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Scandal and Silence: Media Responses to Presidential Misconduct, by Robert M. Entman
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This timely and engaging book challenges the conventional wisdom on media and scandal in the United States. The common view holds that media crave and actively pursue scandals whenever they sense corruption. Scandal and Silence argues for a different perspective. Using case studies from the period 1988-2008, it shows that:
- Media neglect most corruption, providing too little, not too much scandal coverage;
- Scandals arise from rational, controlled processes, not emotional frenzies - and when scandals happen, it’s not the media but governments and political parties that drive the process and any excesses that might occur;
- Significant scandals are indeed difficult for news organizations to initiate and harder for them to maintain and bring to appropriate closure;
- For these reasons cover-ups and lying often work, and truth remains essentially unrecorded, unremembered.
Sometimes, bad behavior stimulates an avalanche of media attention with demonstrable political consequences, yet other times, equally shoddy activity receives little notice. This book advances a theoretical model to explain these differences, revealing an underlying logic to what might seem arbitrary and capricious journalism. Through case studies of the draft and military scandals involving Dan Quayle, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and John Kerry; alleged sexual misconduct of politicians including but not limited to Clinton; and questionable financial dealings of Clinton and George W Bush, the book builds a new understanding of media scandals which will be essential reading for anyone concerned with the relationship between media and democracy today.
- Sales Rank: #2072541 in Books
- Brand: Brand: Polity
- Published on: 2012-05-14
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 9.00" h x .98" w x 6.10" l, .96 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 280 pages
- Used Book in Good Condition
Review
"This book combines insightful theoretical analysis with interesting empirical research, and is a major contribution to the field."
Discourse and Communication
"This is the definitive work on political scandal in the modern American press. The reader will find engaging and richly detailed accounts of dozens of scandals, along with explanations of why in some cases they became so overblown, and, in others, did not develop at all despite available evidence. The book raises important questions about how journalists tell stories, and why those stories so often fail to embody the ideals we associate with a free press in a democracy."
Lance Bennett, University of Washington
"Robert Entman has long been one of the most insightful analysts of the news media. Scandal and Silence will add to his reputation. Anyone who thought they had a reasonable understanding of how the media handle scandal will have to think again. A brilliant book that is a must read for those in the classroom, the newsroom, and the political cloakroom."
Thomas E. Patterson, Harvard University
About the Author
Robert M. Entman is J.B. and M.C. Shapiro Professor of Media and Public Affairs at George Washington University.
Most helpful customer reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful.
A Call to Task!
By Grady Harp
SCANDAL AND SILENCE: MEDIA REPONSES TO PRESIDENTIAL MISCONDCUT is certainly one of the more fascinating publications about the state of the media to break surface since the days of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein and their courage to make public the truth behind the Watergate scandal during the presidency of Richard Nixon. Author Robert M. Entman is a Professor of Media and Public Affairs at George Washington University and his previous books have garnered wide attention to serious problems. But surely everything before this book pales in comparison. This engrossing and compelling tome addresses the manner in which the media deals with crises and scandals in Washington DC - capitalizing on the rather minor human weakness of the presidents while failing to rightly inform the public of the serious breaches of power the government decides should be submerged from public knowledge.
Entman covers the period from 1988 to 2008 (and in the course of examining current scandals he references famous incidents in the past), exploring the hungry media scandal machine, that information that drives viewers or readers attention and builds ratings, while electing to ignore far more compelling information that actually endangers the public by withholding facts that are truly critical. `To an outside observer, the Washington scandal machine may seem to operate at random. The same media that roundly condemned President George W. Bush for his passivity in the face of Hurricane Katrina failed to get worked up by his inaction as economic calamity loomed in 2008. The same news organizations that endlessly probed the marital psychology of Bill and Hillary Clinton passed over the unconventional aspects of John and Cindy McCain's marriage. And journalists came down hard on the 1988 vice presidential nominee Dan Quayle for using family connections to evade Vietnam by entering the National Guard, yet in 200 barely mentioned George W. Bush's similar record.'
Entman goes on to say `Although this book encompasses three presidential administrations, the bulk of attention falls on cases involving George W. Bush. This focus arises from the book's core purpose; to illuminate the processes by which potential scandals either expand into political significance or deflate with little impact on politics - with special reference to the latter, largely neglected outcome.' Entman's reportage includes extensive references and pages of data that support his reporting. He presents grafts and tables that demonstrate his findings and premises and in doing so he keeps the rhetoric rich and propulsive. It is interesting to note that as this book becomes available the public is beginning to watch a very important television series - THE NEWSROOM currently on HBO (see my review, rather hidden here on Amazon.com at http://www.amazon.com/Aficionado-Magazine-August-Daniels-Newsroom/dp/B0089YQWOM/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1341684321&sr=8-1&keywords=the+newsroom+jeff+daniels) that addresses these issues. Entman writes brilliantly and with courage and will very likely find detractors. But this information is sorely needed in a time where democracy seems owned by the wealthy and the way to become President is to buy it with massive funding of campaigns.
In chapter 8 Entman provides the following powerful information: 'Having moved through scandals or non-scandals involving minimal impacts on the public welfare (infidelity), to those imposing some costs (evading the military draft or duties), to one of more substantial social damage (George W. Bush's insider trading and the SEC's passivity), we now focus on two potential scandals that might have arisen over high-cost presidential misconduct. The first concerned the Bush administration's campaign to justify the Iraq war by claiming Saddam Hussein could deploy weapon of Mass destruction (WMD) against the US or its European friends. Iraq possessed no such weapons. Despite leading the US into a costly war against Iraq based on a non-existent WMD threat, George W. Bush was not framed as scandalously incompetent or dishonest. How this potential presidential scandal was silenced, despite the war's yielding few benefits to the US in exchange for death, destruction, and immense financial cost -over $3 trillion - recapitulates and extends our model of scandal politics.' And he proceeds to detail the Valerie Plame Wilson scandal involving VP Cheney, Karl Rove and Scooter Libby, and on and on. This is definitive work on political scandal manipulation in the modern American press and it deserves the attention of every concerned citizen of this country. Highly Recommended. Grady Harp, July 12
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful.
Some useful material embedded in an obstacle course for the reader
By Aaron C. Brown
This book tackles an important issue from an interesting perspective, but puts some unnecessary obstacles in the path of the reader. The main obstacle is convoluted, jargon-filled pseudo-academic prose. There are pages of tedious hair-splitting definitions, but none of the important terms like "scandal," "media" and "elite" are defined. This is a significant problem because key terms are used inconsistently to construct circular arguments. There are extensive citations--often a dozen or more on a page, and directly in the text rather than footnotes--but they are either to popular accounts (for example, controversial numerical assertions about the 2007-2009 financial crisis are sourced to Michael Lewis' The Big Short without page references, this is a lively general account of one aspect of events but not the authoritative source for specific numbers) or to a small group of academic researchers who all cite each other.
The reader eventually figures out by context that "scandal" means two entirely different things. First is whether normally-private details about a person may be used in a story. The general tests for a detail are whether it is solidly sourced, the subject has been given a chance to reply and it is relevant to the story. Absent exceptional circumstances, no detail that doesn't meet these tests should be included. But even if all three criteria are met, most journalists will refrain from printing private information such as affairs between unmarried consenting adults, a serious medical condition of a subject's child or a male subject who likes to fondle women's shoes in his bedroom. Details like adultery, legal but sleazy financial dealings and private expressions of political incorrectness fall into a gray area; while draft evasion, drug use and hiring illegal immigrants have become fully public.
The author appears to argue that only relevance matters. For example, if a Presidential candidate did not make public that his minor daughter had a life-threatening illness that might be helped by stem cell research, the fact would be fair game for reporting if the candidate took a position on stem cells. On the other hand, an unconvicted child molester's privacy would be protected unless child sexual abuse were a campaign issue. I disagree with that position, but my main criticisms are that it is not presented clearly (it may not even be what the author means) and that it has nothing to do with scandals. Relevance is at issue for all story details, scandalous or no.
The unrelated meaning of "scandal" is how undoubtedly relevant issues are framed. Here the author appears to mean whether opinion is injected into the news accounts and whether potentially embarrassing details are elaborated and repeated far beyond the requirements of reporting the facts. Some examples that are discussed at length are the financial crisis that began in 2007 (non-scandal), the federal emergency response to Hurricane Katrina (scandal) and the claim that the Bush administration ordered the use of torture to obtain false corroboration for claims that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction (non-scandal). I think expressing opinions as fact and writing for effect rather than to communicate are bad journalism regardless of the issue (although hard to eliminate or even define). Moreover, I don't see how the author decides which were scandals versus non-scandals, he seems to take it as obvious.
To me the key decision is the respect news accounts give to official statements. If President Obama claims his tax proposal will lower taxes on the middle class, it would be irresponsible journalism to counter that with a quote from an anonymous, disgruntled, former low-level employee of the Congressional Budget Office. But if President Bush denied distorting intelligence to mislead Congress, you might include a quote from an anonymous, disgruntled, former low-level CIA officer. In the latter case, you are treating the story like a scandal in which officials may be lying on the record and using their powers to suppress the truth.
A related obstacle is that most of the argument is explained through two-dimensional diagrams, with no explanation of why things are placed as they are. For example, potential sins are placed on a grid with private/official on the vertical axis and degree of social cost on the horizontal. Once this placement is accepted the author's argument follows as if dictated by logic. Why does sexual harassment have a low social cost while a racial slur has substantial social cost? I could see making them the same, both affect a limited circle directly, but set examples that could have extensive indirect cost. If I had to make one higher, I would say sexual harassment is a crime while racial slurs are protected by the first amendment, and harassment is sticks and stones while a slur is words. And why did outing Valerie Plame have extensive social cost, the highest category, while the screw ups with Katrina were only substantial? Nobody died in the Plame scandal. On page 21 at least Plame ranks below distorting intelligence about Iraqi WMD, but by page 189, without explanation, it has surpassed WMD (but Harken Energy insider trading has come up from third place on the rail to win by a nose over both). President Clinton spending $200 for a haircut gets the highest possible rating for "government realm," while his draft evasion is at the bottom of the middle category.
An example of the circularity is the author argues that the Internet and blogs are unimportant compared to reports in the New York Times and Washington Post. He states John Edwards dropped out of the 2008 Presidential race in January 2008 and Vice Presidential consideration in April in part due to Internet reports of his affair with Rielle Hunter, which the author says was not reported in mainstream media (apparently excluding Fox News) until August when Edwards admitted it. The author reasons most voters "presumably" hadn't heard of the affair until August, because it hadn't been reported by the New York Times, so it could not have been the reason for Edwards dropping out of contention.
When you get past the nonsense, there is extensive and knowledgeable discussion about political reporting, particularly with respect to Presidential campaigns, from 1998 to 2008. Stripped of the academic pretensions and twisted logic, this is a valuable and insightful book. It's hard to rate, I settled on three stars to balance the useful details in the middle chapters with the generalizations that create obstacles at the beginning and end.
I was disappointed to see that a guy lecturing journalists on standards would solicit an Amazon review from the infamous Grady Hart machine (see Garth Hallberg's Slate piece "Who is Grady Hart?" if you're curious about how publicists manufacture 5-star reviews, nominally from a top-10 Amazon reviewer who often posts ten or more reviews per day).
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful.
Could have been excellent
By James W. Durney
A history of the media's response or lack of response to "Presidential Misconduct" could be a historical survey or a contemporary one.
The author chose to look at the 20 years from 1988 to 2008. An unfortunate choice given what appears to be the author's politics.
The book looks at both of the Bush administrations and Clinton, five terms.
Somehow, the majority of the book concentrates on George W. Bush or George H. W. Bush to the exclusion of the Clintons.
Whitewater rates five entries in the index.
Mnica Lewinsky rates 11 entries.
W's National Guard service rates nine entries in the index.
Gary Hart's adultery rates five entries in the index.
John Edwards rates 10 index entries.
Richard Cheney rates 11 index entries.
Robert Dole gets nine entries.
Dan Quayle gets 15 entries.
The author never misses a chance to acknowledge another professor's work. Instead of footnotes, acknowledgments are inserted in the sentence.
This leads to some lengthy sentences and difficult reading.
This could have been an excellent book but it fell to politics and cronyism.
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