Sign up for The Media Today, CJRâs daily newsletter.
When conservative foot-soldiers began to kick up a storm last week about President Barack Obamaâs plans to deliver a manipulative, underhanded âStudy hard, stay in schoolâ message to Americaâs students, much of the rest of the country responded, quite reasonably: âWaitâyouâre kidding, right?â It seemed the latest sign that portions of our public debate have come entirely unhinged, with predictably perverse consequences (like fourth-graders sitting alone in empty classrooms so they may be spared the sight of our head of state and commander-in-chief).
But as Byron York reported yesterday for the Washington Examiner, this wasnât the first time a presidentâs speech has caused an unexpected hue and cry. The last time our chief executive addressed students in a televised speechâGeorge H.W. Bushâs remarks to Alice Deal Junior High School in Washington, DC on Oct. 1, 1991âhis remarks were similarly anodyne. (âGoofing off is not cool, says Bush,â the Guardian had it in its headline.) The next day, though, The Washington Post ran a front page story accusing the president of turning âstudents into props.â Democrats in Congress, York notes, took the bait, holding a hearing and demanding an investigation. (The General Accounting Office found that the use of Department of Education funds to support the event was legal and that the speech did not âappear to have violated the restrictions on the use of appropriations for publicity and propaganda,” York reports.)
So score a point for York, a conservative journalist whoâs provided fellow conservatives some material to play everybodyâs favorite political game: âYour side did it first!â But before we move on, itâs worth lingering a moment on that WaPo storyânot available through the paperâs online archives, sadly, but easy to dig up for anyone with a Factiva or LexisNexis accountâas an object lesson in what hasnât changed in political journalism.
One truth thatâs still around: narratives matter, and once theyâre in place, they shape coverage of everything. The Postâs criticismsâand those of Democrats who piled onâstung because the elder Bush had a well-earned reputation as someone who didnât really care about education, or any other element of domestic policy. Thus, his speech, timed just at the start of a re-election campaign, could be painted as something even worse than manipulative; it was phony. As the Post put it right in its lede, the event was âthe latest administration effort to demonstrate the president’s interest in domestic issues.â The not-so-subtle message: for âdemonstrate,â read âfake.â
Another lasting reality: to make a politician look bad, feign naĂŻvetĂ©. The Post was of course right that the event was stage-managed for political gain, but then, that’s what politicians do, and it’s not incompatible with the possibility of some mild public benefit being realized. Meanwhile, among the details reporters John Yang and Lynda Richardson unearthed, oneâthe White Houseâs decision to hire, at modest expense, a private company to film the address, after it became apparent news stations would do so only on a low budget, thus producing lackluster visualsâseems worthy of a raised eyebrow. But other insinuations of shockingâshocking!âmanipulation mentioned in the article include the use of teleprompters; the selection of a racially-integrated school as the setting; and the (disputed) claim that students were encouraged to wear quiet, soft-soled shoes, or otherwise coached on how to behave on camera and with the president.
Good to see that the pressâs use of a teleprompter as a sort of political scarlet letter has a long pedigree. Meanwhile, some of the world-weary students Yang and Richardson spoke to sound like they should be sitting at the end of the bar nursing their cynicism in a stogey and a fifth of scotch. Consider:
“I’m sure we’ll never see these pictures on a campaign ad,” Eleanor Davis, 13, volunteered sarcastically.
And
“I listened to what he said, but it wasn’t as if he hasn’t said it before,” said Nicole Phillips, a seventh-grader who watched the president’s classroom visit from the school auditorium on a large-screen television.
And
Said Jacob Noble, 13: “He should go to a place that needs help, not to a place that has all the help it needs plus more. We’re such a great school. Why doesn’t he go to one of the schools that isn’t known for its greatness.”
Finally, lest you be unpersuaded that presidential speeches may not lead to lasting shifts in opinion:
“I don’t really like the president that much, but when he got here I sort of forgot about it,” said Charlsye McKenzie, 13, a member of the student council. “But now that he’s gone, I don’t like him anymore.”
Now that Charlsyeâs all grown up, what I wouldnât give to hear her thoughts about tonightâs big health care address. Before we go, though, one serious thought about whatâs different between these two faux-outrages. In 1991, as York notes, the political fallout came after the mainstream media jumped on the story. It was the Post, for its own reasons, that set the agenda. In 2009, it was the political pushâfrom places well beyond D.C., and with a fierceness and apparent sincerity far beyond anything on display in the episode two decades agoâthat forced the issue, and the media that had to figure out how to respond. This is, of course, one of the most important changes in the modern political worldâone many in the media are still trying to make sense of.
Has America ever needed a media defender more than now? Help us by joining CJR today.
