Download or read book When the Press Fails written by W. Lance Bennett and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2008-09-15 with total page 279 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A sobering look at the intimate relationship between political power and the news media, When the Press Fails argues the dependence of reporters on official sources disastrously thwarts coverage of dissenting voices from outside the Beltway. The result is both an indictment of official spin and an urgent call to action that questions why the mainstream press failed to challenge the Bush administration’s arguments for an invasion of Iraq or to illuminate administration policies underlying the Abu Ghraib controversy. Drawing on revealing interviews with Washington insiders and analysis of content from major news outlets, the authors illustrate the media’s unilateral surrender to White House spin whenever oppositional voices elsewhere in government fall silent. Contrasting these grave failures with the refreshingly critical reporting on Hurricane Katrina—a rare event that caught officials off guard, enabling journalists to enter a no-spin zone—When the Press Fails concludes by proposing new practices to reduce reporters’ dependence on power. “The hand-in-glove relationship of the U.S. media with the White House is mercilessly exposed in this determined and disheartening study that repeatedly reveals how the press has toed the official line at those moments when its independence was most needed.”—George Pendle, Financial Times “Bennett, Lawrence, and Livingston are indisputably right about the news media’s dereliction in covering the administration’s campaign to take the nation to war against Iraq.”—Don Wycliff, Chicago Tribune “[This] analysis of the weaknesses of Washington journalism deserves close attention.”—Russell Baker, New York Review of Books

Download or read book Politics and the Press written by Pippa Norris and published by Lynne Rienner Publishers. This book was released on 1997 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Contains 12 contributions, including some original research, by scholars, journalists, and media executives at Harvard's Joan Shorenstein Center. Contributions focus on the influence of the press on the policy apparatus of government and the impact of economics and changes in communications technology on news reporting. The volume also includes perspectives on minorities and women as members of the news industry. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Download or read book Good Enough for Government Work written by Amy E. Lerman and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2019-06-14 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: American government is in the midst of a reputation crisis. An overwhelming majority of citizens—Republicans and Democrats alike—hold negative perceptions of the government and believe it is wasteful, inefficient, and doing a generally poor job managing public programs and providing public services. When social problems arise, Americans are therefore skeptical that the government has the ability to respond effectively. It’s a serious problem, argues Amy E. Lerman, and it will not be a simple one to fix. With Good Enough for Government Work, Lerman uses surveys, experiments, and public opinion data to argue persuasively that the reputation of government is itself an impediment to government’s ability to achieve the common good. In addition to improving its efficiency and effectiveness, government therefore has an equally critical task: countering the belief that the public sector is mired in incompetence. Lerman takes readers through the main challenges. Negative perceptions are highly resistant to change, she shows, because we tend to perceive the world in a way that confirms our negative stereotypes of government—even in the face of new information. Those who hold particularly negative perceptions also begin to “opt out” in favor of private alternatives, such as sending their children to private schools, living in gated communities, and refusing to participate in public health insurance programs. When sufficient numbers of people opt out of public services, the result can be a decline in the objective quality of public provision. In this way, citizens’ beliefs about government can quickly become a self-fulfilling prophecy, with consequences for all. Lerman concludes with practical solutions for how the government might improve its reputation and roll back current efforts to eliminate or privatize even some of the most critical public services.

Download or read book The Press Covers Government written by American University (Washington, D.C.). Department of Communication and published by . This book was released on 1973 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Private Government written by Elizabeth Anderson and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2019-04-30 with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why our workplaces are authoritarian private governments—and why we can’t see it One in four American workers says their workplace is a “dictatorship.” Yet that number almost certainly would be higher if we recognized employers for what they are—private governments with sweeping authoritarian power over our lives. Many employers minutely regulate workers’ speech, clothing, and manners on the job, and employers often extend their authority to the off-duty lives of workers, who can be fired for their political speech, recreational activities, diet, and almost anything else employers care to govern. In this compelling book, Elizabeth Anderson examines why, despite all this, we continue to talk as if free markets make workers free, and she proposes a better way to think about the workplace, opening up space for discovering how workers can enjoy real freedom.

Download or read book The Press Covers Government written by American University (Washington, D.C.). Department of Communication and published by . This book was released on 1973 with total page 40 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Governing with the News written by Timothy E. Cook and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1998-02-17 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the opening decades of the republic when political parties sponsored newspapers to current governmental practices that actively subsidize the collection and dissemination of the news, the press and the government have been far from independent. Unlike those earlier days, however, the news is no longer produced by a diverse range of individual outlets but is instead the result of a collective institution that exercises collective power. In explaining how the news media of today operate as an intermediary political institution, akin to the party system and interest group system, Cook demonstrates how the differing media strategies used by governmental agencies and branches respond to the constitutional and structural weaknesses inherent in a separation-of-powers system. Cook examines the news media's capacity to perform the political tasks that they have inherited and points the way to a debate on policy solutions in order to hold the news media accountable without treading upon the freedom of the press.

Download or read book Covering Congress written by Everette Dennis and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-05-04 with total page 206 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Observers of media-government relations most often think first of conflicts with the executive branch, yet interactions between Congress and the media have been extensive and varied since the first Washington "correspondents" began sending dispatches from the sessions of Congress. In recent years the relationship between Congress and the news media has grown more complex. Coverage of Congress by the print and electronic media is extensive. At the same tune, Congress has increasing power to make communications policy that will have an important impact on the ability of the media to conduct their affairs, both economically and politically. Covering Congress explores those aspects of the relationship between the media and Congress that shape the news that reaches an information-seeking public.The contributors consider Congress as the source of much news as well as a great deal of self-promotion. They note there is neither a broad nor deep understanding of our national legislature in the United States. Contributors try to remedy this shortcoming by looking at the overall picture, the media scene on Capitol Hill, the messages that reach beyond Washington, and the history of relations between the Congress and the press. They discuss such issues as: the relationship Newt Gingrich has forged between his office and the media, perhaps at his own peril; the importance of speed over substance when reporting from Capitol Hill; the unflattering image of Congress as depicted in political cartoons; and the unparalleled power wielded by Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn when he dealt with the national media.Congress depends on the media to reach the public but also has considerable muscle to shape its media relations when it has strong leadership and a coherent plan. It usually lacks these, but Congress does much to try to project a friendly face to the public through the media, facilitating interviews hi Capitol Hill radio and television studios. Regardless of what happens in any particular election, it is clear that Congress is fully alert to the modern communications age and that the consequences of this encounter are likely to be accentuated in the years ahead. Covering Congress is a necessary addition to the libraries of communications scholars, media specialists, political scientists, historians, and sociologists.

Download or read book Making the News written by Amber E. Boydstun and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2013-08-26 with total page 275 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Media attention can play a profound role in whether or not officials act on a policy issue, but how policy issues make the news in the first place has remained a puzzle. Why do some issues go viral and then just as quickly fall off the radar? How is it that the media can sustain public interest for months in a complex story like negotiations over Obamacare while ignoring other important issues in favor of stories on “balloon boy?” With Making the News, Amber Boydstun offers an eye-opening look at the explosive patterns of media attention that determine which issues are brought before the public. At the heart of her argument is the observation that the media have two modes: an “alarm mode” for breaking stories and a “patrol mode” for covering them in greater depth. While institutional incentives often initiate alarm mode around a story, they also propel news outlets into the watchdog-like patrol mode around its policy implications until the next big news item breaks. What results from this pattern of fixation followed by rapid change is skewed coverage of policy issues, with a few receiving the majority of media attention while others receive none at all. Boydstun documents this systemic explosiveness and skew through analysis of media coverage across policy issues, including in-depth looks at the waxing and waning of coverage around two issues: capital punishment and the “war on terror.” Making the News shows how the seemingly unpredictable day-to-day decisions of the newsroom produce distinct patterns of operation with implications—good and bad—for national politics.

Download or read book Off the Record written by Norman Pearlstine and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2007-06-26 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When Norman Pearlstine—as editor in chief of Time Inc.—agreed to give prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald a reporter's notes of a conversation with a "confidential source," he was vilified for betraying the freedom of the press. But in this hard-hitting inside story, Pearlstine shows that "Plamegate" was not the clear case it seemed to be—and that confidentiality has become a weapon in the White House's war on the press, a war fought with the unwitting complicity of the press itself. Watergate and the publication of the Pentagon Papers are the benchmark incidents of government malfeasance exposed by a fearless press. But as Pearlstine explains with great clarity and brio, the press's hunger for a new Watergate has made reporters vulnerable to officials who use confidentiality to get their message out, even if it means leaking state secrets and breaking the law. Prosecutors appointed to investigate the government have investigated the press instead; news organizations such as The New York Times have defended the principle of confidentiality at all costs—implicitly putting themselves above the law. Meanwhile, the use of unnamed sources has become common in everything from celebrity weeklies to the so-called papers of record. What is to be done? Pearlstine calls on Congress to pass a federal shield law protecting journalists from the needless intrusions of government; at the same time, he calls on the press to name its sources whenever possible. Off the Record is a powerful argument with the vividness and narrative drive of the best long-form journalism; it is sure to spark controversy among the people who run the government—and among the people who tell their stories.

Download or read book The Untapped Power of the Press written by Lewis W. Wolfson and published by Greenwood. This book was released on 1985 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Cover Up written by Peter Lance and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2009-03-17 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ever since 9/11, investigative reporter Peter Lance has been leading the fight to expose the intelligence gaps that led to 9/11. Now, in the follow-up to his bestselling 1000 Years for Revenge, he returns with devastating new evidence that the government has been covering up its own counterterror failures since the mid-1990s -- and continues today. In Cover Up, Lance shows how the government chose again and again to sacrifice America's national security for personal motives and political convenience. In its first half, he unveils shattering new evidence that terror mastermind Ramzi Yousef ordered the bombing of TWA 800 from his prison cell in order to effect a mistrial in his own terror bombing case. Astonishingly, the FBI was alerted to Yousef's plans in advance by a prison informant who even passed along his detailed sketch of a bomb-trigger device -- a document seen here for the first time. And Lance reveals the shocking reason the Justice Department suddenly ruled the crash anaccident despite overwhelming evidence of the bombing -- throwing away its best chance to penetrate the cell that was already planning 9/11. And the outrage doesn't stop there. In Part II, Lance offers an unofficial "minority report" on the 9/11 Commission, critiquing it as the incomplete, highly politicized "Warren Commission of our time." He explores potential conflicts of interest among its members, from the staff director who wrote a book with Condoleezza Rice, to the former Clinton deputy attorney general who participated in a critical meeting that upended the TWA probe. He exposes the report's false contention that the 9/11 plan was conceived in 1996, when the FBI had knowledge that the plot was in motion as early as 1994. And, in a heart-stopping, minute-by-minute chronicle of the attacks, he asks dozens of unanswered questions about the defense failures of that day -- from why fighter jets weren't scrambled for almost an hour after the hijackings, to why the president and several of his top military advisers remained virtually incommunicado for more than half an hour after it was clear that America was under attack. At a time when America feels no safer than ever, Cover Up will lend new eyes to readers who want the full story behind the 9/11 attacks -- and inspire us all to keep demanding the truth.

Download or read book White Collar Government written by Nicholas Carnes and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2013-11-05 with total page 201 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Eight of the last twelve presidents were millionaires when they took office. Millionaires have a majority on the Supreme Court, and they also make up majorities in Congress, where a background in business or law is the norm and the average member has spent less than two percent of his or her adult life in a working-class job. Why is it that most politicians in America are so much better off than the people who elect them— and does the social class divide between citizens and their representatives matter? With White-Collar Government, Nicholas Carnes answers this question with a resounding—and disturbing—yes. Legislators’ socioeconomic backgrounds, he shows, have a profound impact on both how they view the issues and the choices they make in office. Scant representation from among the working class almost guarantees that the policymaking process will be skewed toward outcomes that favor the upper class. It matters that the wealthiest Americans set the tax rates for the wealthy, that white-collar professionals choose the minimum wage for blue-collar workers, and that people who have always had health insurance decide whether or not to help those without. And while there is no one cause for this crisis of representation, Carnes shows that the problem does not stem from a lack of qualified candidates from among the working class. The solution, he argues, must involve a variety of changes, from the equalization of campaign funding to a shift in the types of candidates the parties support. If we want a government for the people, we have to start working toward a government that is truly by the people. White-Collar Government challenges long-held notions about the causes of political inequality in the United States and speaks to enduring questions about representation and political accountability.

Download or read book Press Covers Government the Nixon Years from 1969 to Watergate written by and published by . This book was released on 1973 with total page 40 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book To Enlarge the Machinery of Government written by Williamjames Hull Hoffer and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2007-08-16 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How did the federal government change from the weak apparatus of the antebellum period to the large, administrative state of the Progressive Era? To Enlarge the Machinery of Government explores the daily proceedings of the U.S. House and Senate from 1858 to 1891 to find answers to this question. Through close readings of debates centered around sponsorship, supervision, and standardization recorded in the Congressional Globe and Congressional Record during this period, Williamjames Hull Hoffer traces a critical shift in ideas that ultimately ushered in Progressive legislation: the willingness of American citizens to allow, and in fact ask for, federal intervention in their daily lives. He describes this era of congressional thought as a "second state," distinct from both the minimalist approaches that came before and the Progressive state building that developed later. The "second state" era, Hoffer contends, offers valuable insight into how conceptions of American uniqueness contributed to the shape of the federal government.

Download or read book The Information Establishment written by Charles Side Steinberg and published by Hastings House Book Publishers. This book was released on 1980 with total page 392 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Privacy at Risk written by Christopher Slobogin and published by ReadHowYouWant.com. This book was released on 2011-08-22 with total page 606 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Without our consent and often without our knowledge, the government can constantly monitor many of our daily activities, using closed circuit TV, global positioning systems, and a wide array of other sophisticated technologies. With just a few keystrokes, records containing our financial information, phone and e - mail logs, and sometimes even o...