Preface

Introduction

Part I: Overviews

Congressional Index In the congressional press corps there are 71 journalists for every senator and 16 for every representative. Before you conclude that this makes for media savvy on Capitol Hill, consider some of the statistics in this index compiled by a former Senate aide.

Carrie Klein

1. Congress--Boom Box and Black Box "There is no better example of Beltway insiderism than the manner in which the legislative process is infused with needless complexity by politicians and shunned or sloppily reported by many journalists," argues a political scientist who has long studied Congress. "The combined effect of the two is to hoodwink the people by a priestly class speaking a language as incomprehensible to ordinary citizens as Ge'ez, the liturgical tongue of the Ethiopian church."

Ross K. Baker

Part II: Media on the Hill

2. Evolution and Revolution Newt Gingrich has forged a revolution in the relationship between his office and the media at his own peril, writes a political scientist. "Eventually Gingrich may face a dilemma: having mobilized the media to focus attention on his agenda, he must reckon with the prospect that someday they might pay attention to him at a time when he finds their coverage less useful, if not counterproductive."

Timothy E. Cook

3. Getting Out the Message The outspoken speaker of the House offers some highly critical views of the American media, arguing that "they do not cover progress as well as decay. They pander cynically to the basest tastes and look upon any declarations of belief in God or the unique American as corny and unsophisticated."

Newt Gingrich

4. Speed Over Substance "The broadcasting technology that blanketed Capitol Hill in miles of fiber-optic cable has helped to transform work for the men and women who report on Congress," a veteran Washington reporter notes. "Caught in the daily competition among correspondents, many do not even seem aware of the changes that are certainly shaping the news we report in ways that privilege speed over substance."

Ann Compton

5. Getting on the Radar Screen "I know you think that a lot of reporters are jerks, or worse," writes a former congressional press secretary in a satirical memo on the congressional press corps. "In addition, as you've heard me say before, journalists are like dogs--they sense when you don't like them or are afraid of them, which is when they move in for the kill."

Rachel B. Gorlin

6. Toward Civic-minded Media As he prepared to leave his seat, the New Jersey senator commented on the media's contribution to negativity in politics. "I am saddened on occasion when the media, and politicians themselves, convey that politics is mean, cheap and dirty; that what we hold in common as Americans is somehow less than what we harbor in our hearts and minds for ourselves as individuals. I have never believed that."

Bill Bradley

7. Making News, Making Law "The family-leave story offers an unusually vivid case study of how media attitudes toward a bill can change over time and of how those attitudes may affect a bill's fate," according to a congressional journalist. "It is also useful in demonstrating how the media may miss, or at least fail to communicate, much of what is really going on when a bill becomes a law."

Ronald D. Elving

8. Behind the Noise on the Floor "We have to try to get away from the stock stories that might have run years ago, in which it was basically, `Senator so-and-so said this...,'" writes a veteran Washington reporter for the Associated Press. "The AP and other press institutions have made the decision that what's really important is what is behind the noise that's coming from the floor."

Donald Rothberg

9. Big Picture and Local Angle The meeting of high-speed communications technology and congressional tradition is producing unique journalistic hybrids, asserts a Washington legislative analyst. "If the news from Congress keeps coming faster and faster, how will anyone find the time to think about what it all means?"

Melissa Merson

10. New Media, Old Messages "Despite the evidence that literally millions of Americans confer regularly through the Internet and despite lightning-like advances in technology, most members of Congress don't seem to have a clue about how to employ the Net to advantage," writes a Washington reporter. "Except in a handful of instances, politicians in Washington are using the new technology to convey an old message."

Graeme Browning

Part III: Beyond the Beltway

11. Getting the Whole Truth C-SPAN's chairman and CEO reiterates that "our most important task, by far, remains our original one--daily gavel-to-gavel coverage of congressional floor debates. Ironically, however, Congress has actually restricted citizens' ability to watch its deliberations on television in two ways: by limiting what the cameras installed in the Capitol can show and by enacting legislation that has caused cutbacks in the distribution of C-SPAN telecasts of the House and Senate."

Brian Lamb

12. Showtime for Democracy Members of Congress, writes the former president of NBC News, have long chafed under the president's ability to command the attention of the media. "If their vital constitutional task of legislating could not win the attention of the folks back home, there was one stage on which members of Congress, too, could play with their exits and their entrances and their many parts--congressional oversight hearings."

Reuven Frank

13. Hollywood Goes to Congress Films on Congress flatter no one, observes a former congressional reporter. And over the years the image of congressional journalists has gone from "bad (smart but jaded opportunists) to better (earnest but jaded opportunists) to bland (powerful and manipulable opportunists)."

Tom Rosenstiel

14. Coverage--The Void at Home "The void in newspaper coverage of Congress creates an opportunity for the attentive legislator," writes the publisher and editor in chief of a California newspaper. "Through press releases, video material, district pork, local office contacts, subsidized mailings, awards and honors to residents, capital visits by constituents and use of staff, members of Congress can use newspapers to color the quality and depth of their work and to help fend off any challenges to re-election."

Martin Weinberger

15. Kingmakers, Kingbreakers "The tone of American congressional coverage is what one might call superior skepticism," a British politician, professor and member of the House of Lords observes. "The skepticism is the product of congressional self-laceration. The superior note comes from the media's self-perception as watchdog, scourge and purifier."

Shirley Williams

Part IV: Media and Congress in Historical Perspective

16. Not a Pretty Picture "People looking for positive portrayals of Congress will not find them in political cartoons," writes a doctoral candidate who has compiled a portfolio of congressional images. "Since the 18th century, cartoons have expressed skepticism about the contributions of Congress to American political life and the character of congressional leaders."

Joan L. Conners

17. Unexpected Consequences--New Media and Congress "When Congress cheers on a communications revolution, what does it get for its money and its high hopes?" asks a historian of journalism. "Throughout history, advances in reporting have turned our political order sour at least as often as they have brought sweetness and light."

Thomas C. Leonard

18. Race, Rules and Reporting "The mainstream press in Washington long operated under rules that effectively barred minority journalists," says a historian of congressional reporting. "Integration of the Washington press corps was a slow and painful process, complicated by white reporters' intolerance and indifference, discord within the African American press and rancor between men and women journalists of both races."

Donald A. Ritchie

19. Rayburn, the Workhorse From the 1940s until the 1960s, Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn wielded enormous power without courting the national media. "In retrospect," notes a media scholar and former congressional press secretary, "Rayburn's methods for dealing with the press provide a benchmark for measuring the evolution of congressional influence upon the media and media influence on Congress."

Joe S. Foote

Part V: Books

20. Many Questions, Few Answers "Are Congress and the media simply caught in a series of combative encounters that must inexorably repeat themselves without abatement?" asks a former press secretary to a speaker of the House. "Scholarship has yet to offer definitive answers to such questions, but it has provided some perspective to clarify where our concerns should really lie."

Jeffrey R. Biggs

For Further Reading

Index