JOURNALISM : Addicts and Enablers of Gossip

Imagine that your friendly political reporter has spent as much time and money covering Texas Gov. George W. Bush’s views on Social Security, health-care reform, Russia and the Middle East as he has on the governor’s rumored use of cocaine as a young man. Chances are you would be a much wiser citizen, better prepared to handle the hurly-burly of the upcoming presidential campaign.

But the U.S. press seems again to be in hot pursuit of embarrassing stories about the personal lives of presidential candidates rather than substantive takeouts on their policy positions. What a waste.

A study of the three major evening newscasts during the dog days of August, not usually a busy time for journalists, revealed that only 7% of their reports dealt with politics at all; almost half of these stories concerned the soap-opera saga of the Clinton marriage and the search for cocaine in Bush’s youth. The remaining 93% focused mainly on hurricanes and shootings in Atlanta and Los Angeles and a large helping of “human interest” stories.

In their obsession with gossip, reporters are both addicts and enablers. A sampling of these political stories illustrates how individual reporters refer to themselves in the “third person,” as if they have nothing to do with the story they helped create. “Another day when topic A among reporters is the topic [George W.] Bush would least like to discuss,” began one report. Or another: “It is the question the media will not stop asking.” It was the Monica S. Lewinsky rationalization all over again: Reporters didn’t want to discuss President Bill Clinton’s sex life, they simply had to.

Reporters often say it’s too early in the presidential campaign to focus on policy issues. Perhaps. But it can also be said that if the people were provided with the substance of policy, they might tune in. Why not try them?

Some newspapers are dealing with political stories in a serious way. Nine percent of the front-page stories in the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post during August were devoted to political issues.

Unfortunately, their boisterous colleagues on the weekend talk shows are drowning them out and setting the political-chatter agenda. On three of the five weekends in August, they sounded absolutely rapturous when digging into the personal lives of public officials. There was no talk of policy, no serious analysis.

Earlier this century, philosopher John Dewey worried about journalists evolving into a power elite, increasingly detached from their readers. Without doubt, they are now among the best educated and best remunerated in the nation, more powerful as an institution than at any time in U.S. history. Yet, in their daily and hourly output, they produce, as a rule, not an elitist formula for better government, not a detailed analysis of Social Security or Kremlin intrigue, but, rather, a fluffy, sexy, sensationalist version of society, in which the personal peccadilloes of presidential or senatorial candidates can be (and have been) converted into profitable enterprises, masquerading as journalism.

The past two years have exposed a clear dichotomy between the values and judgments of the public, on the one hand, and the opinion-setting Washington press corps, on the other. Last year, by strong majorities, the American people let Washington know that Clinton’s widely publicized infidelities did not profoundly disturb them as long as the economy remained solid and strong. This year, six months before the earliest primary, the American people are again telling Washington that they are not shaken by rumors of Bush’s possible cocaine use as a young man. In both cases, the press has shown that it has a tin ear. It either isn’t hearing what is being said or, worse still, it isn’t listening to its readers and viewers.

This past April, pollster John Zogby tested the people’s presidential preference in two ways: by name and by a brief anonymous biography. The governor of Texas won the “name” poll easily, a full 30 points ahead of any other Republican presidential hopeful. But when the selections were based on the anonymous biographies, his lead was drastically reduced. Bush received 24%, with Gary Bauer 15%, a surprise second. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) was a close third. Voters apparently knew little about Bush’s record or his policy plans.

Journalists ought to be able to fill in this blank in the public’s knowledge and appreciation of the politician who seems likely to get the GOP presidential nomination and may even be the next president. With the same passion they showed when pursuing the governor’s private life, reporters should try to discover and report on the roots of his domestic and foreign policies. If Bush has none as yet, then tell us.*