Presentation 2 Timothy Cook Governing With the News Chapters 4 and 5

1. POLS 4043: Media and Politics Presentation #2Timothy Cook � Governing With the NewsChapters 4 and 5

2. Part Two: The Media as a Political Institution Chapter 4: The Institutional News Media Chapter 5: The Political News Media

3. The Institutional News Media Chapter 4

4. 4) Introduction Why does Cook believe that organizational approaches have obscured the institutional nature of the news media? Having read this chapter, can you identify the principal difference between an organization and an institutional approach to the study of the news media?

5. 4a) What is an Institution? What are the essential features of �new institutionalism? �The core of all institutionalism is a denial that all social phenomenon can be reduced to individual psychologism�? What does the above statement mean? Three implications of the Huntington-Dominguez definition: The mainstream definition points not merely to formal structures that serve to constrain individual choice but to social patterns of behavior valued in and of themselves. Such patterns encompass not only explicit rules and expectations but also unspoken procedures, routines, and assumptions of ways to act socially and politically. Institutions extend over space and endure over time Institutions are expected to preside over a societal and/or political sector. Three implications of the Huntington-Dominguez definition: The mainstream definition points not merely to formal structures that serve to constrain individual choice but to social patterns of behavior valued in and of themselves. Such patterns encompass not only explicit rules and expectations but also unspoken procedures, routines, and assumptions of ways to act socially and politically. Institutions extend over space and endure over time Institutions are expected to preside over a societal and/or political sector.

6. 4b) Media as Institutional I: Unspoken Procedures, Routines, and Assumptions Are journalists �authors� of their slices of the news? Do journalists relate the news in isolation from other journalists? What does it mean that part of the job description of journalists is to routinize the unexpected?

7. 4bi) Does dependence on routines dictate news outcomes? What does it mean to say that �news production is like jazz musicians performing� �But jazz is not a free-flow process�� What are the implications of the this metaphor? The problem of the �sell� and �pitch� aspect of news production

8. 4c: The Media as Institutional II: Endurance Over Time and Extension Across Organizations The power of �professionalism� � what does it mean to be a member of a profession? How formal are journalistic professional standards? What are the defining characteristics of the journalistic profession?

9. 4ci) Convergence of News Content Intense norms of journalistic competitiveness to �Get the Scoop� Constrained by equally powerful norms to avoid getting �too far out ahead of a story� Encourages pack journalism in order to reduce uncertainty

10. 4cii) Convergence cont. � �From God, to the New York Times, to the Networks� The prevalence of consulting across news outlets despite differences in audience, format, and technology �Papers of Record� as the oracle of the other news outlets

11. 4ciii) Convergence Across Time Reporter�s first impulse when covering a subject is to turn to past coverage Deep reverence for the written record, ��most news is highly formulaic, with a limited set of implicit �enduring values� that make for repetition over time, producing �novelty without change.��

12. 4d) The Media as Institutional III: The Politics of Communication The practical realities of contemporary communication: the fading relevance of face-to-face communication The relentless practicality of governing via the media: even presidents must consent to allow themselves to be presented through the media�s lens Clinton�s failed attempt to bypass the media

13. The Political News Media Chapter 5

14. 5) Introduction What does it mean to defend the claim that journalists are �political actors�? William Connolly: politics as an �essentially contested concept� Easton�s definition of politics: Politics is about� choice for a society; which choices are considered to be �authoritative�; establishing what is valuable in society and how valuable things should be distributed.

15. 5a) Bias and Impact �Journalists can create importance and certify authority as much as reflect it, in deciding who should speak on what subjects under what circumstances� How does selectivity lead to bias? What kinds of bias does Cook think particularly important

16. 5ai) The Progressive-Era Origins of the Media�s Liberal Bias The media tend to drawn to certain kinds of stories The reformist urges of the media Reinforcing the urge toward nonpartisan, �good government� approach to political news coverage

17. 5aii) A Bias for Conflict Herbert Gans, Deciding What�s News (1979) Journalistic bias for democratic theory yields increasingly to critiques of democratic practice Journalistic bias for stylistic questions rather than ideological or policy-related issues A powerful journalistic bias toward �suitable news� � conflict is built into the system of newsmaking

18. 5aiii) The Negotiation of Newsworthiness Constant if implicit negotiations between political sources and journalists Never one-sided Uncertainty creates a fragility in such an exchange relationship Mutual tendency to assume the worst of one another?

19. 5b) Official News ��the first central bias of the American news media is the focus on official action, which permits the governmental role of the American news media� News beats vs. �the hinterlands�

20. 5bi) The News Net Metaphor The emphasis on �news beats� Cook: �Officials are big fish� Bias toward sources �who are in a position to know� In particular, two official sources institutionally disposed to disagree (e.g. GOP/Dem politicians)

21. 5bii) Coalition Journalism The oversimplifying nature of the �Mobilization Model� More often, �enterprising policymakers and investigative reporters carve out a pact that pushes a policy problem in the news and raises visibility and its place on the public agenda�

22. 5biii) Newsworthiness of unofficial activists Intersection with established newsbeats The use of disruptive protest strategies Wait for an accident or catastrophe that dramatizes the group�s concerns Rely on human interest storytelling

23. 5c) Production Values and Political Values The storytelling imperative of the media The power of process in story-production What are the most newsworthy moments for journalists, given this storytelling imperative? E.g. the �horse-race� nature of campaigns

24. 5ci) The Inevitability of Conflict within the Storytelling Imperative Conflict in and of itself is not particularly newsworthy Conflict is newsworthy when it is conceived as �an endless series of conflicts and momentary resolutions� The newsworthiness of �conflict without movement?

25. 5d) The Negotiation of Newsworthiness What are the implications of this concept When are official sources most able to shape coverage? Least able? When are journalists most able to shape the story? Least likely? What does the negotiation of newsworthiness look like as a process?

26. 5di) The Journalistic Tightrope Worry about maintaining access to sources BUT, only if such access leads to a product editors want to publish The fear of being labeled as a mere �flack�

27. 5dii) To be �Critical without Being Partisan� When stories are critical of sources, journalists have strong incentives to mute criticism that they are acting on a political vendetta The greater the range of opinionated authoritative sources, the greater the ideological �cover� for journalists

28. 5diii) News consists of �decontextualization� Taking an event out of context and placing it in another context gives the media enormous power Official sources aren�t immune Unofficial sources (SDS) are especially vulnerable

29. 5e) What Kind of Political Institution? Does Cater�s view of the media as the �fourth branch of government� work for Cook? What kind of political institutions does Cook think the media most closely resemble? What is an intermediary institution?

30. 5ei) What kind of BIAS matters most? What is the �most abiding bias,� according to Cook? What does Cook mean when he claims that the media �enter into what � Richard Neustadt described as �separate institutions sharing power��? So does the bias issue tend to cut predominately in a liberal or conservative direction, according to Cook? Given the institutional personality of the news media, how does this affect the way they cover politics? What examples does he use to illustrate the problems with the media�s political coverage?