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ability to obtain truthful news; (c) insufficient understanding by jour

nalists of the subjects they write about, or they “know the truth before

they get the facts”; and (d) “corporatization” of the media, which has re

placed locally owned newspapers, a trend that allows profits to be

placed ahead of such goals as informing citizens and protecting their

freedoms. In some instances, community attitudes have become so neg

ative that many communities consider newspapers irrelevant.

Because of these failings, business and conservatives see bias entering

the treatment of such economic issues as inflation by blaming wage and

price hikes on the private sector while government policies, such as cre

ating too much money, are exonerated.

Their slant on many stories re

flects their obsession with the need to write about conflict. Said another

critic, Adam Gopnik, the media can be faulted for its “tone of high-

minded moral indignation” which is intended to suggest the media’s

superiority, for example, to a public figure under discussion.

The view that the media have sacrificed their news values is widely

held by Americans, confirms James Fallows, Washington editor of the

Atlantic Monthly, in his book Breaking the News: “Americans believe that

the news media have become too arrogant, cynical, scandal-minded,

and destructive.”

A Harvard Business Review article on books that tell

business managers how to think about the media extends the indict-

ment. It charges that the U.S. media is corrupt. “It fails to do what it

claims to do, what it should do, and what society expects it to do,” says

Peter Vanderwicken, the reviewer.

Liberal Bias

A major cause of disenchantment with the news media among business

and conservative politicians has been the belief that the media harbors a

liberal bias. They point to a poll released in April 1996 by the Freedom

Forum Media Studies Center and the Roper Center for Opinion Research

that shows 89% of journalists voted for Bill Clinton in 1992, compared

with only 43% of the popular vote in the election.

Another continuing

study, A Measure of Media Bias, by Tim Groseclose of the University of

California and Jeff Milyo of the University of Chicago, finds that the lib

eral inclination is pronounced. The test was that liberal national media,

such as Newsweek, The New York Times, Time magazine, the CBS Evening

News, USA Today, and NBC Nightly News overwhelmingly cite left-lean

ing think tanks in their stories. Only Fox News Special Report cited con

servative ones.

These studies appear to confirm the findings of a major study, The

Media Elite, published in 1986. The study asserted that the typical lead

ing journalists from major newspapers, magazines, and TV networks

have a liberal bias. They fantasize about the abuse of power and are

more likely than businessmen to uphold social underdogs and criticize

authorities (see Box 8.1 for more details).

202 I CHAPTER 8

The reason for this concern is that the national media have unques

tionably become a major force in American life, say the authors of The

Media Elite. They have become a catalyst for political activists and social

critics. The news media see themselves as surrogates for the public, a

BYPASSING THE NEWS MEDIA I 203

Box 8.1 Studies and Surveys of Media Bias

A major study that supports the contention of a liberal media bias is

The Media Elite by S. Robert Lichter, Stanley Rothman and Linda S.

Lichter.

The typical leading journalist is described as “the very model

of the modern eastern urbanite” and “politically liberal and alienated

from traditional norms and institutions.”

The authors based their

findings on a sample of 238 men and women journalists at the New

York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Time, Newsweek,

U.S. News and World Report, CBS, NBC, ABC, and PBS. These

reporters, bureau chiefs, editors, producers, and executives are made

up largely of white (95%) men in their 30s and 40s (79%), whose

fathers are professionals or businessmen (80%), and who come from

northeastern or north central cities (68%).

The authors say, “journalists are consistently more likely than busi

nessmen to uphold social underdogs and criticize authorities.”

Responding to pictures (using the Thematic Apperception Test), they

fantasize about the abuse of power—whether by greedy businessmen,

conniving politicians, intimidating policemen, or bullying military

superiors. More than businesspeople, they are motivated by the need

to be the center of attention and to feel important and influential.

They seem fearful that others may gain control over them, therefore,

and attack others who are perceived as powerful. Seeing the world as

a struggle for power helps to explain why political campaigns are

hyped as horse races and why many business stories are treated in

terms of who will come out on top.

Another expression of the current intellectual and emotional milieu

of the national media is in news coverage of long-term social contro-

versies. Several chapters in The Media Elite report on a content

analysis of such issues as busing, nuclear safety, and the role of the oil

industry in the energy crisis of the 1970s. The conclusion is not so

much that today’s leading journalists are biased but that they tend to

see elements of social controversies in a way that corresponds with

their own attitudes.

An essay in BusinessWeek by Bruce Nussbaum agrees with the

viewpoint that media bias manifests itself in social issues. “Reporters

and editors bring to their jobs a white-collar cultural bias” in that they

are more likely to know people who are gay than those who are

religious conservatives.

Nussbaum says this social bias is not politi

cal partisanship.

role sanctioned by society. Don Hewitt, executive producer of 60 Min

utes, says, “We have become America’s ombudsman.” Echoing the char

acterization of TV documentaries and news magazine shows as “show

biz,” he states, “Our purpose is to make information more palatable and

to make reality competitive with make-believe.”

There is no such thing as an “objective” national news media, asserts

the Media Research Center, a nonprofit educational foundation formed

in 1987 to document liberal media bias and distribute this research to

the public. Its book, And That’s the Way It Isn’t, provides ample evidence

on a variety of topics that “media bias is real, that it is prevalent, and

that it obscures the reality that the journalistic profession has sworn to

report.” The inference that journalists do have an ideological axe to

grind suggests a deliberate attempt to slant the news, rather than the

kinder view that “journalism is inherently subjective; a journalist’s

approach to a story invariably reflects his opinion.”

Intrusion of Commercial Values

The drive to maintain or increase newspaper and magazine circulation

and, for broadcast stations, to receive high Nielsen ratings, is increas-

ingly important as investors see the media as just one more industry in

which to make a profit. Indeed, newspapers have been highly profitable.

Washington Post ombudsman Geneva Overholser states, “The trouble is

that newspapers have become so profitable—profitable beyond any

normal retailers’ dreams—that the pressure on corporate executives to

run them with an emphasis on the short term as opposed to the long

term is just enormous.”

The result has been a clear shift from the idea of news as information

to the idea of news as a market commodity. The media have lost their

distinctiveness in serving the public interest and instead are seen as just

another business. Jay T. Harris, chairman and publisher of the San Jose

Mercury News, was so chagrined over staffing cuts that he resigned. He

told his corporate bosses that their bottom-line profit motive for the

newspaper staff cuts risked “significant and lasting harm to the paper as

a journalistic enterprise.” He said he hoped his resignation would cause

the corporate bosses “to closely examine the wisdom” of the 20% corpo

rate profit targets.

Like Bagdikian, Gary C. Woodward, in Perspectives on American Politi

cal Media, blames the rise of media conglomerates, and their treatment

of news organizations as investments, for this shift in the treatment of

news. The story is told that when Larry Tisch, the chief financier of

Loews, became chairman of CBS after purchasing large blocks of its

stock, one of his first acts was to downsize the news and entertainment

division staffs. As stated by Woodward, “Tisch’s reign over CBS gener

ally had the effect of maintaining its short-term attractiveness as an in

vestment, but weakened it as a media corporation with a unique history

204 I CHAPTER 8

and identity.”

Woodward also cites examples of how “financial inter

ests may dictate not getting involved in reporting on issues affecting an

other business owned by the parent company, or avoiding negative

comment and reporting on the actions of an important advertiser.”

Other sources of pressure may be political. In Inside Congress, Ronald

Kessler tells how ABC officials, out of fear of Congress, allegedly shelved

a story about allegations of sexual harassment against Representative

Sonny Bono (R-Calif.) and of sexual activities by other unnamed law

makers. ABC News producers spoke of a new conservatism under ABC

News chairman Roone Arledge and ABC News president David Westin.

As one producer rationalized, “Westin is a former corporate lawyer

from Washington, and Disney, ABC’s parent company, has regulatory

issues pending before Congress.… There’s fear here that this piece was

killed because the network didn’t want to take on Congress.”

Although

he realizes the mass media industries must remain profitable and at

tractive to their investors, Woodward fears their role as agents of social

and political interaction is being weakened.

Disenchantment with the media also occurs when they run ads that

are found to be blatantly false. The commercial need to increase adver-

tising revenue seemingly overrides social responsibility concerns. Media

outlets protest that they can’t possibly have any level of responsibility

for ads because it is unduly burdensome and impractical to require them

to compare the products against claims made in advertising. Further-

more, First Amendment rights are threatened when the FTC asks the

media to reject false ads. Says FTC Chairman Timothy Muris, “Reputa-

ble publications should be doing a better job screening them.” When

they don’t, the FTC threatens enforcement action. For example, it settled

a case with Blue Stuff Inc.’s advertisements on national cable TV for its

emu-oil-based gel, priced at $60 for 8 ounces, which claims to relieve

severe pain. Muris is pressing for self-regulation, however, because he

realizes the First Amendment implications of FTC regulation. John

Kimball, marketing director for the Newspaper Association of America,

believes that “the ultimate decision on what appears in a newspaper

rests with the publisher, not with any other entity.”

Although most journalists complain about pressures to cater to the

commercial organizational demands, some are themselves driven by re

wards in the form of prestige, popularity, and financial gain. Receiving

special attention is the questionable practice by journalists of accepting

speaker’s fees. This raises questions about journalists’ credibility and

possible conflicts of interest, especially when they accept “honoraria”

from the same organizations they criticize for trying to buy influence

on Capitol Hill. Fueling further cynicism about the media is that many

of these journalist speakers resist disclosure of their sources and the

amounts of their lecture fees. Sixty-eight percent of readers of the Wash

ington Journalism Review (renamed American Journalism Review)ina

1991 poll favored reform in this area. When Bernard Kalb, moderator of

CNN’s Reliable Sources, asked columnist Robert Novak to reveal his out

BYPASSING THE NEWS MEDIA I 205

side income, the latter answered, “It’s none of the public’s business. I’m

a private citizen.” If Kalb were asked the same question, his answer

would probably be, “I don’t listen to my own questions.”

Entertainment Values and Tabloid Journalism Crowd Out News Values.

One consequence of the dominance of business values over news values

is that the press is under mounting pressure to provide entertain

ment-oriented news.

National Public Radio host Scott Simon reflected

this concern in his “Weekend Edition” essay: “Over the past few years, so

much of the American news industry has invested so much effort to

spotlight sensational superficialities and celebrity inanities, that by the

time we wanted to throw light on something truly and tragically seri-

ous (genocide in Bosnia), our audience no longer took us seriously.”

The same is true in the treatment of health news. James Fallows cites the

example of Newsweek as preaching the journalism of “big ideas” by hyp

ing Prozac one minute and playing it down the next, in a way that

trivializes important issues.

He points out how a cynical and superfi-

cial press has shattered faith in public institutions.

Ben Bagdikian, author of The Media Monopoly, noted that as the mar-

ketplace, not journalistic values, sets the standards, the line between

tabloid and mainstream media fades. All the media, from The New York

Times to the evening news, are infected by the tabloid approach. Los An-

geles Times TV critic Howard Rosenberg commented about the “incestu-

ous media process” whereby a sleazy paper or program carries some

scandalous item, then “the so-called respectable media fall in behind

them—squandering themselves on relative minutia but also diverting

the public’s eye from the truly significant issues of the day.”

The prac-

tice of “tabloid laundering” was dramatically illustrated by coverage of

Princess Diana’s death, as described in Box 8.2.

Tabloid journalism has also touched television news magazine

shows. Don Hewitt, 60 Minutes creator, devoted the inaugural William

S. Paley Lecture at the Museum of TV & Radio to denouncing the net

work’s compulsion to produce them:

In the rush to put more [of them] on the air … taste and integrity and all the

intangibles that made [TV news] respected the world over get lost. Ameri

can’s television sets [get loaded] with the same garbage that weighs down

supermarket checkout counters.… There’s a line that separates the news

business from show business … and I think it’s being crossed all the time

now. The Hard Copies, Current Affairs and Inside Editions do all the

things we would never even flirt with.

Business Deal Between the Los Angeles Times and Staples. An

other manifestation of how a leading newspaper succumbed to com

mercial values was the proposed profit-sharing deal between the

highly regarded Los Angeles Times and the Staples Center. Journalistic

traditions were neglected when Mark Willie, chairman of the parent

206 I CHAPTER 8

Times Mirror Company, gave priority to business interests. This oc-

curred when Los Angeles Times editor Michael Parks and publisher

Kathryn Downing made an unwise decision to engage in a profit-shar

ing deal between the paper’s magazine and its subject, the Staples Cen

ter sports arena, and not disclose it publicly until the issue came to

light in other publications. The October 10 issue of the Times magazine

had been entirely devoted to the Staples Center. Profits from the maga

zine issue were shared by the Times Mirror Company, which is a spon

sor of the arena, and the arena’s owners.

Embarrassed by disclosure of this agreement, the Los Angeles Times

took the unusual step of investigating itself and publishing a 14-page

special section, which called its arrangement “a tangled tale of igno

rance and arrogance.”

The section was written by longtime Times me

dia reporter David Shaw and was not shown to Parks or Downing before

publication. Shaw wrote, “Times journalists now fear that the very es

sence of their work—the bond of trust between them and their readers—

has been jeopardized.” The two senior news executives also apologized

BYPASSING THE NEWS MEDIA I 207

Box 8.2 News Coverage of Princess Diana’s Death Illustrates

“Tabloid Laundering”

When Princess Diana was killed in an automobile accident in a Paris

tunnel on August 31, 1997, the three major networks devoted to it

197 minutes of their evening newscasts for the week—not as much

time (255 minutes) as to the coup against Soviet leader Mikhail

Gorbachev in 1991, but more than to stories about U.S. Marines arriv

ing in Somalia (182 minutes), the Mississippi River floods (167 min

utes), and Hurricane Andrew (151 minutes). Mother Teresa’s death a

few days later received only 16 minutes. Nielsen ratings showed that

public attention to Diana’s death was enormous. Television coverage

of Diana’s funeral was watched in more than 26 million U.S. house

holds. USA Today ’s total circulation was several hundred thousand

above normal for the week after Diana’s death and Time’s first issue

about Diana’s death had newsstand sales of about 850,000, which is

650,000 more than normal.

Commenting on tabloid journalism, Margaret Carlson, Time colum-

nist, said, “We take what the tabloids do and write about it, and that

way get what we wouldn’t write about originally into the magazine. And

then we run pictures of the pictures to show how terrible the pictures

are.” Newsweek did that on September 8 with a full-page spread

about the media’s celebrity obsession. It included a color picture of

one cover of the British tabloid, The Sun, showing the now-famous

photo of Diana with her swimsuit straps slipped down her arms on a

boat with her companion Emsad Mohamed “Dodi” Al-Fayed.

in Sunday’s Times. Parks told Shaw, “Clearly, I underestimated the im

pact of the Staples arrangement on our credibility, on the journalistic

ethos that we foster, on our standing in the community and in the pro

fession.”

As executive producer of the CBS Evening News, Erik Sorensen

noted, the wall that has long separated the business from the editorial

side of the paper is being breached.

METHODS OF ALTERNATIVE AND DIRECT COMMUNICATION

To avoid the gatekeeping function of the mass media, organizations

have been addressing their target audiences directly by means of alter

native media, private communication systems, database marketing

that eliminates the filter of the mass media, and the Internet.

Use of Alternative Media by Politicians

Reference has already been made to structural changes in the media.

Chapter 4 suggested that companies and politicians take advantage of

the enlarged media menu beyond the traditional mass media. Lessons in

using alternative media and direct methods of reaching desired audi-

ences can be learned from politicians.

In the realm of politics, audiences as well as politicians have been

seeking a way around the press, traditionally described as the “snide,

frenzy-driven trivializers who were contributing to the erosion of their

democracy.”

Interactive shows such as Larry King Live have allowed

viewers to serve as “remote-control reporters,” in that they can inter-

view newsmakers themselves by telephoning in and commenting on

events as they watch them.

When presidential candidates appeared,

the public felt it had direct access to political leaders. With the advent of

C-SPAN, which allows the audience to see press conferences live, viewers

became critical of national networks’ reports, saying, “That’s not what I

saw today. Why are these guys saying this?”

Politicians and others who consider using the “alternative media”

must, however, be cautious and prudent in their selection. When Paul

Tsongas was a presidential candidate, he was asked whether he would

consider hosting Saturday Night Live, which was an opportunity to gain

attention. He declined because he felt it was not in his best interest as a

candidate. “I was trying to present myself as a serious truth teller,” he

said.

For similar reasons both Walter F. Mondale in 1984 and Michael

S. Dukakis in 1988 declined invitations to appear on Donahue, even

though they were trailing in the polls. Donahue’s reaction was: “While

it is true our program has always suffered from the daytime tabloid,

we’re-not-quite-the-news attitude, I thought this is an awful lot of pre

tense to be summoning to deny yourself this free television time.”

Candidate Bill Clinton welcomed the opportunity to appear on alter

native media and accepted an invitation from the Arsenio Hall Show,

208 I CHAPTER 8

where he played his saxophone. Many political consultants and report

ers were fearful such an appearance would demean Clinton. Said Tom

Wicker of The New York Times, “When two other candidates are making

such a point of traditional family values, whatever they are, for a guy to

appear on television playing jazz with dark shades on, on the Arsenio

Hall Show after midnight, I don’t think that enhances his standing on

family values.”

However, Clinton’s media consultant, Mandy

Grunwald, saw matters differently. She said it would “explain to people

who Bill Clinton was, what his life was about, what he was about, what

he was about in personal terms. We had a strategic mandate to do

that.”

Her strategy was to go to nontraditional news sources because

they “were trying to convey biography and personality” and not

news.

As election results showed, the appearance likely helped Clinton,

especially among the young. Just under half of first-time voters—about

5.5 million—supported Clinton, which accounted for nearly all of

Clinton’s 5.8 million vote margin.

Private Communication Systems

Private communication systems consist of two types: (a) constituency

communications, such as an organization’s communications with its

stakeholders, and (b) privately financed cable channels. Communication

with employees through newsletters, newspapers, magazines, and elec-

tronic communications is most common. The writers and editors of

these internal media are represented by the International Association of

Business Communicators with its more than 16,000 members. Besides

reaching employees through these controlled channels, organizations

have the opportunity to communicate with their employees through

one-on-one communications with supervisors and through a variety of

group meetings.

Motorola went directly to its employees with mass-media-related

news with the aim of taking the sting out of impending bad press or

other issue-related matters. One way was to place “sandwich boards” at

exits, which alerted employees at the end of the workday to expect tele

vision coverage that evening and criticisms or investigations and head

lines the following morning. The company also used its cleaning staff to

distribute red alert messages so employees would immediately see them

on their desks or workstations when they report to work. Message

sheets carry a special logo to identify their urgency.

Private channels

can also be used to target other stakeholders of an organization.

Public relations textbooks and handbooks are replete with examples

of communication programs that can be used with an organization’s

multiple stakeholders, as illustrated by the following:

• Investors can be reached through annual reports, interim reports,

and annual meetings (reports of which are sometimes made avail

able in video format, on CDs, or on websites).

BYPASSING THE NEWS MEDIA I 209

• Customers, dealers, and suppliers can be reached through newslet

ters, special bulletins, and other means.

The importance of going directly to key stakeholders, at least before

going to the news media, was demonstrated when First Chicago invited

banking reporters to a briefing at which senior bank officials explained

the bank’s new fee policy when customers go to a bank teller instead of

an ATM. Of all the complex details discussed at the briefing (e.g., the cir

cumstances when a teller may be seen without paying a fee), the report

ers jumped on the story of a new $3 teller fee. The story was then

amplified by grandstanding politicians and late-night comedians, as

well as public relations critics. The main lesson learned, said bank offi

cials, is “that getting information into customers’ hands before they see

it in the media is crucially important.”

Officials already knew that em

ployees must also be informed: Branch employees, the bank’s first line

of defense against irate customers, were provided communications ma-

terials beforehand. They supported the teller fee decisions and have done

an excellent job of explaining the decision and telling customers about

less costly banking options. Other stakeholders that should be in-

formed, said officials, are government and community leaders, the mi-

nority community, and civic and political leaders.

The second type of private communication system is the privately

financed cable channels that are viewed by the general public but have

their contents controlled by their owners. An example is Pat Robinson’s

cable television channel, which broadcast the August 1996 Republican

National Convention in San Diego. The cost of the broadcast was de-

frayed by Amway, which contributed $1.3 million. Amway’s presi-

dent Richard M. “Dick” DeVos, Jr. said he viewed this contribution as a

“public service.”

Pat Robinson also bypassed the mass media by pro-

ducing audiocassettes that are distributed free to targeted audiences.

Database Marketing

Database marketing can bypass the media entirely, or counter the me

dia’s influence. The application of database marketing allows commu

nicators to reach audiences on a “personal,” one-on-one basis. Tom

Brennan of Brennan & Brennan, a public relations firm in Anchorage,

Alaska, defines himself as a database user: “For years I’ve been using

mass media only as supplementary communication channels. The im

portant stuff goes direct to targeted audiences.… When we issue a press

release we think through which people we would most like to have read

the story if a newspaper used it in its original form. Then we send the

press release to them. It’s also a way of insuring the media doesn’t gar

ble the message.”

In writing his releases, Brennan includes “some things I know the

media will leave out.… At the same time, you have to be careful you

don’t lose the interest of the news media.”

Brennan gives the example

210 I CHAPTER 8

of a hotel that decided to close its well-known restaurant and turn it

into a private dining room. Fearing the local newspaper would interpret

this announcement as a sign the hotel was in financial difficulty, which

it wasn’t, Brennan sent 5,000 “Dear Friends of the Restaurant” letters;

he also reserved an ad in the paper to appear the next day. About a week

later, the media wrote a story, but “by that time the story was well dis

tributed and correctly perceived by the audience.”

When using a database marketing approach, communicators should

consider its full meaning. As defined by Skip Andrew of the National

Center for Database Marketing, database marketing involves

managing a computerized relational database system, in real time, of

comprehensive, up-to-date, relevant data on customers, inquiries, pros

pects, and suspects, to identify your most responsive customers for the

purpose of developing a high-quality, long-standing relationship of re

peat business, by developing predictive models which enable us to send

desired messages at the right time in the right form to the right peo-

ple—all with the result of pleasing our customers, increasing our re-

sponse rate per marketing dollar, lowering our cost per order, building

our business, and increasing our profits.

In his book on the direct marketing of politics, One Billion Dollars of

Influence, R. Kenneth Godwin reported more than 200 million direct

mailings are typically sent each year to generate resources for political

action.

Some examples are the following:

• The Center for Resource Economics, a public interest group that

monitors corporations, used the Freedom of Information Act to iden-

tify and communicate with companies that threaten food supplies or

the environment.

• Philip Morris started a glossy new magazine in October 1996

called Unlimited: Action, Adventure, Good Times to reach close to 2 mil

lion male smokers between the ages of 21 and 29. Barred from broad

cast advertising and facing possible new restrictions on billboards,

sponsorships, and magazine advertising (requiring the use of

black-and-white, text-only ads in any magazine with substantial

youth readership), this private magazine intends to “reinforce loyalty

to the brand and to provide added value,” says a Philip Morris spokes

woman.

This is not the first magazine Philip Morris published for its

smokers. In the mid-1980s, it published the Philip Morris Magazine,

which dealt with such controversial subjects as smokers’ rights. It

reached a circulation of 12 million people six times a year but was dis

continued in 1992.

Videos as well as direct mail print material can be used in direct mar

keting. When Oliver North, the ex-Marine colonel, ran for the Republi

can nomination for a Senate seat in Virginia, he sent party regulars an

BYPASSING THE NEWS MEDIA I 211