From the WSJ Opinion Archives
THINKING THINGS OVER
The Press Pack: News by Stereotype
George W. Bush needs to show he's serious.
"For the most part we do not first see, and then define, we define first and then see. In the great blooming, buzzing confusion of the outer world we pick out what our culture has already defined for us, and we tend to perceive that which we have picked out in the form stereotyped for us by our culture."
This précis of Gestalt psychology was written by Walter Lippmann in his classic book "Public Opinion" back in 1922. He was explaining how the press thinks--how an editor or reporter decides what to put in his newspaper every morning. You can't print everything that happened yesterday, and the pressure of deadlines prohibits any serious reflection. The editor operates--can only operate--by applying to the day's events ideas and categories he already carries around in his head. By applying what Lippmann called "stereotypes."
Lippmann's insight is the key to unraveling what many thoughtful readers and viewers consider the mystery of the press. As he put it, "Usually it is the stereotyped shape assumed by an event that uncovers the run of the news." That is, say, if President Ford bumps his head on a helicopter it establishes a stereotype--the president is clumsy; there follows a string of stories recording every passing mishap of what surely must be one of the most athletic men to occupy his office this century. Or on a weightier level, Ronald Reagan once turned to Jimmy Carter and uttered a phrase in itself practically devoid of content--"there you go again." But a stereotype the press had established was so powerful that every debate viewer understood that President Carter was displaying his streak of pious meanness.
The issue of where the press gets the stereotypes that shape its coverage is obviously important and intriguing. It bears particularly on perceptions of press "bias" common among conservatives and Republicans. Readers and viewers fleeing the "mainline" media are certainly welcome on these pages, and on our OpinionJournal on the World Wide Web. But perhaps they will take my word for it that nowhere in the national media is there a conspiracy, or even a conversation, about shaping the news for partisan or ideological purposes. Instead, there are a lot of conversations about fairness, balance and objectivity; these ideals are still a powerful force in shaping the media.
We also know, however, that journalists are a remarkably uniform group. In the hothouse of the Washington press corps, they could just as well have all been stamped out of the same press. A Roper-Freedom Forum study of 136 Washington reporters and bureau chiefs, for example, found that their 1992 votes went 89% for Bill Clinton and 7% for George Bush. Other studies have found that elite journalists are especially "liberal" on lifestyle issues such as abortion, sex and drugs. The reason for this is simple and powerful: self-selection. These are the people who want to go into journalism, as opposed to business, engineering, medicine or whatever.
So the stereotype of the day oozes out of a tension between the ideal of objectivity and the reality of a liberal background and environment. This takes place, moreover, in a cloister. For perfectly good reasons, the press keeps its distance from advertisers, casts a cynical eye on politicians and otherwise insulates itself from real life. Within this cloister there are the usual peer-group interactions. When I spent a year in Washington back in 1971, the most powerful journalist in town was Peter Lisagor; scarcely anyone read a word of what he wrote for the Chicago Sun-Times, but he had the knack of asking the questions on the minds of his peers. Everyone's story led with the answer to Peter's question. More recently, before taking up her arch column, Maureen Dowd of the New York Times served a tour as alpha male of the press pack.
Just now the stereotypes are in a sour spell for George W. Bush. He initially enjoyed a press honeymoon, but this ended the moment he uttered the words "Jesus Christ" on national television. The press was so infatuated with John McCain that his campaign labeled it part of its "base." Not only is Sen. McCain personally engaging, but he's an advocate of "campaign finance reform." This is a pet issue to the press because it fits the pack's civics book ideal of democracy and, not so incidentally, because limiting campaign advertising would vastly increase the power of the press. Gov. Bush got a pretty good ride during his convention, and Al Gore an even better one during his. And the vice president has sustained his momentum since with a series of largely unexamined but ultimately preposterous promises of largesse to one and all.
So we are now at this point: When the Bush campaign runs an ad mocking Mr. Gore about the Buddhist Temple, the headlines are about whether Mr. Bush is going negative. "During an impromptu news conference, reporter after reporter sharply questioned him about how the attack commercial," a New York Times story reported, "squared with his promise to take the high road." Of course, Mr. Gore could just as well have been pelted with questions about whether anyone could believe he didn't know the temple appearance was a fund-raiser, why Janet Reno had to issue three get-out-of-jail-free cards to block formal recommendations of a deeper probe of his role, and so on. But this did not fit the stereotype of the day.
While this is certainly not fair to Mr. Bush, on another level there is a certain rough justice. I think the stereotype currently motivating the press is framed in a simple question, "Can this kid hit big-league pitching?" Mr. Bush is the newcomer on the national block, and the old gang wants to see what he's made of. Ronald Reagan faced the same thing on the way to his 1980 landslide. He turned the stereotype with a speech to the Economic Club of Chicago, with some numbers massaged by Alan Greenspan to show you could cut taxes after all. To lick the stereotype, Mr. Bush needs a similar show of seriousness.
This has to include a dissection of the Gore promises rather than an imitation of them. (See Susan Lee's column for an example.) But the gold standard of seriousness would be a set-piece speech on the importance of the rule of law. Having taken the hits for "going negative," Mr. Bush now needs to elevate the issue with a serious, not mocking, elaboration. I myself would be reassured if Gov. Bush showed he understands how much the fabric of society has been strained by the Clinton-Gore coverups.
Press stereotypes will change over the next two months, and the ideal of balance means they do not inevitably favor the Democrat. If the stereotype of the day ever becomes "Is Gore lying again," the vice presidential goose will be cooked.
Mr. Bartley is editor of The Wall Street Journal. His column appears Mondays in the Journal and on OpinionJournal.com.
