Politics and Entertainment Media

 

 

For next Monday, Dunaway, ch. 10.

Why does late-night comedy matter?

• How many see it as a source of news?
• Which party relies more on it?
• Which age group relies most on it?
• How does it work?
• Myth-making: "I can see Russia from my house."
  

Five linkages between news and entertainment:

First, Back to media ownership: news and entertainment media usually belong to the same companies. In 1958, Edward R. Murrow said:

One of the basic troubles with radio and television news is that both instruments have grown up as an incompatible combination of show business, advertising and news. Each of the three is a rather bizarre and demanding profession. And when you get all three under one roof, the dust never settles. The top management of the networks with a few notable exceptions, has been trained in advertising, research, sales or show business. But by the nature of the corporate structure, they also make the final and crucial decisions having to do with news and public affairs. Frequently they have neither the time nor the competence to do this.

News anchors and broadcast actors even belong to the same union -- which in turn supports policy initiatives to aid broadcast journalists.

Second, entertainment figures enter news and politics: Reagan and Schwarzenegger were hardly the first. In 1934, novelist Upton Sinclair ran for governor of California.

.


Sometimes the old work of entertainers it ... awkward to see years later.  Al Franken in 1991 played Senator Paul Simon asking Clarence Thomas about ... sexual harassment!! (about 5 minutes into the video).


Also see:

• Pappy O'Daniel
• Helen Gahagan Douglas
• George Murphy (via Tom Lehrer)

Newspeople sometimes involve themselves in the entertainment media. One major example is the movie Dave (1993):

Wolf Blitzer in Skyfall

Third, the entertainment media are subject to certain kinds of government regulation.

Donald J. Trump

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Late Night host are dealing with the Democrats for their very "unfunny" & repetitive material, always anti-Trump! Should we get Equal Time?

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Fourth, entertainment media are often vehicles for political and social commentary.

• Again Tom Lehrer (1965) on Werner Von Braun
• Jon Stewart and Tucker Carlson 
• John Oliver on civil asset forfeiture

Fifth, certain kinds of works are hybrids of the two: talk radio, TV interview shows, "fake news,"

Will Rogers pioneered 20th century comedy.  He also had a bromance with Mussolini

A certain California governor in an early comedy sketch!

A guest that you would not have expected on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson.

Incivility and Partisan Bias

For Monday, Stephen J. Farnsworth, S. Robert Lichter, "Political Consequences of Late-Night Humor," ch. 5 of their Late Night with Trump (Routledge, 2019). ON SAKAI.

Some reminders for your papers:

• Always introduce direct quotations.
• Learn the proper use of the apostrophe.
• "Avoid announcing the thesis statement as if it were a thesis statement. In other words, avoid using phrases such as `The purpose of this paper is . . . . ' "

Thanks to Cary, examples of fact sheets:

https://oversightdemocrats.house.gov/news/press-releases/ranking-member-raskin-s-statement-on-latest-republican-subpoena-stunt 

Negativity and Incivility

• Vermin 
• Neutralizing the age issue
• Another day on the Hill... 

Ideological or Partisan Bias

• Media Matters
• Media Research Center

Survey of journalist party:

Perceptions of partisan bias

Fox history

Between 1980 and 1996, number of cable subscribers triple

Fox shifts in 2016.  Start at 25:40

Trump's appeal

• Existing celebrity
• Ideology and resentment
• Fun (A precursor.  Guess who produced his TV show...)
• Once in office, access to power

Fox and the Big Lie

• Twenty Fox broadcasts and tweets Dominion says were defamatory
• Fox hosts, producers, and executives privately disparage the election lies that the network was airing.

Powell and Ellis proffers

Incivility and Bias

 For Wednesday:

• Australian Broadcasting Company, documentary about Fox News, at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAq6vFKOcXc

This week's reflection email will be different:  before our Wednesday class, send me a brief paragraph of your impressions of this video.  What is the biggest takeaway?

Questions on the assignment?

• Writing op-eds
• Writing talking points -- example

Biases (the plural is important)

• Affective bias and negativity

• Information biases
• Personalization
• Dramatization
• Fragmentation and flashlights
• Authority-disorder (the expectation of a magic wand)

• Political biases:  ideological and partisan (more on Wed.)

Other biases

• Access
• Routines, SOPs, and beats
• Affinity, language and cultural similarity.  An example from Fleet Street: "One Englishman is a story. Ten Frenchmen is a story. One hundred Germans is a story. One thousand Indians is a story. Nothing ever happens in Chile.”

Review from our 9/11 class session:

From a 1988 conference:

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.

Roger Ailes: Suicide.

An example from the current campaign  -- and the debate;

Vulnerability is a function of time and place.

Vulerabilities Fade.  Biden in the 1988 race.

Oopsie

Hart:

Trump and negativity

Vermin 

Neutralizing the age issue

 

Media and Electoral Politics IV

Sun Tzu: “Know the enemy and know yourself; in a hundred battles you will never be in peril. When you are ignorant of the enemy, but know yourself, your chances of winning or losing are equal. If ignorant both of your enemy and yourself, you are certain in every battle to be in peril.”

Questions on the assignment?

 For Monday: 

• Dunaway, ch. 12. (ch. 13 of 10th ed.)

Oppo and vulnerability study (a classic example)

• See, esp. D-15

Debate prep requires both vulnerability study and oppo

• Clinton 2016
• DeSantis 2018

Strategic Goals of Oppo: conversion, mobilization, demobilization, provocation

1.    Conversion:  building a "permission ramp"

• Validators
• Did conversion work?

2.    Mobilization

•  Nuclear codes

3.    Demobilization

• HRC on superpredators

4.    Provocation.  

Sun  Tzu: "Anger his general and confuse him. Pretend inferiority and encourage his arrogance. Keep him under a strain and wear him down. When he is united, divide him. Attack where he is unprepared; sally out when he does not expect you."

Reed Galen: We have a standing buy on Fox News in Washington, D.C. with Fox and Friends, Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity, every night.

Lesley Stahl: Is that because he watches?

Reed Galen: Yes. Because we know he's in the residence with his super TiVo watching.

Lesley Stahl: Why is provoking him a good strategy?

 Rick Wilson: Every time Donald Trump loses his mind and throws things at the wall because a Lincoln Project ad is up, that takes the whole campaign off track. There's one thing you never get back in a campaign. That's a lost day. 

• Big win: the firing of Brad Parscale 
• Current provocation -- goal?

But vulnerability is a function of time and place.

Vulerabilities Fade.  Biden in the 1988 race.

Oopsie

Hart:

Media and Electoral Politics III

PROOFREAD!

• https://x.com/nicholaswu12/status/1720500763086999616?s=20
• https://x.com/nicholaswu12/status/1720479624818278571?s=20

Nancy Mace:

The Daily Beast’s @JakeLahut joins @chrislhayes to share what he found when he got his hands on a staff handbook for GOP Rep. Nancy Mace. pic.twitter.com/plIduZ8Iul

— All In with Chris Hayes (@allinwithchris) November 4, 2023

FOR WEDNESDAY:

• Lesley Stahl, 60 Minutes report on the Lincoln Project, 2020, https://youtu.be/s95VhNZmigw?si=sArfHh9w3DWcm_ME   ONLY 13 1/3 MINUTES and an update: 
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4lQ6ReEfGM 

Looks like oppo research is behind this story on @RepAdamSchiff, but there are no fingerprints:https://t.co/lXDNkSdlO3

— Oppo File (@OppoFile) November 2, 2023

In 2019, Politico interviewed Joe Pounder:

What is a trend going on in the U.S. or abroad that doesn’t get enough attention? 

“The surface blurring of lines between reporting and opposition research. All information is now democratized so everyone can act like a researcher and reporter, and everyone with a smartphone can be a video tracker. Thankfully the advancement of technology has made us realize our competitive advantage is going back to basics. Only talented oppo researchers can go into the county courthouse and pull the records they need to build a narrative. Only a reporter can talk to a source and bring sometimes decades-old anecdotes to the surface.”

The Three Parts of Oppo: 

1. collection, 
2. analysis, 
3. dissemination

Collection:  see the useful list in Cohen 67-70.  GET EVERYTHING YOU CAN AND SORT IT OUT LATER.

TURN EVERY PAGE. WRITE DOWN EVERYTHING YOU SEE.

• Votes & Quotes
• Congress.gov
• C-SPAN 
• Newspapers and magazines -- NOT ALL ONLINE
• Campaign finance
• FEC
• California
• Financial Disclosure
• House
• Senate
• Trackers
• Claremont connection
• Public documents 
• Court docs
• Paper offline
• Personal stuff
• Yearbooks & student newspapers
• Property tax records
• Voter registrtion
• Court transcripts
• Leads from left field: furloughs

Analysis:  Gary Maloney: "Fact plus context equals truth."

• Anomalies
• Putting pieces together:  absences and events
• Historical context: the Vietnam & National Guard

Dissemination

• Bannon's view
• Prepping questioners: Rubio v. Cruz Oppo War
• Peddling to the press: "Everything you read about him is from us."  (Reporters do not like to admit it.)

Oppo and vulnerability study (a classic example)

Media and Electoral Politics II

For Monday: 

• Michael D. Cohen, Modern Political Campaigns (Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield, 2021), ch. 5.  ON SAKAI.

 TIPS ON WRITING CAMPAIGN PRESS RELEASES

Examples:

• Alex Stovall 2021
• Teamsters endorse Schiff

1858 Lincoln-Douglas

• Oppo
• Shorthand
• Local papers
• Telegraph and papers in other states 

Movies

FDR:  Dirty Trickster

Events:  the importance of good planning

Trump in Tulsa

Oppo drops

• Red State and the LARPing vampire

Campaign ads

How do campaigns find out what works?

• Focus groups
• A/B testing

Daisy spot

1988 and Horton

Sneaky McCaskill Ad, run during 2012 GOP primary campaign

The Living Room Candidate

Third Paper

 Pick one:

1.  Pick any candidate for House or Senate in the 2024 campaign.  How well is that candidate faring in earned, paid, and social media?  Is the candidate reaching voters with a message that will win support in the primary and general elections?  Taking into account the available financial resources, advise that candidate on how to do better.  

2.  Pick any book about the 2020 election (other than Divided We Stand).  Appraise the book's observations about the media in the election.  Is the treatment fair and balanced?  Does the book distort or omit important aspects of the media campaign?  In your answer, consider course readings. 

3.  Write two op-eds:  one about bias and incivility in the media, and one about the role of the media in the 2024 presidential campaign.  Each should be about 2 1/2 pages long.  On the sixth page, explain your strategy for placing each op-ed in a mainstream publication or website. Use endnotes for this submission. If you succeed in publishing either 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 for which you submit your work to an editor. Blogs, newsletters, and student publications do not count.)  

4.  Subject to my approval, write on any relevant topic of your choice.  For instance, you may also create video or online ads for a candidate, and use paper to explain the strategy and tactics behind the ads.

• Essays should be typed (12-point), double-spaced, and no more than six pages long. I will not read past the sixth page. 
• Please submit all papers in this course as Word documents, not Google docs or 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. For endnotes, use Arabic numerals, not lower-case Romans. (Click here to see how to change formats.) Follow these steps if you need to convert footnotes to endnotes.
• 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 Tuesday, November 21  -- four days later than the date on the syllabus. I reserve the right to dock papers one gradepoint for one day’s lateness and a full grade after that.