CART: 0 item(s) $0.00Message Control: How News Is Made on the Presidential Campaign Trail
Series: Communication, Media, and Politics
| By Elizabeth A. Skewes |
Choice Outstanding Academic Title 2007
2007 ForeWord Magazine Book of the Year Award Honorable Mention - Political Science
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Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. | |||||||||||||||
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"Despite the consensus that reporters are important, the public knows surprisingly little about how journalists go about their jobs or how they negotiate with politicians to produce news. Much of what is known is drawn from Tim Crouse's seminal 1973 work, The Boys on the Bus. In this book, Skewes updates and expands Crouse's book with an academic's analytical eye and a former journalist's experience and effortless prose. The result is an informative, much needed book about how journalists and politicians make news on the presidential campaign trail. Based on dozens of interviews with key reporters, this book is well researched yet remarkably easy to read. Some of Skewes' observations about the role of voters could be enhanced through a more thorough review of the political science literature on voter decision making, but the book succeeds in uncovering the daily machinations of news making on the campaign trail. It should be required reading for anyone interested in the relationship between politicians and the media. Highly recommended."— CHOICE
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Message Control—a look at what shapes the news from the presidential campaign trail—comes out of the author's experience traveling with campaigns, interviews with other journalists who have covered campaigns from the road, and research on campaign news. Elizabeth Skewes, a journalism professor and former reporter, investigates journalists' beliefs and the role those beliefs play in the election process, as well as how the routines of campaign reporting affect news coverage.
While Skewes does find that journalists make an effort to inform the voting decisions of their readers by giving them a sense of context for each campaign and each candidate's character, she also shows that journalists remain wary of staff manipulation and are constrained by pack journalism, press pools, and life "in the bubble." From on-the-trail perspectives to media theory explanations, Message Control begins to answer the question of why political coverage focuses on personalities and peccadilloes when studies show the public wants less of this and more discussion of political issues.
Original Interviews: Includes interviews with two dozen reporters who covered the 2000 and 2004 presidential races, as well as members of the campaigns.
Journalists' Views: Reveals journalists' opinions on the role of the media and their function in the electoral process.
Campaign Managers' Goals: Covers the issues that come up as a result of the sometimes-contradictory goals of campaign managers and journalists.
Insights from Life in the "Bubble": Describes the effect of "pack journalism" on campaign coverage, just as it explores the effect of having or being denied access to a contender's inner circle.
Two Important Races: Covers in detail the campaigns in Florida for the 2000 presidential race and the 2004 campaigns in Ohio.
Plan for Improved Coverage: Offers a prescription for improving campaign coverage in the final chapter.
About the Author
Elizabeth A. Skewes is assistant professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder, where she teaches courses in news writing, news editing, media ethics, media studies, political communication, and research methods.