During the semester, I shall post course material and students will comment on it. Students are also free to comment on any aspect of media politics, either current or historical. There are only two major limitations: no coarse language, and no derogatory comments about people at the Claremont Colleges.
Gaggle: Informal, off-camera briefing with Press Corps by the White House Press Secretary
Nothingburger : A derisive term to describe a story or event that doesn't have a lot of importance/significance — but is hyped as though it does
Pool hold: The place where the reporters and photographers stay while the president's at an event.
Pooled Press: A media arrangement where the major TV networks "pool" their resources and one network covers an event for the others. ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox and NBC are in the network pool rotation.
Pool spray : Media are allowed into an event at the White House for a quick minute or so and photographers are "spraying the room" — shooting from left to right, quickly, to capture the scene.
Prebuttal: A preemptive rebuttal
Pushback: Opposition or resistance to a plan and in this case — a reporter.
VIP pool: When the five networks "pool" their coverage of a very important person's travel.
Walk it back: To try to refine, clarify or minimize a statement to undo the damage
Lower Press: The deputies, assistants and press wranglers behind the door to the left of the briefing room lectern.
Upper Press: Where the press secretary’s office is located.
Palm Room: The breezeway between the Rose Garden and the back of the press workspace. The “Palm Room doors” are a gathering spot for the pool, and for South Lawn events.
Pebble Beach: The TV standup locations on the North Lawn.
“Stakeout”: Driveway spot at the West Wing portico where notables speak to press at the “sticks” (microphones).
Lid: Generically, when the pool is dismissed for the day with an assurance the President isn’t going anywhere or doing anything in public.
Full lid: The President isn’t going anywhere for the rest of the day or appearing in public, and there will be no further announcements, even by email. The pool is dismissed.
Travel/photo lid: The President isn’t going anywhere for the rest of the day. There won’t even be any photo ops. But there may be announcements via email. The pool is dismissed.
Lunch/dinner lid: An assurance that the pool is free to leave the White House grounds temporarily and won’t miss anything.
Call time: When poolers are obliged to be on site for pool duty.
Open press: Events that anyone could attend and cover. Don’t expect pool reports, other than start/stop times and maybe some color or tidbits that only the pool likely saw and heard. One exception: Marine One departures and arrivals are open press, but are pooled because it’s so hard to hear.
Bad weather call: When it’s raining too hard to safely take Marine One, the President will motorcade to or from Joint Base Andrews etc. Sometimes a bad weather call is made on short notice, so the in-town pool needs to be alert.
“The Beast”: This refers only to the black Cadillac presidential limousine used for official events. It got the nickname for its considerable weight due to security enhancements. The president also travels in SUVs, often on weekends and personal trips. The SUVs should not be be confused with The Beast.
Dunaway: "the impression of a widely used, rich menu of choices is often more a mirage than reality." Meaning?
"Chewing"
Impact of social media: speeding up virality. Even Swift noticed the virality of falsehood: "Falsehood flies, and the Truth comes limping after it; so that when Men come to be undeceiv’d, it is too late; the Jest is over, and the Tale has had its Effect."
Take, for example, the edited video of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that circulated this past May. It was a genuine video, but an agent of disinformation slowed down the video and then posted that clip to make it seem that Pelosi was slurring her words. Just as intended, some viewers immediately began speculating that Pelosi was drunk, and the video spread on social media. Then the mainstream media picked it up, which undoubtedly made many more people aware of the video than would have originally encountered it.
Crooked politician receiving bribe on Capitol grounds!
Remember that coverage may consist of more than one story. A news organization may present a short, cursory story right after the event, with a more extensive story the next day.
There are several different kinds of stories.
Hard News: immediate, or "breaking," story about Who, What, When, Where, and Why
Analysis:discussion of the trends, data, or personalities behind hard-news stories.
Feature: in-depth, magazine-length story with in-depth analysis
Editorial: unsigned piece giving the opinon of the organization's editorial board
Op-Ed: "opposite the editorial page" expresses the opinions of an outside named writer
Column: opinion essay by a writer who regularly writes for the paper or a syndicate
Sidebar: a story that accompanies the main news story, focusing on a particular aspect of an event
Compare like to like. Compare hard news stories to hard news stories, columns to columns, and so on.
1.Pick any news event (e.g., speeches, press conferences, Sunday morning talk shows) since January 1, 2022 for which you can get a full transcript, recording, or video.Read the coverage of that event in three major mainstream news sources (e.g., New York Times, Politico). How did each define the story?On what sources did the stories draw?Did any miss something important?Explain in light of the outlets’ audiences, constraints, and organizational processes. Among other sources, you may find transcripts at:
2 Write a case study of citizen journalism since January 1, 2022. That is, explain how material posted online by a non-journalist (e.g., blog posts, tweets, YouTube videos) drove coverage by the mainstream media. In the specific case that you choose, explain whether the effect was harmful or beneficial.
3. Drawing on firsthand knowledge or experience, write an op-ed (or "guest essay") on any topic that we are discussing.The op-ed should run no more than three pages.You may add a fourth page, discussing strategy for publishing it. Tell where you would submit it, and why you think it could win acceptance. Use endnotes for this submission. If you succeed in publishing this op-ed, you will get an A for this assignment.(To qualify for the auto-A, it must appear in a legitimate, professional news outlet. Blogs, newsletters, and student publications do not count.) Click here for an example from 2005.
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Essays should be typed (12-point), double-spaced, and no more than three pages long. I will not read past the third page. (Exception: option #5, where you should add a short explanation of placement strategy).
Please submit all papers in this course as Word documents, not pdfs.
Cite your sources. Please use endnotes in the format of Chicago Manual of Style. Endnotes do not count against the page limit.Please do not use footnotes, which take up too much page space.
Do not use ChatGPT or any other generative AI. Misrepresenting AI-generated content as your own work is plagiarism.
Watch your spelling, grammar, diction, and punctuation. Errors will count against you.
Return essays to the class Sakai dropbox by 11:59 PM on Friday, September 29. I reserve the right to dock papers one gradepoint for one day’s lateness and a full grade after that.
“The Ego Leak” -- Giving information primarily to satisfy a sense of self-importance.
“The Goodwill Leak” -- A play for a future favor: The primary purpose is to accumulate credit with a reporter, which the leaker hopes can be spent at a later date.
“The Policy Leak” -- A straightforward pitch for or against a proposal using some document or insiders’ information as the lure to get more attention than might be otherwise justified. The great leaks, such as the Pentagon papers in 1971, often fit this category.
“The Animus Leak” -- Used to settle grudges. Information is disclosed to embarass another person.
“The Trial-Balloon Leak” -- Revealing a proposal that is under consideration in order to assess its assets and liabilities.
“The Whistle-Blower Leak” -- Unlike the others, usually employed by career personnel.
Espionage leaks -- Information posted online by hostile intelligence services, often through intermediaries such as WikiLeaks. From the Mueller report:
On July 27, 2016...candidate Trump made public statements that included the following: “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing. I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.”... Within approximately five hours of Trump’s statement, GRU officers targeted for the first time Clinton’s personal office. ... In order to expand its interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, the GRU units transferred many of the documents they stole from the DNC and the chairman of the Clinton Campaign to WikiLeaks. GRU officers used both the DCLeaks and Guccifer 2.0 personas to communicate with WikiLeaks through Twitter private messaging and through encrypted channels, including possibly through WikiLeaks’s private communication system
Geek leaks -- Information posted on the Internet by geeks not working for Putin.
In an internship or entry-level job, NEVER talk to the media without specific authorization from your boss.
When preparing for interviews, reporters sometimes consult with the interviewee's adversaries.
Case in point: In 1998, Rep. Henry Waxman discovered misconduct by Rep. Dan Burton, chair of the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee. To make Bill Clinton look guilty, an aide to Burton had doctored transcripts of a recording by jailed lawyer Webster Hubbell. We pick up the story from Joshua Green,Devil's Bargain: Steve Bannon, Donald Trump, and the Storming of the Presidency
Rather than issue a press release, Waxman devised something far more attention-grabbing and dramatic. The following Sunday, Burton was booked for an encore appearance on Meet the Press. The show’s host, Tim Russert, was quietly made aware of the discrepancy between the two sets of Hubbell transcripts.* On Sunday, when the cameras began rolling, Burton became an unwitting captive as Russert, the dean of Washington journalism and a maestro of the prosecutorial interview, confronted the chairman on air with evidence of the doctored transcripts. The uproar was immediate and intense. Gingrich, humiliated, condemned Burton’s committee as “the circus.” Republicans fumed at the embarrassment Burton had brought on them and demanded he atone for it. The Washington Post splashed the story across its front page: “Burton Apologizes to GOP. * Political hit jobs like the one on Burton are always disguised in order not to divert focus away from the target. The public story of Russert's triumph, detailed afterward in New York magazine, was that Russert himself discovered the divergent transcripts. He did not. He was a fine journalist, but here he had some help.
Anchor: One in the television studio who ties together the newscast by reading the news and providing transitions from one story to the next.
Executive Producer: The television executive with overall responsibility for the look of the television newscast.
Field Producer: Behind-the-scenes television reporter who often does much of the field work for a network's on-camera correspondents.
Network Correspondent: A television reporter who delivers the news on camera. Network correspondents may or may not do the actual news-gathering for their stories.
Show Producer: Television news specialists who produce individual newscasts and report to the executive producer.
Roger Ailes: Let's face it, there are three things that the media are interested in: pictures, mistakes and attacks. That's the one sure way of getting coverage. You try to avoid as many mistakes as you can. You try to give them as many pictures as you can. And if you need coverage, you attack, and you will get coverage.
It's my orchestra pit theory of politics. You have two guys on stage and one guy says, "I have a solution to the Middle East problem," and the other guy falls in the orchestra pit, who do you think is going to be on the evening news?
...
One thing you don't want to do is get your head up too far on some new vision for America because then the next thing that happens is the media runs over to the Republican side and says, "Tell me why you think this is an idiotic idea.
Judy Woodruff: So you're saying the notion of the candidate saying, "I want to run for President because I want to do something for this country," is crazy.
“The Ego Leak” -- Giving information primarily to satisfy a sense of self-importance.
“The Goodwill Leak” -- A play for a future favor: The primary purpose is to accumulate credit with a reporter, which the leaker hopes can be spent at a later date.
“The Policy Leak” -- A straightforward pitch for or against a proposal using some document or insiders’ information as the lure to get more attention than might be otherwise justified. The great leaks, such as the Pentagon papers in 1971, often fit this category.
“The Animus Leak” -- Used to settle grudges. Information is disclosed to embarass another person.
“The Trial-Balloon Leak” -- Revealing a proposal that is under consideration in order to assess its assets and liabilities.
“The Whistle-Blower Leak” -- Unlike the others, usually employed by career personnel.
Talk Radio (from an Annenberg Public Policy Center report):
In 1980s, satellite dishes enabled high-quality instant distribution
1-800 number that made the interactive national program possible.
"The end of the fairness doctrine paved the way for talk radio as we know it today. Neither hosts nor stations currently have an obligation to provide balance or voice to competing views."
Freedom of Speech
The First Amendment: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
