S. Robert Lichter

Stephen J. Farnsworth

Beginning with the 1988 presidential election and now updated through 2004, The Nightly News Nightmare shows how network news coverage of what is arguably the nation's most important political event has declined. Through extensive analysis of news content from the 'Big Three' and Fox, acclaimed media scholars Farnsworth and Lichter compare what the candidates said with what the networks say they said and judge the disparity a nightmare. The authors go on to suggest that perhaps the candidates themselves do a better job of portraying the campaigns than those who used to be the trusted network guardians of the news. While making clear that overall coverage of the Bush-Kerry race marked an improvement compared to previous elections, Farnsworth and Lichter also point out that in other ways, things were worse.

Television's Coverage of U.S. Presidential Elections, 1988-2004

The Nightly News Nightmare

As the U.S. enters the last lap of the 2008 presidential election season, the media and the candidates are in full gear exploiting each other, often at the expense of public information and awareness. This book looks at how presidents and presidential candidates use television, the Internet, and newspapers to promote their policies and themselves, even as they are sometimes manipulated by the media they so avidly seek. Looking at White House media strategies relating to the Iraq War and occupation, health care reform, tax and budget debates, the debate over Bush's competence, the Clinton-Lewinsky sex scandal, and the early battles of the 2008 presidential election, media scholar and former journalist Stephen Farnsworth examines how presidents shift the direction and limit the amount of public debate over policies to favor themselves-and how reporters and Internet commentators often help them do so. The result short-circuits the public's role in evaluating competing visions for the country's future and the legislative branch's role in policy making. The modern presidential obsession with public relations-and media willingness to be used to advance executive power-undermine the country's long term ability to deal with crucial problems, including foreign and military relations, a growing government debt, and public health care shortcomings.

How Presidents Sell Their Policies and Themselves

Spinner in Chief

This book traces the evolution of White House news management during America’s changing media environment over the past two decades. Comparing and contrasting the communication strategies of Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump, it demonstrates the difficulty that all presidents have in controlling their messages despite a seemingly endless array of new media outlets and the great advantages of the office. That difficulty is compounded by new media’s amplification of presidential character traits for good or ill. Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube notwithstanding, presidential power still resides in the "power to persuade," and that task remains a steep challenge. More than ever, presidential character matters, and the media presidents now employ report on the messenger as much as the message. The book also looks at the media strategies of candidates during the 2016 presidential campaign, puts presidential media use in global context, and covers the early phase of the Trump administration, the first true Twitter presidency.

White House News Management from Clinton and Cable to Twitter and Trump

Presidential Communication and Character

Robert S. Lichter

Including late-breaking data from the Iraq occupation and the disastrous CBS News reports on Bush's Vietnam-era National Guard Service, acclaimed media scholars Stephen J. Farnsworth and S. Robert Lichter examine news coverage of military policy, economic policy, and scandals from the last four U.S. presidencies, including the current controversial administration. Using a quarter-century of content analysis data, the authors demonstrate how the White House dominates Capitol Hill on every dimension of news coverage, undermining Congress's attempt to compete as a co-equal branch before the public. At the same time, they show how the networks are steadily losing ground to new media outlets and suggest future paths our media mania may take.

Television News and Presidential Governance

The Mediated Presidency

Political humor has been a staple of late-night television for decades. The Trump White House, however, has received significantly greater attention than that of past presidents, such as Barack Obama, George W. Bush, and even Bill Clinton. In response to Trump’s strident politics, late-night comics, including Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel, Trevor Noah and Jimmy Fallon, have sounded key policy notes, further blurring the boundary between news and satire. Weekly humorists, including John Oliver and Samantha Bee, extend the critique with in-depth probing of key issues, while Saturday Night Live continues to tap the progression from outrage to outrageousness. Using unique content analysis techniques and qualitative discussions of political humor, Farnsworth and Lichter show how late-night political humor, and these seven programs in particular, have responded to the Trump presidency. Employing a dataset of more than 100,000 late night jokes going back decades, these noted media scholars discuss how the treatment of Trump differs from previous presidents, and how the Trump era is likely to shape the future of political humor. The authors also employ public opinion survey data to consider the growing role these late-night programs play in framing public opinion and priorities. This book will interest scholars, the curious public, and students of politics, communications and the media, and contemporary American culture.

Stephen J. Farnsworth

Books

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