternoon briefing.<\/p>\n<p id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s01_s02_p05\" class=\"para editable block\">The press secretary leads this more official 12:30 p.m. briefing, which is as close as anything to a daily enunciation of White House policy. Here, cameras are allowed; the briefing is broadcast live on cable television if news is brewing. The session is transcribed and disseminated (electronically and on paper) to reporters at the White House and beyond. The press secretary spends the hours between the gaggle and the briefing looking for answers to questions raised (or anticipated) and checking with other spokespersons elsewhere in the administration, such as at the Departments of State and Defense.<\/p>\n<div id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s01_s02_f01\" class=\"figure medium editable block\"><\/div>\n<p id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s01_s02_p06\" class=\"para editable block\">Briefings do not always benefit the White House. The presence of television cameras sometimes pushes reporters to be\u2014or act\u2014tough and combative for viewers. Reporters try to throw the press secretary off balance or to elicit a juicy or embarrassing admission. Briefings offer reporters a rare chance to quiz officials on matters the White House would prefer not to discuss. Press secretaries are often unresponsive to reporters\u2019 questions, stonewall, and repeat set phrases. During a single briefing when he was peppered by questions about President George W. Bush\u2019s National Guard service, press secretary Scott McClellan dutifully uttered the phrase \u201cThe president met all his responsibilities\u201d some thirty-eight times.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s01_s03\" class=\"section\">\n<h3 class=\"title editable block\">Office of Communications<\/h3>\n<p id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s01_s03_p01\" class=\"para editable block\">The press secretary on the front line is not always the key public relations strategist. Richard Nixon was the first president to craft long-range communication strategies. A bevy of public relations veterans defined a White House priority or storyline, coordinated who said what, and planned public schedules of administration officials. They brought local reporters from outside Washington to the capital. The aim was to emphasize a single White House position, woo softer local news, and silence contrary messages in the administration.<\/p>\n<p id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s01_s03_p02\" class=\"para editable block\">Such tasks were given to the newly established <span class=\"margin_term\"><a class=\"glossterm\">Office of Communications<\/a><\/span>\u2014retained by all subsequent presidents. Directors of communications rarely interact with reporters on a regular basis; their job is to stress the big picture. Even when Nixon\u2019s first successors, Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter, pledged open and free interactions with reporters, they found they had to reopen the Office of Communications for central control of the all-important message.<\/p>\n<p id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s01_s03_p03\" class=\"para editable block\">Another lasting innovation of the Nixon presidency is the <span class=\"margin_term\"><a class=\"glossterm\">line of the day<\/a><\/span>. Specific topics and storylines are repeated throughout the administration as the focus for all discussion on that day. Presidents use the Office of Communications to centralize a marketing strategy on issues. They are often open about this. In 2002, White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card said the Bush administration waited until after Labor Day to lobby Congress to authorize war against Iraq because, in his words, \u201cFrom a marketing point of view . . . you don\u2019t introduce new products in August.\u201d<span id=\"paletz_1.0-fn13_075\" class=\"footnote\"><a class=\"footnote\" title=\"Quoted in Elisabeth Bumiller, \u201cBush Aides Set Strategy to Sell Policy on Iraq,\u201d New York Times, September 7, 2002, A1.\" id=\"return-footnote-420-9\" href=\"#footnote-420-9\" aria-label=\"Footnote 9\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[9]<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s01_s04\" class=\"section\">\n<h3 class=\"title editable block\">\u201cManipulation by Inundation\u201d<\/h3>\n<p id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s01_s04_p01\" class=\"para editable block\">The public must be reached <em class=\"emphasis\">through<\/em> the news media. Reagan\u2019s election took such efforts to new heights. Like Nixon, Reagan downgraded the news conference in favor of stage-managed appearances. A press officer who worked for both presidents noted a crucial distinction. The Nixon administration was restrictive, but he said:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p class=\"para editable block\">The Reagan White House came to the totally opposite conclusion that the media will take what we feed them. They\u2019ve got to write their story every day. . . . Hand them a well-packaged, premasticated story in the format they want, they\u2019ll go away. The phrase is \u2018manipulation by inundation.\u2019<span id=\"paletz_1.0-fn13_076\" class=\"footnote\"><a class=\"footnote\" title=\"Les Janka, quoted in Mark Hertsgaard, On Bended Knee: The Press and the Reagan Presidency (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1988), 52.\" id=\"return-footnote-420-10\" href=\"#footnote-420-10\" aria-label=\"Footnote 10\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[10]<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s01_s04_p02\" class=\"para editable block\">Reagan\u2019s lesson has been learned by subsequent presidents and media advisors. Presidents rarely have to \u201cfreeze out\u201d given reporters (when officials do not return their calls). Staff do sometimes cajole and berate reporters, but frontal assaults against the press usually only occur in clear cases of journalistic bungling.<\/p>\n<p id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s01_s04_p03\" class=\"para editable block\">More typically, presidents and their staffs try to manage the news. Presidents cultivate reporters, columnists, and pundits: they host lunches, dine with them, and hold off-the-record sessions. The staff members anticipate what reporters will ask in briefings and prepare the president accordingly. They design events to meet news values of drama, color, and terseness. And they provide a wealth of daily, even hourly, information and images.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s01_s05\" class=\"section\">\n<h3 class=\"title editable block\">The End Run around White House Reporters<\/h3>\n<p id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s01_s05_p01\" class=\"para editable block\">Inundation is not sufficient. George W. Bush was typical of all presidents when he groused in 2003 to a regional reporter:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p class=\"para editable block\">There\u2019s a sense that people in America aren\u2019t getting the truth. I\u2019m mindful of the filter through which some news travels, and sometimes you have to go over the heads of the filter and speak directly to the people.<span id=\"paletz_1.0-fn13_077\" class=\"footnote\"><a class=\"footnote\" title=\"Quoted in Elisabeth Bumiller, \u201cTrying to Bypass the Good-News Filter,\u201dNew York Times, October 20, 2003, A12.\" id=\"return-footnote-420-11\" href=\"#footnote-420-11\" aria-label=\"Footnote 11\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[11]<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s01_s05_p02\" class=\"para editable block\">All new presidents try novel strategies to do an end run around what they always perceive to be a biased press. President Franklin D. Roosevelt relished behind-the-scenes Oval Office conferences to woo Democratic-leaning reporters (and bypass Republican-leaning editorial pages).<\/p>\n<p id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s01_s05_p03\" class=\"para editable block\">President Richard Nixon shunned press conferences and sought other ways to get his messages out, such as through star-struck local news. President Bill Clinton instituted cozy miniconferences with other world leaders and brought in local television weather reporters for a confab on global warming. Nowadays, the White House deals directly with the regional and local press, special-interest media, and ethnic news organizations.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s02\" class=\"section\">\n<h2 class=\"title editable block\">Media Interactions: The White House Press Corps<\/h2>\n<p id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s02_p01\" class=\"para editable block\">Presidents head the state, government, and their political party. So almost anything they do or that happens to them is newsworthy.<span id=\"paletz_1.0-fn13_078\" class=\"footnote\"><a class=\"footnote\" title=\"Stephen J. Farnsworth and S. Robert Lichter, The Mediated Presidency: Television News and Presidential Governance (Lanham, MD: Rowman &amp; Littlefield, 2006).\" id=\"return-footnote-420-12\" href=\"#footnote-420-12\" aria-label=\"Footnote 12\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[12]<\/sup><\/a><\/span> They are the sole political figures whose activities are followed around the clock. Presidents fit news values perfectly. The ongoing saga of a familiar hero engaged in myriad controversies and conflicts, international and domestic, is far simpler to explain and present than complex scenarios of coalition-building in Congress.<\/p>\n<p id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s02_p02\" class=\"para editable block\">About seventeen hundred reporters are granted White House press passes. But the key members of the White House press corps are the few dozen regulars assigned to go there day in and day out and who spend their work days there.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p class=\"para editable block\">A White House press pass provides merely the privilege to wait\u2014wait for a briefing; wait to see the president; wait until a press conference is called; wait to see the press secretary; wait to see senior officials; wait to have phone calls returned. There may be propinquity to power, but there is little control over when and how the news is gathered.<span id=\"paletz_1.0-fn13_079\" class=\"footnote\"><a class=\"footnote\" title=\"Martha Joynt Kumar, \u201cThe President and the News Media,\u201d in The Presidency and the Political System, 6th ed., ed. Michael Nelson (Washington, DC: CQ Press, 2000) 835\u201380 at 867.\" id=\"return-footnote-420-13\" href=\"#footnote-420-13\" aria-label=\"Footnote 13\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[13]<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s02_p03\" class=\"para editable block\">The regulars make up an intimate society with its own culture, norms, manners, friendship networks, and modes of interaction. The White House layout reinforces this in-group mentality. The briefing room, where press secretaries and reporters meet daily, is a claustrophobic, cluttered space with forty-eight scuffed and battered seats. Beyond the dais at one end, reporters can wander down the hall to buttonhole press officers, though they cannot go much farther (the Oval Office, just fifty feet away, is inaccessible). Hallways leading to two floors of press rooms are in the back; the rooms are crammed with desks and broadcasting equipment for the use of reporters. Along the corridor are bins that contain press releases, official statements, and daily schedules (which are also available electronically). Outside, on a once graveled-over and now paved section of the lawn named \u201cPebble Beach,\u201d rows of television cameras await television reporters.<\/p>\n<div id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s02_f01\" class=\"figure medium editable block\">\n<div id=\"attachment_421\" style=\"width: 211px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com\/courses-images-archive-read-only\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/607\/2015\/07\/21191949\/2885798185_b2fe0721fc_o.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-421\" class=\"wp-image-421\" src=\"https:\/\/s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com\/courses-images-archive-read-only\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/607\/2015\/07\/21191949\/2885798185_b2fe0721fc_o.jpg\" alt=\"Photo of a line of reporters along a sidewalk outside the White House\" width=\"201\" height=\"151\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-421\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The White House accommodates television reporters to allow them to do their \u201cstand-ups\u201d with the august background of the White House portico. This area can become packed with reporters when big stories are developing.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"para\">Rather than foster enterprise, the White House herds reporters together, gives them all the same information, and breeds anxiety by leading them to believe they may be missing the big story everyone else is chasing.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s03\" class=\"section\">\n<h2 class=\"title editable block\">Media Interactions: Negotiating News at the White House<\/h2>\n<p id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s03_p01\" class=\"para editable block\">Reporters submit to the conditions established by presidents and their staffers in receiving information. But they are less docile when they actually assemble that information in White House news.<\/p>\n<div id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s03_s01\" class=\"section\">\n<h3 class=\"title editable block\">Cooperation and Conflict<\/h3>\n<p id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s03_s01_p01\" class=\"para editable block\">The relationship between the White House and its press corps is ongoing. The \u201cvillage\u201d feel to the newsbeat includes presidents and their staffers. But while this day-to-day continuity favors cooperation, the divergent interests and notions of the White House and reporters makes for a constant tension. Reporters do not like appearing as \u201cmouthpieces\u201d for presidents. They embrace the notion of acting as watchdogs and seek ways to present an independent and critical account whenever possible in their White House stories.<\/p>\n<p id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s03_s01_p02\" class=\"para editable block\">What reporters consider news and what presidents consider news are often at odds. Presidents love to speak at length, be alone at center stage, favor nuance if not ambiguity, and focus on questions of policy. Reporters like terse sound bites, dramatic conflict, clear-cut comments, and a new installment on how the president is doing politically.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s03_s02\" class=\"section\">\n<h3 class=\"title editable block\">Assembling the Story<\/h3>\n<p id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s03_s02_p01\" class=\"para editable block\">Reagan\u2019s first White House spokesperson, Larry Speakes, had a plaque on his desk that read: \u201cYou don\u2019t tell us how to stage the news, and we won\u2019t tell you how to cover it.\u201d Though he was being playful, Speakes revealed how the White House and the press corps each control one part of the news.<\/p>\n<p id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s03_s02_p02\" class=\"para editable block\">The White House controls whether, when, how, and where White House officials will meet reporters and what information to release. Pictures and video of the president are packaged along with slogans that make a visual case regardless of the angle the reporter advances. Clinton\u2019s aides affixed captions to the presidential podium during ceremonies to underscore the theme they wished to communicate. George W. Bush\u2019s assistants went one better, crafting twenty different canvasses that could be placed behind him, each emblazoned with a motto of the day, such as \u201cProtecting the Homeland\u201d or \u201cCorporate Responsibility.\u201d Dan Bartlett, then Bush\u2019s director of communication, defended such branding: \u201cThe message should be seen and read and understood on TV. It\u2019s a good reinforcement.\u201d<span id=\"paletz_1.0-fn13_080\" class=\"footnote\"><a class=\"footnote\" title=\"Quoted in Anne E. Kornblut, \u201cPresident Is Keeping His Messages Front and Center,\u201dBoston Globe, July 23, 2002, A4.\" id=\"return-footnote-420-14\" href=\"#footnote-420-14\" aria-label=\"Footnote 14\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[14]<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s03_s02_p03\" class=\"para editable block\">But reporters take the raw material provided by presidential news operations and craft it into a coherent and dramatic story. In a typical television news story, the president\u2019s words and images make up a tiny fraction of the allotted time. Television reporters add old video, interview critics in Congress, cite poll numbers, and give their own interpretations. Even on cable television news, which often airs presidential remarks live during the day, reporters and commentators will hash over and contest the White House \u201cangle.\u201d Presidential statements have a different effect once placed into the news media\u2019s sometimes dramatically divergent context.<\/p>\n<p id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s03_s02_p04\" class=\"para editable block\">The dilemma for presidents, as Clinton\u2019s press secretary Mike McCurry noted, is that \u201cninety percent of what happens at the White House is pure boredom.\u201d<span id=\"paletz_1.0-fn13_081\" class=\"footnote\"><a class=\"footnote\" title=\"Quoted in Andrew Miga, \u201cWhite House Drama More Colorful than the Real White House,\u201d Boston Herald, September 23, 1999, 3.\" id=\"return-footnote-420-15\" href=\"#footnote-420-15\" aria-label=\"Footnote 15\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[15]<\/sup><\/a><\/span> Reporters need drama. If presidents do not fit the heroic roles of \u201cdecisive problem solver\u201d and \u201crepresentative of the nation,\u201d they can be slotted into a less positive frame. Politics will displace policy; criticism and conflict overwhelm praise and unity. Even in presidents\u2019 supposed \u201choneymoon\u201d periods, critical coverage is not unknown. Presidents are, then, in the unenviable position of needing the news and being routinely in its spotlight without being able consistently to control the images of themselves and their policies in that news.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s04\" class=\"section\"><\/div>\n<div id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s04\" class=\"section\">\n<h2 class=\"title editable block\">President Obama and the Media<\/h2>\n<p id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s04_p01\" class=\"para editable block\">During his first term in office, President Obama could claim several significant accomplishments. They included health-care reform, an economic stimulus program, financial regulation, educational innovations, consumer protections, the withdrawal of combat troops from Iraq, banning torture of prisoners in US custody, ratification of a new strategic arms reduction treaty with Russia, and repeal of the \u201cDon\u2019t ask, don\u2019t tell\u201d law.<\/p>\n<p id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s04_p02\" class=\"para editable block\">These accomplishments, except for the killing of Osama bin Laden, were not as widely recognized as they could have been. One reason was, as the president told a reporter,<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p class=\"para editable block\">we probably spent much more time trying to get the policy right than trying to get the politics right. . . . And I think anybody who\u2019s occupied this office has to remember that success is determined by an intersection in policy and politics and that you can\u2019t be neglecting of marketing and P.R. and public opinion.<span id=\"paletz_1.0-fn13_082\" class=\"footnote\"><a class=\"footnote\" title=\"Peter Baker, \u201cWhat Does He Do Now?,\u201d New York Times Magazine, October 17, 2010, 42.\" id=\"return-footnote-420-16\" href=\"#footnote-420-16\" aria-label=\"Footnote 16\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[16]<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p class=\"para editable block\">His media operation was accused of being reactive instead of proactive in responding to reporters and of lacking the skill to promote and the language to sell the president, his policies, and his party.<\/p>\n<p id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s04_p03\" class=\"para editable block\">Compounding this neglect, the media environment imposed four challenges to any attempts by President Obama to communicate effectively with the American public.<\/p>\n<p id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s04_p04\" class=\"para editable block\">First, presidents\u2019 prime-time addresses, even when carried by all networks, reach a smaller portion of the audience than they did in years past.<span id=\"paletz_1.0-fn13_083\" class=\"footnote\"><a class=\"footnote\" title=\"Joe S. Foote, Television Access and Political Power: The Networks, the Presidency, and the \u201cLoyal Opposition\u201d (New York: Praeger, 1990); and Matthew A. Baum and Samuel Kernell, \u201cHas Cable Ended the Golden Age of Presidential Television?\u201d American Political Science Review 93 (March 1999): 99\u2013114.\" id=\"return-footnote-420-17\" href=\"#footnote-420-17\" aria-label=\"Footnote 17\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[17]<\/sup><\/a><\/span> The profit-minded media discourage presidents from taking too often to the airwaves. When presidents request air time, broadcast television networks can conclude the subject is not adequately newsworthy and turn them down.<\/p>\n<p id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s04_p05\" class=\"para editable block\">Second, the news media are more than ever obsessed with conflict. As President Obama observed to Bob Schieffer, \u201cthe twenty-four-hour news cycle and cable television and blogs and all this, they focus on the most extreme elements on both sides. They can\u2019t get enough of conflict.\u201d<span id=\"paletz_1.0-fn13_084\" class=\"footnote\"><a class=\"footnote\" title=\"CBS, Face the Nation, September 20, 2009.\" id=\"return-footnote-420-18\" href=\"#footnote-420-18\" aria-label=\"Footnote 18\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[18]<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s04_p06\" class=\"para editable block\">Third, the media are more and more partisan\u2014intensely so. For President Obama, this means virulent attacks and relentless denunciations by <a class=\"link\" href=\"http:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Fox News<\/a>, America\u2019s most watched cable news channel; the editorial page of the <a class=\"link\" href=\"http:\/\/online.wsj.com\/home-page\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em class=\"emphasis\">Wall Street Journal<\/em><\/a>, America\u2019s most widely circulated newspaper; and a conservative chorus led by <a class=\"link\" href=\"http:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/home\/today.guest.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Rush Limbaugh<\/a> on talk radio. In addition, a bevy of more or less partisan commentators and pundits subject presidential speeches, press conferences, and statements to constant analysis and dissection.<\/p>\n<p id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s04_p07\" class=\"para editable block\">Fourth, the media audience is increasingly dispersed, fragmented, and sometimes separated into mutually exclusive segments. People are divided by whether they read newspapers (and which ones), the kinds of movies and television programs they watch, their level of involvement with social media, the websites they follow, and much more.<\/p>\n<p id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s04_p08\" class=\"para editable block\">Given this media environment, President Obama faced two daunting problems: (1) to reach as many of the various audiences as possible and (2) to do so with messages in support of his personal, political, and policy objectives.<span id=\"paletz_1.0-fn13_085\" class=\"footnote\"><a class=\"footnote\" title=\"This discussion is based on Ken Auletta, \u201cNon-Stop News,\u201d New Yorker, January 25, 2010, 38\u201347.\" id=\"return-footnote-420-19\" href=\"#footnote-420-19\" aria-label=\"Footnote 19\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[19]<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s04_p09\" class=\"para editable block\">One approach was to take advantage of new technologies through an Office of New Media. The president\u2019s inauguration was the first to be put on YouTube, as are his weekly radio addresses. The\u00a0<a class=\"link\" href=\"http:\/\/www.whitehouse.gov\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">White House website<\/a> contains the president\u2019s activities and agenda and features videos. Text messages and Twitter alerts are sent out to the president\u2019s followers under his name. He also conducted the first Internet video news conference by an American president.<\/p>\n<h3>Video Clip: President Barack Obama&#8217;s Inaugural Address<\/h3>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" id=\"oembed-1\" title=\"President Barack Obama&#39;s Inaugural Address\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/3PuHGKnboNY?feature=oembed&#38;rel=0\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>A second approach is to appear in many media venues. On September 20, 2009, President Obama gave separate back-to-back interviews advocating his health-care proposal to each of the hosts of the Sunday morning talk shows. (The interviews had been taped the previous Friday in the Roosevelt Room in the White House).<\/p>\n<h2>Video Clip: Sunday with Obama\u2014September 20, 2009<\/h2>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" id=\"oembed-2\" title=\"Sunday with Obama - September 20,2009\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/9zV6eFd4RIU?feature=oembed&#38;rel=0\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>In seeking and finding audiences, the president has ranged far beyond Sunday morning interview programs. He has appeared on the late-night television talk shows of <a class=\"link\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nbc.com\/the-tonight-show\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Jay Leno<\/a> and <a class=\"link\" href=\"http:\/\/www.cbs.com\/late_night\/late_show\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">David Letterman<\/a>,\u00a0<a class=\"link\" href=\"http:\/\/www.thedailyshow.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em class=\"emphasis\">The Daily Show with Jon Stewart<\/em><\/a>, Oprah, and the morning talk show <em class=\"emphasis\"><a class=\"link\" href=\"http:\/\/abc.go.com\/daytime\/theview\/index\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The View<\/a>,<\/em> and gave an interview on <a class=\"link\" href=\"http:\/\/www.amw.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em class=\"emphasis\">America\u2019s Most Wanted<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n<p id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s04_p12\" class=\"para editable block\">The president reached new audiences, appeared in comfortable settings, and was usually treated with deference and respect. Conversation took place in a relaxed atmosphere. He discussed his accomplishments and displayed mastery of policies yet at the same time was humanized as a family man with a sense of humor.<\/p>\n<div id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s04_f02\" class=\"figure medium editable block\">\n<div style=\"width: 211px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/2012books.lardbucket.org\/books\/21st-century-american-government-and-politics\/section_17\/35128425943fdde1b1fc716679df3f9b.jpg\" alt=\"Photo: President Barack Obama records an episode of The View at ABC Studios in New York, N.Y., July 28, 2010. Pictured, from left, are Whoopi Goldberg, Barbara Walters, Joy Behar, Sherri Shepherd, and Elisabeth Hasselbeck.\" width=\"201\" height=\"134\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">President Obama has ventured far and wide in the media landscape to find audiences\u2014including to The Daily Show and\u00a0The View.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"para\">There are risks. Appearances on entertainment shows and casual familiarity with hosts can undermine the majesty of the office. Commercial interruptions can diminish presidential dignity. Some interviewers may question the president\u2019s policies and competence, as Jon Stewart has done. Others may even challenge the president\u2019s authority, as Bill O\u2019Reilly did in a fifteen-minute interview conducted just before Fox televised the 2011 Super Bowl.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s05\" class=\"section\">\n<h2 class=\"title editable block\">Media Consequences<\/h2>\n<p id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s05_p01\" class=\"para editable block\">The president\u2019s visibility in the news is a double-edged sword. The news personalizes the presidency and presents the office through the individual president. There is high pressure for dramatic action and quick results. The constant presence of the White House press corps means that reporters clamor for presidential reaction to and action about any breaking news\u2014which can easily overwhelm the president\u2019s agenda.<\/p>\n<p id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s05_p02\" class=\"para editable block\">The media encourage presidents to find policy areas that enable them to play the role of bold, public-minded leader. But because reporters seek conflict and drama at the White House news beat, stories are subject to what columnist Jonathan Alter has termed \u201cthe manic-depressive media.\u201d<span id=\"paletz_1.0-fn13_086\" class=\"footnote\"><a class=\"footnote\" title=\"Jonathan Alter, \u201cThe Manic-Depressive Media,\u201d Newsweek, February 8, 1993, 29.\" id=\"return-footnote-420-20\" href=\"#footnote-420-20\" aria-label=\"Footnote 20\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[20]<\/sup><\/a><\/span> In the way the media frame stories, each event is a make-or-break moment for the president, suitable for triumph or humiliation. Highs are higher; lows are lower. New issues that emerge can change the president\u2019s depiction in the news.<\/p>\n<p id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s05_p03\" class=\"para editable block\">Success in news coverage should not be equated with policy success. Consider the news image of the elder George Bush in the fall of 1990. The news contrasted his glory in the Gulf War against his bungle on the budget. From the start, Bush laid out a straightforward line in the 1990 crisis leading up to the war\u2014push Iraq out of Kuwait\u2014with such clarity and intransigence that it perfectly fit the media frame of decisive action. But when Bush engaged in complex budget negotiations with key members of Congress, the news media found him looking confused and waffling. The war was a media success; the budget was a media failure. But was the war a policy success and the budget a policy failure? Not necessarily. The war solved few of the problems that provoked Iraq\u2019s invasion of Kuwait and almost led to civil war in Iraq. The budget agreement stanched the growth of the budget deficit and led to its later erasure.<\/p>\n<p id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s05_p04\" class=\"para editable block\">It is hard for presidents to resist the temptation to appear in the news constantly, even though chasing after the readily available publicity might push them in policy directions that are far from desirable. If they want media attention, they must either opt for charged, straightforward issues and clear-cut commitments or make complex issues seem simpler than they are. They and their staffers try to package actions to balance the complexity of policies against the simplicity of news (and commentary), the need to keep options open as long as possible against the news media\u2019s desire for drama, conflict, and closure.<\/p>\n<div id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s05_n01\" class=\"key_takeaways editable block\">\n<h2 class=\"title\">Key Takeaways<\/h2>\n<p id=\"paletz_1.0-ch13_s03_s05_p05\" class=\"para\">Presidents interact with the media through press conferences, the press secretary, the Office of Communications, manipulation by inundation, and end runs around White House reporters. The White House press corps, in search of dramatic stories, is engaged in ongoing conflict and cooperation with the White House. President Obama encountered several problems with the media that he tried to resolve through new technologies and appearing in many media venues. It can be difficult for presidents to balance their policy interests with the media\u2019s criteria of news and expectations of dramatic action and quick results.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t <section class=\"citations-section\" role=\"contentinfo\">\n\t\t\t <h3>Candela Citations<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t\t <div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t <div id=\"citation-list-420\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t <div class=\"licensing\"><div class=\"license-attribution-dropdown-subheading\">CC licensed content, Shared previously<\/div><ul class=\"citation-list\"><li>21st Century American Government. <strong>Authored by<\/strong>: Anonymous. <strong>Provided by<\/strong>: Lardbucket. <strong>Located at<\/strong>: <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/2012books.lardbucket.org\/books\/21st-century-american-government-and-politics\/s17-03-the-presidency-in-the-informat.html\">http:\/\/2012books.lardbucket.org\/books\/21st-century-american-government-and-politics\/s17-03-the-presidency-in-the-informat.html<\/a>. <strong>License<\/strong>: <em><a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"license\" href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nc-sa\/4.0\/\">CC BY-NC-SA: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike<\/a><\/em><\/li><li>Washington Reporters Live. <strong>Authored by<\/strong>: mrpbps. <strong>Located at<\/strong>: <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/mrpbps\/2885798185\/\">https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/mrpbps\/2885798185\/<\/a>. <strong>License<\/strong>: <em><a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"license\" href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/\">CC BY: Attribution<\/a><\/em><\/li><\/ul><div class=\"license-attribution-dropdown-subheading\">All rights reserved content<\/div><ul class=\"citation-list\"><li>Sunday with Obama. <strong>Provided by<\/strong>: THE WEEK in Video. <strong>Located at<\/strong>: <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/9zV6eFd4RIU\">https:\/\/youtu.be\/9zV6eFd4RIU<\/a>. <strong>License<\/strong>: <em>All Rights Reserved<\/em>. <strong>License Terms<\/strong>: Standard YouTube video<\/li><li>President Barack Obama&#039;s Inaugural Address. <strong>Provided by<\/strong>: The White House. <strong>Located at<\/strong>: <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=3PuHGKnboNY\">https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=3PuHGKnboNY<\/a>. <strong>License<\/strong>: <em>All Rights Reserved<\/em>. <strong>License Terms<\/strong>: Standard YouTube license<\/li><\/ul><div class=\"license-attribution-dropdown-subheading\">Public domain content<\/div><ul class=\"citation-list\"><li>Barack Obama at ABC Studios. <strong>Authored by<\/strong>: Pete Souza. <strong>Located at<\/strong>: <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/whitehouse\/4876619097\/\">https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/whitehouse\/4876619097\/<\/a>. <strong>License<\/strong>: <em><a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"license\" href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/about\/pdm\">Public Domain: No Known Copyright<\/a><\/em><\/li><\/ul><\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t <\/div>\n\t\t\t <\/section><hr class=\"before-footnotes clear\" \/><div class=\"footnotes\"><ol><li id=\"footnote-420-1\">These are taken from Martha Joynt Kumar, <em class=\"emphasis\">Managing the President\u2019s Message: The White House Communications Operation<\/em> (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007), xx\u2013xxi and chap. 1. <a href=\"#return-footnote-420-1\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 1\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-420-2\">Jarol B. Manheim, \u201cThe Honeymoon\u2019s Over: The News Conference and the Development of Presidential Style,\u201d <em class=\"emphasis\">Journal of Politics<\/em> 41 (1979): 55\u201374. <a href=\"#return-footnote-420-2\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 2\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-420-3\">Steven Clayman and John Heritage, \u201cQuestioning Presidents: Deference and Adversarialness in the Press Conferences of Eisenhower and Reagan,\u201d <em class=\"emphasis\">Journal of Communication<\/em> 52 (2002): 749\u201375. <a href=\"#return-footnote-420-3\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 3\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-420-4\">Martha Joynt Kumar, \u201cThe Daily White House Press Briefings: A Reflection of the Enduring Elements of a Relationship,\u201d unpublished paper, April 1999, 9. <a href=\"#return-footnote-420-4\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 4\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-420-5\">Woody Klein, <em class=\"emphasis\">All the President\u2019s Spokesmen<\/em> (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2008). <a href=\"#return-footnote-420-5\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 5\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-420-6\">Martha Joynt Kumar,<em class=\"emphasis\">Managing the President\u2019s Message: The White House Communications Operation<\/em> (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007), 179. <a href=\"#return-footnote-420-6\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 6\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-420-7\">Martha Joynt Kumar, <em class=\"emphasis\">Managing the President\u2019s Message: The White House Communications Operation<\/em> (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007), 180. <a href=\"#return-footnote-420-7\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 7\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-420-8\">See Howard Kurtz, <em class=\"emphasis\">Spin Cycle: Inside the Clinton Propaganda Machine<\/em> (New York: Free Press, 1998), and Kumar, \u201cDaily White House Press Briefings: A Reflection of the Enduring Elements of a Relationship,\u201d unpublished paper, April 1999. <a href=\"#return-footnote-420-8\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 8\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-420-9\">Quoted in Elisabeth Bumiller, \u201cBush Aides Set Strategy to Sell Policy on Iraq,\u201d <em class=\"emphasis\">New York Times<\/em>, September 7, 2002, A1. <a href=\"#return-footnote-420-9\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 9\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-420-10\">Les Janka, quoted in Mark Hertsgaard, <em class=\"emphasis\">On Bended Knee: The Press and the Reagan Presidency<\/em> (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1988), 52. <a href=\"#return-footnote-420-10\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 10\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-420-11\">Quoted in Elisabeth Bumiller, \u201cTrying to Bypass the Good-News Filter,\u201d<em class=\"emphasis\">New York Times<\/em>, October 20, 2003, A12. <a href=\"#return-footnote-420-11\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 11\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-420-12\">Stephen J. Farnsworth and S. Robert Lichter, <em class=\"emphasis\">The Mediated Presidency: Television News and Presidential Governance<\/em> (Lanham, MD: Rowman &amp; Littlefield, 2006). <a href=\"#return-footnote-420-12\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 12\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-420-13\">Martha Joynt Kumar, \u201cThe President and the News Media,\u201d in <em class=\"emphasis\">The Presidency and the Political System<\/em>, 6th ed., ed. Michael Nelson (Washington, DC: CQ Press, 2000) 835\u201380 at 867. <a href=\"#return-footnote-420-13\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 13\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-420-14\">Quoted in Anne E. Kornblut, \u201cPresident Is Keeping His Messages Front and Center,\u201d<em class=\"emphasis\">Boston Globe<\/em>, July 23, 2002, A4. <a href=\"#return-footnote-420-14\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 14\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-420-15\">Quoted in Andrew Miga, \u201cWhite House Drama More Colorful than the Real White House,\u201d <em class=\"emphasis\">Boston Herald<\/em>, September 23, 1999, 3. <a href=\"#return-footnote-420-15\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 15\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-420-16\">Peter Baker, \u201cWhat Does He Do Now?,\u201d <em class=\"emphasis\">New York Times Magazine<\/em>, October 17, 2010, 42. <a href=\"#return-footnote-420-16\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 16\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-420-17\">Joe S. Foote, <em class=\"emphasis\">Television Access and Political Power: The Networks, the Presidency, and the \u201cLoyal Opposition\u201d<\/em> (New York: Praeger, 1990); and Matthew A. Baum and Samuel Kernell, \u201cHas Cable Ended the Golden Age of Presidential Television?\u201d <em class=\"emphasis\">American Political Science Review<\/em> 93 (March 1999): 99\u2013114. <a href=\"#return-footnote-420-17\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 17\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-420-18\">CBS, <em class=\"emphasis\">Face the Nation<\/em>, September 20, 2009. <a href=\"#return-footnote-420-18\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 18\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-420-19\">This discussion is based on Ken Auletta, \u201cNon-Stop News,\u201d <em class=\"emphasis\">New Yorker<\/em>, January 25, 2010, 38\u201347. <a href=\"#return-footnote-420-19\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 19\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-420-20\">Jonathan Alter, \u201cThe Manic-Depressive Media,\u201d <em class=\"emphasis\">Newsweek<\/em>, February 8, 1993, 29. <a href=\"#return-footnote-420-20\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 20\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><\/ol><\/div>","protected":false},"author":923,"menu_order":9,"template":"","meta":{"_candela_citation":"[{\"type\":\"cc\",\"description\":\"21st Century American Government\",\"author\":\"Anonymous\",\"organization\":\"Lardbucket\",\"url\":\"http:\/\/2012books.lardbucket.org\/books\/21st-century-american-government-and-politics\/s17-03-the-presidency-in-the-informat.html\",\"project\":\"\",\"license\":\"cc-by-nc-sa\",\"license_terms\":\"\"},{\"type\":\"cc\",\"description\":\"Washington Reporters Live\",\"author\":\"mrpbps\",\"organization\":\"\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/mrpbps\/2885798185\/\",\"project\":\"\",\"license\":\"cc-by\",\"license_terms\":\"\"},{\"type\":\"pd\",\"description\":\"Barack Obama at ABC Studios\",\"author\":\"Pete Souza\",\"organization\":\"\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/whitehouse\/4876619097\/\",\"project\":\"\",\"license\":\"pd\",\"license_terms\":\"\"},{\"type\":\"copyrighted_video\",\"description\":\"Sunday with Obama\",\"author\":\"\",\"organization\":\"THE WEEK in Video\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/9zV6eFd4RIU\",\"project\":\"\",\"license\":\"arr\",\"license_terms\":\"Standard YouTube video\"},{\"type\":\"copyrighted_video\",\"description\":\"President Barack Obama\\'s Inaugural Address\",\"author\":\"\",\"organization\":\"The White House\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=3PuHGKnboNY\",\"project\":\"\",\"license\":\"arr\",\"license_terms\":\"Standard YouTube license\"}]","CANDELA_OUTCOMES_GUID":"","pb_show_title":"on","pb_short_title":"","pb_subtitle":"","pb_authors":[],"pb_section_license":""},"chapter-type":[],"contributor":[],"license":[],"class_list":["post-420","chapter","type-chapter","status-publish","hentry"],"part":384,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/atd-herkimer-americangovernment\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/420","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/atd-herkimer-americangovernment\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/atd-herkimer-americangovernment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/chapter"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/atd-herkimer-americangovernment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/923"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/atd-herkimer-americangovernment\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/420\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1541,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/atd-herkimer-americangovernment\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/420\/revisions\/1541"}],"part":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/atd-herkimer-americangovernment\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/parts\/384"}],"metadata":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/atd-herkimer-americangovernment\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/420\/metadata\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/atd-herkimer-americangovernment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=420"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"chapter-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/atd-herkimer-americangovernment\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapter-type?post=420"},{"taxonomy":"contributor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/atd-herkimer-americangovernment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/contributor?post=420"},{"taxonomy":"license","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/atd-herkimer-americangovernment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/license?post=420"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}