The line dividing public life and private behavior in American politics is more blurred than ever. When it comes to questions about sex, substance abuse, and family life, anything goes on the political desk in many newsrooms, including uncorroborated hearsay disguised as news. Peepshow looks behind the scenes at news coverage of political scandals, analyzing what gets reported, what doesn't, and why. The authors talk with top news editors to get a fix on what will make the evening news and what we're likely to read about in the next campaign season.

Peepshow: Media and Politics in an Age of Scandal

Humor & Entertainment

Larry J. Sabato

S. Robert Lichter

Mark Stencel

Movies

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.

The Mediated Presidency: Television News and Presidential Governance

Including late-breaking data from the Iraq occupation and the disastrous CBS News reports on Bush's Vietnam-era National Guard Service, acclaimed media scholars Stephen J. Farnsworth and S. Robert Lichter examine news coverage of military policy, economic policy, and scandals from the last four U.S. presidencies, including the current controversial administration. Using a quarter-century of content analysis data, the authors demonstrate how the White House dominates Capitol Hill on every dimension of news coverage, undermining Congress's attempt to compete as an equal branch before the public. At the same time, they show how the networks are steadily losing ground to new media outlets and suggest future paths our media mania may take.

Reference

Stephen J. Farnsworth

Writing, Research & Publishing Guides

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

The Nightly News Nightmare: Television's Coverage of U.S. Presidential Elections, 1988-2004

Beginning with the 1988 presidential election and now updated through 2004, The Nightly News Nightmare shows how network news coverage of what is arguably the nation's most important political event has declined. Through extensive analysis of news content from the "Big Three" and Fox, acclaimed media scholars Farnsworth and Lichter compare what the candidates said with what the networks say they said and judge the disparity a nightmare. The authors go on to suggest that perhaps the candidates themselves do a better job of portraying the campaigns than those who used to be the trusted network guardians of the news. While making clear that overall coverage of the Bush-Kerry race marked an improvement compared to previous elections, Farnsworth and Lichter also point out that in other ways, things were worse.

Television

What were the differences between the three scandals that shook the Clinton administration in the winter of 1993-94? What issues of character and competence were at stake in the allegations brought against the President in the course of the Whitewater hearings, by the troopers who served as his personal bodyguards when he was governor, and in the sexual harassment suit pursued by Paula Corbin Jones? What accounts for the reaction of the mainstream news media and the differences in the coverage of these three scandals? Dr. Robert Lichter of the Center for Media and Public Affairs and Larry Sabato, of the University of Virginia, answer these questions in this thorough and well-researched book. The result of numerous interviews and extensive analysis of mainstream news coverage, in both print and on television, When Should the Watchdogs Bark? offers compelling explanations for the behavior of the news media during these three scandals. Lichter and Sabato argue that the mainstream media was more willing to pursue the Whitewater story because of its resemblance to more traditionally reported upon forms of political corruption.

When Should the Watchdogs Bark?

Politics & Social Sciences

Social Sciences

When Roots of Radicalism first appeared. Nathan Glazer noted "this is a major work on the relationship between radical politics and psychological development." He went on to predict "no one will be able to write about the left and radicalism without taking it into account." Now finally available in a paperback edition, with a new introduction, the reader can evaluate just how prescient the authors are in their review of the student radical movement. Replete with interviews of radical activists, their provocative book paints a disturbing picture. The book raises critical questions about much previous social science research and ultimately about the reason an entire generation of Americans was so infatuated with the radical mystique. Robert A. Nisbet called the book "an extraordinarily skilled fusion of historical and psychological approaches to one of the most explosive decades in American social history." Robert E. Lane added "it will be prudent to read Rothman and Lichter along with our well worn copies of Keniston and Fromm." Writing in Political Psychology, Dan E. Thomas argued "the [book] is arguably the most important and definitely the most provocative book in the field of personality and politics to have appeared in the past several years." Recently, in Forbes. Peter Brimelow referred to Roots of Radicalism as "Rothman's main achievement as a political scientist...his definitive study of the 1960s New Left." In the new introduction, the authors review the initial reception of Roots of Radicalism and its subsequent treatment. They also review the major literature on the causes, course, and consequences of the student movement of the 1960s which has appeared since the publication of the book. Finally, they update their own analysis.

Roots of Radicalism: Jews, Christians, and the Left

Stanley Rothman

Routledge

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Books by S. Robert Lichter