Journalists Debate the Role of Media in Elections

Journalists debated the role of the press in politics--with some arguing that television news has reduced the quality of political debate.

"It's like the Jim Carrey movie, Dumb and Dumber," said Scott MacKay, a reporter for the Providence Journal.

MacKay was one of three panelists speaking on "The Media Filter: The Role of the Press in Shaping the Outcome of the Modern U.S. Presidential Election."

David Gergen, professor of public leadership at the Kennedy School of Government and longtime White House advisor, moderated the informal panel.

He introduced the struggle between politicians who say the press is invasive and overly critical and journalists who argue that the government attempts to exert too much influence over the press.

MacKay, the first panelist, claimed that television has created parties which breed candidates who can "win on TV."

He used the example of a candidate pausing during a debate. A magazine writer could describe this as "being reflective," but on television, a candidate pausing for more than a few seconds looks like a "dimwit," he said.

MacKay suggested that the night of the first televised national debate, between John F. Kennedy '40 and Richard Nixon, was a watershed event because it established the importance of television to campaigns.

It was the night, " the parties began their slide to irrelevance," he said.

The second panelist was Nicholas B. Lemann '76, a former Crimson president, who has been a magazine and newspaper journalist for 25 years, and just recently stepped into the arena of political journalism.

Lemann argued the influence of the press in politics is relatively low. Compared to the 1960s, when a media mogul could make a president, "the political press feels like we don't matter...Nobody is listening to us anymore," he said.

Lemann sympathized with the television journalists who follow around Texas Gov. George W. Bush and Vice President Al Gore '69, but rarely see their stories make it on air.

The major impact that the press has had in this election, Lemann believes, is making Bush a viable candidate by highlighting his fundraising success.

Lemann said that journalists invited to speak with Bush come back saying, "He's not as dumb as I thought he would be."

The final panelist was political cartoonist Peter Kuper, who said he now exists in a self-proclaimed "netherworld between politics and Garfield."

Kuper displayed a slide show of his work, which includes the political comic strip, "Topsy Turvy," that appears every Sunday in the New York Daily News.

Kuper said he hopes his work attracts people to politics who might not be interested in the first place but are looking for a punch line. Maybe in this way, he said, the media helps bring the public closer to the political arena.

The panel was organized by the Consortium on Global Leadership, and was attended by 70 students in Aldrich 111 at the Harvard Business School campus.