Manipulating News Assignments

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by: Adela

Although presidents have tried, it is difficult to manipulate reporters by attempting to change their beats, but it is possible to manipulate news people who are on general assignment. For example, the Associated Press Calendar lists important events occurring in Washington. Virtually every news Omega Replica bureau in Washington uses it as a guide for what to cover on any given day. If an event is listed, it gets covered, whether it de-serves it or not; if it's not listed, it probably won't get covered. When an event is listed, fears of competition prod the news outlets to cover it. This is also cost-efficient in the case of television, as some pooling of crews is possible under such circumstances. Arranging to have an event listed in the AP Calendar is one way to manipulate media news coverage.

Reporters on beats are vulnerable to manipulation. An example can be drawn from coverage of the Reagan presidential campaign. Joel Swerdlow reports some clever manipulation by Reagan news managers:

Raw footage of a typical Reagan campaign day, for example, revealed that the crowds always seemed much larger than they actually were. To a large degree, this resulted from clever advance work by the media-sophisticated Reagan staff. At almost every stop, it was the same: they positioned a raised camera platform close to the speaker's platform, and roped off a huge "press area," designated off-limits to the public. This forced the crowd to pack tightly into the space between the candidate and the camera, ensuring that Reagan always spoke to an impressive-looking mass of humanity.

In the 1950s and 1960s, some reporters acted as informants for and as channels of information from the Central Intelligence Agency. Stories initiated by the CIA found their way into major newspapers and onto the wire services. News people considered the CIA a trusted source of information before the revelations about the Vietnam War and Watergate cast doubt on the truthfulness of such government agencies. The CIA was able to provide reporters with access to information that they could not otherwise secure, a situation that gave those reporters a competitive edge. This information came easily and inexpensively; reporters did not have to invest time in ferreting it out, fol-lowing false leads, or fighting for access to sources. The CIA also provided Tag Heuer Replica Watches an angle by pegging its stories to local and international events, and most important, it provided stories based on beliefs and attitudes consistent with the reporters' views of the world: "us" versus "them," patriotism, the dangers of communism, the threat of communist infiltration. A variety of factors contributed to the association of the CIA with the media, and access to information was an important one.

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