MEDIA MUDDLES THE MESSAGE
BY ANTHONY RUDEL

When President Obama gave his first address before a joint session of Congress, but perhaps of greater import, his fifty-two minute talk was carried by every major television network, by a cadre of cable television outlets, over the internet, and by radio stations from coast to coast. But in reality President Obama was speaking not to the members of the Senate and the House of Representatives, but to the American people much in the way President Roosevelt chose to talk directly with the voters over the radio in his famous Fireside Chats. While we hear lots about the parallels between the Roosevelt era and the current time, there is a vast difference which is affecting the story and that difference is directly caused by the proliferation and abuse of electronic media.

Six days after Roosevelt’s first Fireside Chat, the New York Times wrote: “Radio traveling at the speed of sunlight across every State of the Union has fit into President Roosevelt’s plan for rapid-fire action in the war against depression. The White House is now equipped for quick contact with the populace on a few minutes notice. Already Mr. Roosevelt is being called ‘the Radio President.’” Back then, the President controlled the one instantaneous medium; this allowed Roosevelt to speak, unfiltered by blather, to the American people. While his first chat is the well-known banking talk, eight weeks later Roosevelt reprised the event and said; “Tonight, I come for the second time to give you my report—in the same spirit and by the same means—to tell you what we have been doing and what we plan to do.” Before he spoke those words over the radio, the American public had no idea what he was going to say; the speech was a highly guarded secret and thus its impact, once delivered, was tremendous and went a long way to reassure a worried America.

This week, long before President Obama said a single word, his speech was pre-chewed, analyzed, dissected, digested and regurgitated badly by a phalanx of pundits all of whom were putting forth their own agenda and, in some cases, the agendas of the companies that pay their salaries. While the President certainly had the spotlight, the pre-game chatter which usually included the phrase, “Well, here’s what I want to hear the President say,” had begun to color the American populace’s reaction. As if that were not damaging enough, his talk was followed by the Republican response also carried by an array of media outlets, and the post-game analysis, which most often included the phrase: “Well, I didn’t hear what I wanted to hear.” In essence, the President’s message was altered by the cherry-picking of certain phrases and the reactions by pundits and politicos to those excerpts. It is a miracle President Obama’s messages were able to get through this gauntlet at all.

Simultaneous with the proliferation of electronic media muddling and meddling, we have witnessed during the last few weeks the continuing slow death of the nation’s newspapers, places where citizens were once able to read the President’s words fully and without the filter of electronic punditry. Losing newspapers, though perhaps predictable in this instant gratification society we have become, is tremendously concerning. Newspapers provided a sober, thoughtful assessment vehicle that today has been swamped and badly supplanted by the immediacy of electronics.

Ironically President Hoover, who during his tenure as Commerce Secretary guided the growth of American radio, was prescient and concerned about the growing power of radio as a messenger and political weapon. In his memoirs, he assessed the positives and negatives of what radio was becoming. Wisely he wrote: “Truth is less carefully safeguarded on the radio than in the press. The control of slander, libel, malice, and smearing is far more difficult. The newspaper editor has a chance to see a statement before it goes to press. But on the radio it is often out before the station can stop it. A misstatement in the press can be corrected within twenty-four hours, and it reaches approximately the same people who read the original item and is open to all who have a grievance. There is little adequate answer to a lying microphone.”

If Hoover, a man who believed in limited government intervention, were around today, there is no doubt that he would urge the government to put in place strict regulations and rules to control the wild, willful, and frankly dangerous opining that fills the 24/7 media circus we have constructed. The line between commentator and entertainer has been obliterated and thought has been replaced by knee-jerk rants from those with agendas to promote. No one, especially Hoover would suggest that free speech should be restricted, but free speech gone wild has a price, a price that in the long run will be far greater than any stimulus package can pay. Media meddling needs to be reigned in, and the sooner it happens, the better off we will all be.

THIS ISN’T THE FIRST TIME…THE PRESIDENCY AND MEDIA


The political pundits have been busy casting this presidential election as a “transformative political event,” which pitted the traditional old-style campaign of John McCain against the new, interactive campaign of Barack Obama. This sea-change election, while historic from a variety of perspectives, is one that was caused in great part by the use of new media. But it wasn’t the first time in our history that new media elected a president and allowed him to communicate directly with the people.

In 1932 Franklin Roosevelt, the inexperienced Governor of New York, as his Republican opponents characterized him, ran against incumbent Herbert Hoover who promised America that his experience could lead the country through those perilous times. Though during his tenure as Commerce Secretary Hoover had championed the growth and use of radio, he was outmaneuvered on the airwaves by his opponent who understood the importance of the catchy phrase—the sound-bite—and was able to connect to the voters who in the end opted for change over the status-quo. Roosevelt then went on to use radio to speak directly to the public, to chat with them in simple, heartfelt words that the audience received unfiltered and unadulterated by the kind of editing and commentary that is pervasive today. Those talks and FDR’s other national speeches of note—his inaugural address and his speech on the day after Pearl Harbor—are legendary and have come down to us as perfect examples of how well-delivered messages can move, or reassure, an entire nation.

Twenty-eight years later, another Democrat labeled as inexperienced, ran against an older Republican standard bearer. This time, it was Kennedy’s mastery of the newly important medium of television that probably determined the outcome of the 1960 election. As Roosevelt had been a spectacular orator, Kennedy was photogenic and looked presidential on the small screen. The four Kennedy-Nixon debates may have doomed the Republican candidate as he sweated under the hot lights. Once elected, Kennedy established television’s place as part of the presidential arsenal. He understood the connection between his actions and literally being able to show Americans a vibrant image of the future he saw. Kennedy looked into the camera’s lens and spoke to millions just as he would speak with any one individual. It made the presidency more intimately personal. Ironically the important connection between viewers and the president was never clearer than during the funeral for the slain president which marked the tragic end to the first televised presidency.

When Ronald Reagan, another candidate accused of being inexperienced, ran in 1980 he was campaigning just as a new form of news medium was becoming part of the American home. 1980 was the year during which CNN—the first of the 24/7 cable news networks—made its debut, changing the news cycle from once every 24 hours to news all the time, whenever and wherever it was being made. Reagan was the perfect candidate whose vision of “The city on the hill” was captured and repeatedly replayed on cable TV. He then became the ideal president for a world with this new kind of news medium; he was the consummate performer, the actor who delivered well-rehearsed lines with feeling, who knew the cameras were always on him and that the actions of the nation were being instantly reported around the clock and around the world. Standing before the Berlin Wall, his phrase “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall,” and the accompanying visual image of the wall, resonated with people around the world. And when he spoke to the families of the lost Challenger astronauts, Reagan expressed the grief of an entire nation. His visible sorrow and the connectivity, the two-way information street made possible by the constant nature of cable TV news, made the Reagan presidency a message-delivery success.

Now, twenty-eight years after Ronald Reagan showed how a political figure could and should use the 24/7 nature of cable news to win, Barack Obama and his campaign have once again redefined how media and politics can mesh seamlessly. Whether it was fundraising over the internet, or texting important information to cell phones, the Obama campaign brilliantly connected with voters. In essence, they took the idea of speaking directly with your audience that Roosevelt, Kennedy, and Reagan all used and improved, to a whole new level; Obama was speaking one-on-one to voters. This very model of a modern major communicator should serve President Obama well, for like his predecessors as communicators-in-chief did, he will use the latest modern marvel to speak to the nation one person at a time. However, the one constant that has existed since Roosevelt mastered radio, is that regardless of the newness of the medium, the speaker needs the appropriate words and he must know how to deliver those lines if he is going not only to lead, but be able to get a nation to follow.

The Out of Control Media

As the presidential campaign accelerates, and Senator McCain continues his relentless assault on the "mainstream media," it has become clear that we are living in an era that is far too dominates by the media. It was Herbert Hoover who as Secretary of Commerce between 1921 and 1928 guided the birth and development of the radio industry, America's first electronic medium. Hoover, while normally a small government man, believed that the electronic media was a danger to the country and needed to be carefully regulated. The central tenet of his thinking was that the airwaves belonged to the people and that anything heard over the air must be for the public good.
How far we have strayed from that ideal. The culprit: 24 hours a day time to fill on too many cable channels. The need to sustain a steady flow of content has led the American media to lower standards--not expectations--and that has led to a bevy of commentators who tell us their opinions, which comes across to an ususpecting public as news and information. This week has been a grotesque example of what Hoover warned against. As the economy teetered, cable channels, talk radio, and even network TV was inundated by the endless chatter of financial experts who not only gave their openions couched as news, but then went on to say that they knew how the American public wanted Congress to vote on the bailout package (yes, I mean you Lou Dobbs). Hubris has overtaken honesty.
But, as coverage of the financial crisis was frightening, the coverage of the Biden/Palin debate was farcical. The expectations for the Governor were lowered and raised so many times that no one knew what to expect. Doesn't the media understand that each time they talk about the expectations and where they are they themselves are altering the story? Gone are the days when the electronic media reported the news; now they cover it in a blanket of bloviation!
Hoover was wrong on the economy, but right when he told us to fear the electronic media. Watch out!

Welcome to the World of Communications

Communication, in all its wonderful forms has become the glue that binds societies together, and no where is that more true than in the United States. In a period of less than nine decades, since radio first seeped invisibly through walls and into American homes, we have become a communication obsessed society—radio, television, satellite, cell phone, the internet, texting, IMing, and the list goes on and on. Even this blog is a manifestation of our communication addiction. But it is that very addiction which makes our society act and react; after all, a presidential candidate can no longer spin a story without someone finding and posting an old video clip that contradicts his statement.

Communication has infiltrated and influenced every component of our society, from sports, to religion, and entertainment to politics. But everything we see, say and do today has its roots in America’s first mass communication boom during the 1920s when radio dominated American society. This blog will be dedicated to the incredible world of American communications; we’ll look at every aspect of this dynamic part of the fabric of our society, never hesitating to point out the inconsistencies and hypocrites, along with the brilliant uses of media and communications. We will be current, lively, and opinionated, and as the Presidential campaign unfolds with its ever-increasing attacks and counter-attacks filling the airwaves and the internet, we’ll be sure to point out the good, the bad, and the truly ugly.

We’ll keep you posted, so be sure to stay tuned, or at least, on-line.