It's the Media, Stupid.
Zach Fox, Daily Trojan: For each press conference, the White House press secretary asks the reporters for their questions, selects six or seven of the questions to answer and those reporters are the only ones called upon to ask their questions during the press conference, Suskind said. This system makes it so that the president has answers already prepared for questions that he knows will be asked, Suskind said...Suskind also said that the White House uses intimidation to force writers into only writing favorable stories about the administration.
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http://www.dailytrojan.com/main.cfm?include=detail&storyid=656561
Bush's press conferences too scripted, author says
Two noted journalists arguing about Bush policies are
featured in discussion.
By Zach Fox
Published: Friday, April 9, 2004
Article Tools: Page 1 of 1
Media Credit: Steven Tai | Daily Trojan
Insider. Ron Suskind talks to a student about issues
in his book, which has garnered national attention.
Ron Suskind, author of the recent controversial book
on former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, and Michael
Barone, senior writer for the U.S. News & World
Report, argued politics in a heated discussion as part
of the Annenberg series "Dean's Open Forum," on
Thursday.
The forum was hosted by Geoffrey Cowan, dean of the
Annenberg School for Communication, and featured an
open discussion about the possible outcomes of the
upcoming presidential election and the current
policies of the Bush administration, including the
handling of the press and the war in Iraq.
One of Suskind's most severe critiques of Bush was not
only Bush's lack of press conferences but also his
management of those conferences.
For each press conference, the White House press
secretary asks the reporters for their questions,
selects six or seven of the questions to answer and
those reporters are the only ones called upon to ask
their questions during the press conference, Suskind
said.
This system makes it so that the president has answers
already prepared for questions that he knows will be
asked, Suskind said.
"He needs unmanaged time in front of the nation right
now," Suskind said. "The White House has to engage in
a way that it hasn't engaged in before."
Suskind also said that the White House uses
intimidation to force writers into only writing
favorable stories about the administration.
"If you write something the White House doesn't like,
they take you in and say, 'If you ever write something
like you did today, nobody from the White House will
ever talk to you again,'" Suskind said. "(The White
House is) pissed, and ... angry."
Barone said Suskind's evaluation of the press'
relationship with the White House must be taken into
perspective considering that "90 percent" of the press
corps is Democratic.
Suskind called Barone's estimation of the press'
political affiliation "absurd."
Barone rebutted with an evaluation of how the press
treats different administrations.
"The press corps is not lenient to the Democrats, as
we found out during the Clinton administration, but
they are consistently anti-Republican," Barone said.
Both of the speakers agreed that the Bush campaign has
developed a streamlined message for the press.
"You only need to make one phone call, and you've
heard everyone's story," Barone said.
Barone and Suskind slightly differed on the issue of a
campaign's unified message in that Barone said that
the Clinton campaign also had a policy of everyone
having the same information - though it was less of a
centralized message than that of the Bush campaign.
Suskind said that he could call 30 people in the
Clinton administration and get different information
so that he could discover the truth.
Suskind also made the distinction that the press is
adversarial to Bush because he lied about policy,
whereas Clinton lied about personal issues but never
about policy.
Cowan introduced Barone to the audience by saying that
there is "nobody more knowledgeable about American
politics." Barone is editor of "The Almanac of
American Politics."
Suskind was introduced as a Pulitzer Prize-winning
journalist and the author of the controversial book
"The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White
House, and the Education of Paul O'Neill."
Barone began the discussion by offering an analysis of
voting trends for the upcoming presidential campaign.
The upcoming election looks very much like the 2000
election in that it was possible that a candidate
could again win the popular vote but lose the
electoral vote, Barone said.
The election will come down to the 17 swing or
"target" states that will receive the most attention
from candidates, Barone said. California is not
considered to be one of the 17 target states, so the
Bush campaign will not spend money on advertising in
the state.
"California is an expensive state, and (the Bush
campaign has) only got $180 million," Barone said.
The Republicans have already won the race for control
of the House of Representatives, but the race for the
Senate could be interesting, Barone said.
The current breakdown of the Senate is 51 Republicans,
48 Democrats and one Independent, while the House of
Representatives has 228 Republicans, 205 Democrats and
one Independent.
Since there are multiple seats that are up for
election, the majority could go either way with the
Democrats possibly picking up as many as three seats
or the Republicans gaining as many as four seats,
Barone said.
Barone predicted that the Republicans would gain one
seat and maintain control of the Senate.
The discussion also touched on the testimony of
Condoleezza Rice early Wednesday morning and on the
situation in Iraq.
"The casualties we've had (in Iraq) are much more like
the casualties for training during peacetime than
during war," Barone said.
Suskind said again that Bush needs to have more
unmanaged time in front of the press to explain the
war in Iraq.
"Bush is not good at what he needs to do right now,"
Suskind said.
Barone also said that Bush needs to have a frank
address to the nation on the state of the war in Iraq.
"The president needs to do the type of explaining that
Lincoln and Franklin Delano Roosevelt did," Barone
said.
Suskind also briefly addressed the controversy over
his book and the involvement of O'Neill in the
publication of his book.
Since the discussion mainly focused on the war in Iraq
and how Bush handled the situation, the speakers'
closing comments summarized their thoughts on those
issues.
Some writers have likened the war in Iraq to the
Vietnam War, and this misconception arises because the
media "suffers from a lack of historical perspective,"
Barone said.
On the other hand, Suskind focused on his view of Bush
in his closing comment.
"I am not pro-Bush or anti-Bush," Suskind said. I am
pro-facts."