A Note on the News worthiness of Television News
Ferguson, James R.
James R. Ferguson: A Note on the Newsworthiness of Television News The themes used by television news in covering the four major candidates of this year's Democratic primary season determined much...
...And, as Howard K. Smith and Eric Sevareid noted, he had a record as an imaginative and effective legislator whose name was "writ Hancock-size" on the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Peace Corps and Medicaid...
...He thinks Humphrey is looking desperately for some way to stage an upset...
...The "old line politician" theme suggested that Humphrey's long career weighed like a political albatross around his neck and largely ignored the possibility that his experience might very well be a political plus for him...
...And occasionally, newsmen provide "information" on what might be called the political personality of the candidate...
...The Public Interest, Winter, 1972, p. 67...
...Humphrey was also victimized by the networks' penchant for placing issues and ideology within the larger context of campaign strategy and tactics...
...And there was much to be said along these lines...
...Needless to say, the frontrunner theme did not go very far in answering these questions...
...McGovern remarks) McGovern's strategy, looking more toward Richard Nixon, had been to erase his radical image while avoiding a brawl with Humphrey...
...This kind of vital information was sadly lacking in television coverage of the Democratic primaries, largely because the themes used by network news focused on campaign strategy and performance, and excluded the more substantive concerns of issues and ideology...
...While the network reliance on themes in covering presidential politics goes far in explaining the nature of bias in television news, it also poses another, and perhaps more disturbing question - what kinds of information does television news provide the viewing audience...
...McGovern's thinking on foreign policy together with his economic philosophy set him apart from many of his Democratic rivals...
...Hubert Humphrey, the old line politician" is an example of this type of theme...
...On a volunteer army...
...For most newsmen, the senator was, in the beginning, a one-issue, anti-war candidate, and little more...
...Even the CBS introductory profile (which was not a "hard news" story) concerned itself with Muskie's ideology hardly at all, preferring rather to focus on his frontrunner status...
...But such kinds of information are not - or at least, should not be - useful in the election of men to positions of public authority...
...This was nowhere more clearly evident than in the network coverage of the early frontrunner, Edmund Muskie...
...But the triumphs of Humphrey's career did not figure prominently in the "traditionalist politican" theme...
...Because of this, the substance or content of Humphrey's criticisms were excluded all together from news coverage of the primary, overshadowed entirely by the network focus on the dynamics of the campaign...
...As it was, however, Muskie, Humprey and McGovern seemed in network coverage of their candidacies, almost inarticulate on matters of national concern, and hence, indistinguishable in this respect from the "planless" George Wallace...
...But the assumptions and arguments which separated McGovern from Humphrey were lost to the viewers of television news...
...If the Wallace proposals were indeed limited and superficial, they could have been revealed as such when placed next to the reasoned arguments and fully-developed proposals of the other candidates...
...And what was Mus-kie's position on military budget cuts...
...James R. Ferguson: A Note on the Newsworthiness of Television News The themes used by television news in covering the four major candidates of this year's Democratic primary season determined much of the content (and hence, much of the nature) of that coverage...
...And in this sense, the failure of television news to provide balanced and equitable coverage of all the candidates flowed largely from what has been called the journalistic as opposed to political) bias of network newsmen - that is, their need to present the news in an entertaining as well as informative manner...
...CBS 5-31-72) The George Wallace ideology was characterized by television news first as Southern, anti-busing and (implicitly, if not explicitly) segregationist, then as a vaguely-defined, anti-government populism...
...Because the polls (and hence, television news) defined his position as that of a minor candidate, his views, too, became minor in news coverage of the early primaries...
...The senator's reputation as a cautious politician who carefully weighed all the alternatives before making policy decisions suggests, for example, that his changing views on the Vietnam War were born of a fundamental re-thinking of foreign policy assumptions...
...George McGovern benefited from many of the themes used by network news in covering his campaign, but the accompanying minimization of issues and ideology did not work to his advantage...
...And as described by newsmen, his proposals seemed to be limited to tax relief and to "shut(ting) off every school bus in the country (ABC, 3-17-72...
...Of all the major candidates, Hubert Humphrey was perhaps the most victimized by the networks' proclivity for minimizing experience, issues and ideology...
...On family planning...
...Paul H. Weaver, "Is Television News Biased...
...Clearly, newsmen provide information on the dynamics of the campaign, and in particular, on the positions of the various candidates in relation to their competing rivals...
...Whether a candidate emerged favorably or unfavorably from network descriptions of his campaign depended largely on how he was characterized by those themes...
...Even in covering the debates, the networks focused, not on the content of McGovern's arguments, but on his strengthened position as the California frontrun-ner: "As reporters rushed to surround the two candidates after the program last night, you could almost hear the sigh of relief from the McGovem camp coast-to-coast, with their man not only standing, but hardly perspiring...
...His issue-oriented attack on George McGov-ern in the final weeks before the California primary was viewed by television news as a tactical device designed to salvage his failing campaign...
...Such information would constitute an invaluable contribution to American democratic politics...
...The viewer who relied exclusively on television news for information on the presidential politics of 1972 would be hard pressed indeed to comment on the Democratic front-runner's issue-oriented positions...
...The frontrunner-underdog-dark horse themes are all concerned with this type of news...
...Television news' most significant attempts to describe the senator's positions and proposals consisted largely of excerpts from the candidate's speeches in which he responded to such things as President Nixon's Vietnam and busing proposals...
...On national health insurance...
...And it would seem, judging from Senator McGovern's eventual withdrawal of his controversial welfare proposals, for example, that, on some points at least, Humphrey had a solid case that was certainly worthy of public attention...
...After all, Humphrey was experienced in governmental administration at both the urban and the national levels...
...He had, for more than twenty years, participated actively in the struggle to achieve racial equality...
...And, judging from his ready acceptance of Hubert Humphrey's invitation to debate in the California primary, he was as anxious as the Minnesota senator to make clear their ideological differences (and to make clear to the voting public that he was fully within the American political orthodoxy...
...In fact, ABC's Howard K. Smith described the Alabama governor as "planless" (6-7-72...
...It would seem that such a viewer could only observe that Muskie was aligned in opposition to Nixon, that he had changed his thinking on Vietnam, that he had adopted a qualified (and in Florida, politically expedient) position in support of busing, that he indulged in "frontrun-ner platitudes" ("trust Muskie") and that he was a "centrist" ideologue - hardly the kind of information that would make for an intelligent evaluation of the senator's qualifications for the presidency...
...Ideally, the citizens of a democratic society measure and evaluate a candidate for office not in terms of his position in the polls or his performance in the primaries, but rather, in terms of his experience, his perception of national needs and his proposals for meeting those needs...
...This was particularly true in the early months of the primary season, when McGovern was characterized as an underdog or dark horse...
...If Muskie was indeed the early favorite for the Democratic nomination, it would seem that information concerning his perception of national issues would be particularly valuable...
...McGovern was strongly opposed to the war, of course, but his views on Vietnam were only one expression of his larger thinking on American foreign policy, and in particular, his estimation of the degree to which military resources are necessary to preserve or advance American interests in international affairs...
Vol. 6 • November 1972 • No. 2
