What Role Does, and What Role Should the Media Play In Choosing Our Candidates For National

Office?

Student Excerpts From The Harry Singer Foundation National High School Essay Contests Concerning

The Role Our Media Plays in Choosing Our Candidates For National Office

Margaret Bohannon-Kaplan, Editor

Wellington Publications W-P Carmel, California

The non-partisan Harry Singer Foundation was established in 1988 to promote greater individual participation in government and involvement in social issues. The views expressed here are those of the various students who chose to enter our essay contest and do not necessarily represent the views of the board members and staff of the Foundation.

Second Printing Copyright 2008 by Wellington Publications Printed in USA All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the publisher. Inquiries should be addressed to Wellington Publications P.O. Box 223159 Carmel, California 93922 LCCN: 2008934917 ISBN: 978-0-915915-03-3

Editor's Note: In most cases, students gave the Foundation citations for the material that was quoted in their papers. Because of space constraints, we generally did not include those citations here. Also, in rare instances, material was quoted by students and incorporated in their papers without giving proper credit. We apologize, but must disclaim responsibility as we cannot always tell when a student is quoting from another writer unless quotation marks are used. This is purely an educational exercise. This copy is distributed by the Harry Singer Foundation without charge as part of its commitment to inform and encourage participation in public policy.

Who is Harry Singer?

Most people have never heard of Harry Singer. He wasn't a famous politician, a philanthropic industrialist, a creative artist, a martyred preacher or a great inventor-humanitarian. Harry Singer was a common man. Harry was an immigrant. He came to this country in 1912 from a small village in Russia. He settled in Chelsea, Massachusetts where with his wife and five children he ran a tiny neighborhood grocery store. Harry could have been your uncle, your brother-in-law, your next door neighbor. He had no lust for power, no great ambitions. He was just a good, kind, quiet man with a keen sense of justice who would jump in when he felt something was wrong. Harry was an egalitarian who showed respect for all men and who was respected in return. It is fitting that a foundation dedicated to encouraging the common man's participation in public policy decisions should be named after Harry. For it is to the Harry Singers of a new generation that we must look if we are to keep America competitive and strong in the world of the twenty-first century. The Harry Singer Foundation came into being because the descendants of the humble egalitarian believe today what President Woodrow Wilson said back in 1912: "Every country is renewed out of the unknown ranks and not out of the ranks of those already famous and powerful and in control."

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About The Harry Singer Foundation (HSF) The Harry Singer Foundation is a non-profit 501(c) 3 private operating foundation (IRC: 4942 j 3) located in Carmel, California whose purpose is to promote responsibility and involve people more fully in public policy and their communities. It was founded in 1987. It actively conducts programs, and is not a grant-making foundation. The founders believe many people base their decisions on erroneous or too little factual information about public policy, private and public programs, and the effort and goodwill of their fellow citizens. The Harry Singer Foundation has developed programs to help correct this situation, and would like to join with you in helping to make this nation a stronger and better place to live and grow for this generation and generations of Americans to come. The Foundation's focus is on the too often forgotten average citizen. We are not consciously looking to attract future leaders; we feel that job is being handled adequately by a variety of existing foundations. Our goal is to minimize the polarization we see developing in this country between the doers and those done to the rulers and the ruled. We strive to make everyone feel that their thoughts and ideas count; to let them know that they are listened to and that they matter. We want our fellow citizens to understand that a person doesn't have to be brilliant or a great communicator in order to make a difference in America. A person does have to care and does have to participate. Action It is not enough to think, write and talk about the problemswe must show by active example what people are capable of achieving. The goal is to find out what works within a desired framework. When participants learn how to choose what to do without sacrificing the best American ideals to expediency, the Foundation will provide the opportunity to put some of their ideal choices to the test. The Foundation first concentrated on young people because they are open and eager to learn, are not saddled with a myriad of other social responsibilities (like raising a family and making their own living) and they will be around the longest and therefore have the best opportunity to make

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their projects work. They are ideal experimenters because time is on their side. Pilot Projects We bring people together to network at our headquarters in Carmel, California. When participants come up with ideas, HSF provides the opportunity to put to the test, those ideas that garner the most enthusiastic response. We do this via pilot projects and interacting with grant-making entities as well as far-sighted businesses. Most businesses rightly have more than altruistic motives. Their main concerns are about maintaining a stable and growth-oriented economy and finding responsible employees. As a side benefit, many of our projects foster these, as well as purely altruistic goals. We know a pilot project has been successfully launched when it attracts enthusiastic volunteers that we call Champions. Champions are drawn to a specific pilot project because they share its objectives. Therefore they are eager to jump at the opportunity to bring aspirations to fruition by adding their own unique approach to managing and expanding the project without having to worry about funding. Of course HSF continues to provide guidance in addition to monetary support. Singer Kids 4 Kids was once a pilot project and Transition to Teaching was a pilot project renamed and adopted by the state of California in 2008 to attract more science and math mentors for Californias classrooms. The HSF Mission The Harry Singer Foundation mission is to prepare participants for a future where there may be less government and a weaker safety net. Such a future would require greater individual character, responsibility and knowledge. There may be a need for responsible people able to care for themselves and their less fortunate neighbors. The Foundation offers materials online, free of charge, which can be printed and used in the classroom or for individual education or research. The Workbook section of the HSF web site features data to encourage logical thinking and attention to the unintended consequences that often accompany government or personal solutions to perceived problems. HSF believes that society has encouraged technology and management while neglecting principles. We need to consider not only can we do, but should we do. To that end you will find an introduction to the seldom taught

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subject of logic in this section along with frequently updated ethical dilemmas. Before one can either reflect or help others, one must survive. HSF has archived the thoughts of teens over a twenty year period in the Teens Speak Out and the Archived by State forums as well as in the published books that resulted from 41 of the 46 essay contests the Foundation conducted between 1988 and 2007. Although many of these teen authors now are adults with children of their own, their reflections are relevant to today's youth who must learn to make successful personal and social choices regarding their own ideology and careers. They too must withstand the peer pressure of gangs, violence, irresponsible sex and addictive substances. People change but the social issues remain. The HSF Mission 1988-2008 The following article was written in 1995 by Amy Davidson, a free lance writer and linguistics student at the University of California at Berkeley at the time. This is the result of her observation of the Harry Singer Foundation during winter break her sophomore year. Thought, Words and Action One wouldn't think of Carmel, California, a small coastal town south of Monterey, as a hotbed for community action. However, nestled between the Cypress trees and the crashing surf, the small group of dedicated people at the Harry Singer Foundation are providing opportunities for Americans to make positive changes in their own communities, across the nation. Programs, designed for the general public but currently focusing on teachers and high school students -- including essay contests, community service project-development, online services, research materials, and curricula development-- all are ways that members of the non-profit Harry Singer Foundation are making a tangible difference in our nation. Founded to preserve both the ideal and the practice of freedom, "HSF aims to help people develop the skills and knowledge essential to the task," according to co-Founder Margaret Bohannon-Kaplan. "Our focus is on the average citizen, and our goal is to motivate him or her to make positive differences in America."

Martha Collings, a teacher at Plainview High School in Ardmore, Oklahoma, whose high school students participate in annual HSF essay contests, praised them as "a refreshing change from the usual boring ones we are asked to enter." Her sentiment probably arose from the complex and educationally stimulating components of the contest. Students must incorporate first and second-hand research, classroom discussion, individual analysis, and come up with their own conclusions to timely topics like health care, the media's role in national elections, the government's role in child care, and the importance of responsibility to the proper functioning of the nation.. "This was one of the most challenging and thought-provoking contests my students have entered," said Janet Newton, a teacher from Freeman High School, Rockford, Washington. Another teacher, Jerry McGinley of DeForest High School in DeForest, Wisconsin agreed, saying, "My students put in a great deal of time and effort reading and discussing the various articles, writing out discussion the questions, and writing the essays." It is likely that these teachers also put in a great deal of time. The HSF contest includes materials and support (through online services, texts, and personnel from the foundation) for an entire lesson plan based around issues raised by the essay topic for a given year. HSF aims to have teachers discuss the topic with their students extensively before the actual writing begins. Teacher Mary Ellen Schoonover of Strasburg High school in Strasburg, Colorado spent a considerable amount of time on assignments and discussions related to the 1994 topic "Responsibility: Who has It and Who Doesn't and What This Means to the Nation." "I felt the Singer essay was a valuable instructional tool," she said. "I incorporated the materials into class by distributing the required reading essays and questions to use as homework assignments with class discussion following each week for four weeks. After discussing the essays, students chose a topic, and classes did library research." The result of this kind of preparation is thousands of well-researched analyses of a topic. The essays are judged by a variety of ordinary citizens

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and, depending on the topic, a large sampling of attorneys, academics, politicians, financial wizards, other teens and senior citizens. This works because schools are not judged against each other, but only internally, so each school ends up with awards. "That's the big attraction of our contest," explains board member, Donna Glacken. "Every school is a winner. That and the fact that we publish excerpts from the contest and distribute the hard copy book to all 535 members of congress and their state and community politicians and home town media." Community Involvement Occurred Gradually In the 1992-93 school year, the Harry Singer Foundation extended the reach of its programs. More than five thousand official candidates for national office (most of them unknown) were polled, along with schools and members of the media. Participants were able to see a comparison of poll results among the three categories. The 1993-94 subject of our essay contest: Responsibility: Who Has It and Who Doesn't and What That Means To The Nation, generated such an enthusiastic response that we decided to offer this contest as an annual option. According to contest rules, students were to include in their papers examples of five responsible acts and three irresponsible acts we were trying to accentuate the positive. That first contest resulted in three feedback-books. The first book, The White Hats, featured the responsible acts. Numerous students offered more than their quota of irresponsible acts, many in the form of outrageous lawsuits which are the primary subject of the second book: Responsibility: Who Has It and Who Doesn't and What That Means To The Nation. Concealed among all the required examples was the subject of the third book titled, Doesn't Any One Care About The Children?. It is our plea to you in response to the cry we heard from over a thousand teenagers. Our readers were at times overwhelmed by the anguish, despair, rage and hopelessness found in many of the opinions and stories embedded in those essays. In 1995 the Foundation had students poll their communities and question politicians, members of the local media, attorneys and others for their opinions regarding social needs as determined by the results of those polls. Solutions for "local governments struggling with limited resources" were judged by a dozen governors, and a small group consisting of U.S. senators, congressmen and big city mayors.

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The National High School Essay Contests Comes To An End For twenty years the Harry Singer Foundation (HSF) offered recognition and incentives to every high school submitting at least ten essays covering a specified topic involving public policy and the role of government. Students have studied and written about social security, term limits for the United States Congress, government's role in child-care, government's role in health care, the media's role in choosing our candidates for national office, responsibility and even encouraged young people to work with local government to find alternatives to old ways of servicing citizen needs. Many students, and especially teachers, put an enormous amount of work into our programs. Students were given reading assignments and asked to answer twenty questions before they began their essays. Submittals were judged on how well the topic was covered and evidence of serious thinking, rather than on writing skill. In the spring excerpts were published in a book and distributed back to the schools as well as to members of Congress and to others interested in public policy. This allowed students to see how their peers across the country handled the subject matter. We launched www.singerfoundation.org in the fall of 1994. As more and more schools gained Internet access they were able to receive and transfer materials which we could put directly on our web site. Essays sent in digital form via email freed us from having to recruit volunteers who used the keyboard to input the work of students that used to arrive by mail as hard copy. In 2001 we began putting entire essays online, delaying publication of books like the one you are reading. At the end of 2006 we decided to resume publishing the students work in hard copy and to phase out the Foundations essay contest era. On our web site www.singerfoudation.org you will find the complete text of every HSF book published since 1990, often including the rules and required reading for the particular contest. You may browse, print the entire book or request a hard copy from the Foundation by using the contact information provided. We certainly have not lost interest in the goals of the HSF national essay contests. We are particularly proud of our attempt to encourage students to gather facts and think logically. The Harry Singer Foundation continues to share the goal of those who teach students how to think, not what to think. To that end we have posted links to some of, what we consider to be, the best online essay contests offered by other organizations.

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2008 Begins a New Era Current Foundation programs continue to seek and encourage the exchange of ideas. We took two years to renovate our web site which hosts the Foundations history. Twenty years worth of students research and opinions may now be accessed by topic (Teens Speak Out) or by clicking on a state in the Archive forum and finding student ideas by school, teacher or participant. We have presented this information in a way that we believe visitors to our web site will find useful. You will also find on our web site new projects such as Kids 4 Kids that was mentioned earlier. Kids 4 Kids is expanding under the expert guidance of our Champion, Steve Platt and is now a full fledged program. While the science and math portion of T2T is in the state of California's hands, HSF is working to place volunteer mentors in subjects that are not on the States agenda. With the help of future Champions we expect the program to be picked up by states other than California. We are looking for Champions to contact engineering companies and societies, local artists, athletes and alumni associations to find members who are willing to donate time and energy to teach what they love including music, art and athletics, subjects that dont necessarily have to be taught in a classroom. The Foundation wants to join with the numerous other groups and individuals who are trying to bring this uncovered talent into the school system as mentors, teacher-aids and accredited teachers. We already have a program of accreditation that can be completed with only one day a month class attendance for 12 months. We are also working to help teachers obtain housing at a reasonable cost in a state where it is more expensive to live than in other areas in the nation. The Philanthropy Project is collaboration between the Harry Singer Foundation and the Templeton Foundation. It is a national, multimedia public service campaign aimed at the general public, legislators, opinion leaders and the media. By using film and television to tell compelling stories about the good works, conducted by mostly small and unrecognized charitable foundations, the Philanthropy Project seeks to introduce philanthropy to young people and to promote the spirit of philanthropy in communities across the country. Media Watch is a revision of an inspirational program for students initiated by the Harry Singer Foundation in 1994. The goal is to uncover good news in communities, feed it to local media outlets and monitor publication.

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Over the life of the project, the good news should increase in relation to the bad news, with both kinds being carefully documented. Another Way is the culmination of over twenty years of Foundation experience. We know most adults underestimate the capabilities of young people and their idealism, energy and eagerness to be productive members of their communities. Another Way gives young people an opportunity to prove their competence. Problem Solvers is a pilot project geared towards college and high school campuses. Students debate local and national issues using media (radio, TV, newspapers). Not only do the students learn, but their nonpartisan information would be a boon to the many in our society that find that regulations and even laws have been passed without their knowledge and opportunity to contribute to the discussion or dissent. The goal of the goal of the Human Nature project is not modest. The goal is to improve the chances that man will discover how to live with his kind in peace and tolerance, creating a free, stable environment. Once he figures out the necessary rules of conduct, the next step would be to figure out how to enforce these rules while preserving maximum individual and group freedom of thought and action. We invite you to take advantage of opportunities to participate in, or better yet, to Champion pilot programs by visiting our newly renovated web site at www.singerfoundation.org.

What Role Does, And What Role Should The Media Play In Choosing Our Candidates For National Office? Introduction
The Harry Singer Foundation's polls and students' projects do not purport to be scientific. Our intention is to arouse interest and stimulate thinking to make citizens aware of problems and inspire groups and individuals to work toward solutions. However, solutions may not be as easy as the following paper suggests: "The first group is the people, or rather, the voting public. Their job is to confer with the media, form opinions about the candidates, and vote for those candidates. The second group is the media. Their purpose is to inform and educate the voters about the candidates' lives, ideas, and values. The third is the candidates themselves. Their task is to cooperate with the media, to get their views to the voters, and to try to preserve the welfare of their state once in office." [Submitted by a student from Illinois] I admire the ability of this Illinois student to get to the heart of the matter. The situation is stated concisely and the solution appears to be simplicity itself. Unfortunately it doesn't always work that way. Over a two year period I worked intensively on the campaigns of two candidates for national office. The campaign for U.S. Senate took up most of my time. However, when we failed to get my candidate, a little known independent, on the California ballot, I was free to respond to a poignant appeal which I heard on a San Francisco talk-radio station. The caller was distressed and enraged because of the media's shoddy treatment of her major party candidate. Because the caller identified herself as young, idealistic and involved in politics for the first time, I felt compelled to let her know that other people do care and are willing to put their time and energy behind their concern. Although she and her candidate, a little known challenger running against a 20 year incumbent, were not identified on the radio, I was able to track them down. My intent was not to work on behalf of the specific candidate, but to work on behalf of fairness in the political process. I believe every platform should receive a hearing. It is up to the voters, not the media to decide elections. I gave considerable energy

to this congressional race, but because it was in a district which required a two hour drive on my part, I did not see it through to the end. The following is an edited version of the young woman's account of some of the frustrations encountered in this campaign. I have divided it into 3 parts: 1. "As the campaign wore on, it became obvious that we were getting almost no media coverage and, the extremely little coverage we did get was more harmful than helpful to our campaign. Out of complete frustration, I wrote a letter to the editor of our local paper suggesting a weekly column in which (a) candidates could either write on whatever they chose or (b) candidates would answer a question posted to them by the political writer or by constituents. In any case, all responses should be printed unedited. I preferred that candidates address issues of their choosing because even the questions reporters ask, generally come from a certain bias. When I took Experimental Psychology in college they talked about the importance of double blind experiments. I learned that in nondouble blind experiments the hopes or beliefs of the experimenters greatly affected the results of the experiment. The only way to get truly accurate results was to make sure the experimenters did not know, for example, which rats were getting a placebo. Likewise, when it comes to political reporting, I think the way voters get accurate information regarding a candidate's platform is for newspapers to publish columns where reporters ask whatever they think is important and print the candidate's unedited answers. Approximately a hundred letters were received by the [local] newspaper urging similar action and many were printed in the Letters to the Editor section. (Incidentally, the Hayward, California United We Stand, America group signed a letter asking for this same thing.) In a phone conversation with the editor, I was assured that because of the overall response from the public, a Candidate's Column would be forthcoming. A month passed with no column. With only four weeks to the election, I again called the editor. He abruptly told me that he never said there would be such a column; however they would run an article, a few days before the election, in which they would compare, contrast and endorse candidates. 2. My candidate sent out press releases to all the local papers stating he would only accept the district mean ($54,000) as salary and

donate the rest to charity. He stated his reasons for making such a move. Not one newspaper reported on this! Finally I called and spoke with the editor of the Daily Review. I said that I was told that the lack of coverage of my candidate by their paper was because they did not feel that we were doing anything newsworthy. I told him that I thought giving up more than half one's salary was pretty newsworthyespecially for a politician. He claimed he was not aware of the situation and that he would get the political writer to get right on it. I then contacted the Oakland Tribune and spoke with the editor. He said they could not cover every candidate. "We decide who is a valuable candidate based on how much money a candidate has. Based on FEC reports (your candidate) has no money and therefore doesn't stand a chance." When I pointed out that a challenger invariably has less money than an incumbent and therefore they must be covering incumbents almost exclusively, making it that much harder for any challengers to win, he began making excuses. When I called the San Jose Mercury, I could almost hear the political reporter snarling as he spoke to me. He obviously hated my candidate and certainly did not think it worth his while to write about him. 3. This last incident is the most difficult to write about because of the way it so subtly played itself out in the media. Our opponent sent out several fliers the week before the election. Every time he sent out a flier it cost approximately $60,000. This was only for postage--this does not include the paper, printing and layout. A challenger would be thrilled if she or he could raise $60,000 to run her or his entire campaign! Well, the fliers were what I call hate pieces. They were complete lies and they were aimed at terrifying certain groups of people. For example, one flier said my candidate would destroy social security and increase medical costs. We had several frantic old people call us because they were so frightened. It was pathetic and tragic. Apparently the newspaper received many complaints about these fliers. I got a phone call from the political writer, Ed Albro, of the Daily Review. He asked what I thought about our opponent's flier and I told him that they contained blatant lies. I read from our Issues Statement which completely contradicted the hate flier. For the first time I actually looked forward to what Ed was going to

write. I thought that perhaps, finally, there would be some justice in this ugly process of politics. I could not believe it when I read the article. I was horrified! The article did more damage than the flier. Essentially, the article validated the flier. I called Ed Albro and told him that I thought the article was terrible. I told him I felt good about telling him this, because with only four days left before the election, obviously my motivation in talking to him was pure It was too late to rectify the horrible article. I wanted to try to help the next challenger who would run. Ed kept insisting that I tell him where he was inaccurate. I pointed out that instead of quoting from AARP (American Association of Retired Persons) and using them as the objective expert, why didn't he call an expert on social security; like someone who had written a book on the subject, or a professor [in this field]. He again asked me "What did I write that was not accurate?" This was impossible to answer because it is not so much what he wrote as much as it was what he didn't write. In the enclosed article the quote from AARP in the last paragraph is extremely damaging and leaves the reader with the idea that it is the definitive word on the subject. If this was objective journalism, why not ask someone who specialized in Medicare reform or budget reform to make the closing statement. Why was there not one expert asked to comment who would validate my candidate's position. Had an expert been quoted who shared my candidate's views [for example, Nobel Laureate, Professor Milton Friedman, who was close by] this would have been a very different article. It would have given us some credibility. As it ended, my candidate came off looking like a dangerous quack." Obviously, this young first time voter was disillusioned. As you continue to read, you will encounter excerpts from many students who report similar findings from their own research. For instance, a student from Minnesota claims, "The media gives a lot of coverage to the people who are ahead and less to the [candidates] that are behind... [the media] likes to support the winning side." An Illinois student wrote, "From the examples in my paper you can tell how much the elections are controlled by the media. It is very unfair to the candidate that is not being favored but it is the way our country works."

To illustrate how important it is to question what you read, I have included some especially thought provoking excerpts in this introduction: "It makes...sense to even the playing field with campaign spending limits and free television time rather than simply to bar from competition a whole group of candidates." A Michigan student The following is from a classmate who shares this viewpoint: "Each candidate should be given a certain amount of time on TV." A Virginia student agreed and offered another solution: "After studying this problem, I have come up with some suggestions of my own. One thing I feel is absolutely necessary is equal coverage for each candidate. The media could provide limited amounts of free time on television, radios, newspapers, and in magazines. I think equal coverage can be accomplished by setting a limit on the amount of money that can be spent by each candidate on public announcements and advertisements... Another thing that could be done is to put stricter regulations on campaign finance. Private contributions could be cut out...People can write editorials to their local papers and condemn the writers of unsubstantiated articles." The italics in the above excerpts are the editor's and meant to highlight a possible controversy. Free? Someone must pay. Who? Given? By whom? There was a misconception about setting limits on campaign spending in the above excerpt. James Buckley, Eugene McCarthy, Stewart Mott and the New York ACLU all brought suit contending restrictions imposed on spending (part of a 1974 attempt at election reform) were unconstitutional as against free speech. In Buckley v. Valeo (1976) the Supreme Court agreed. Congress subsequently got around the ruling by offering matching public funds only to those candidates who voluntarily submit to restrictions. Although restrictions on spending private money were declared illegal, the flow of money was simply rechanneled; proof that people will find ways around laws as fast as they are enacted. People will do what they want to do! Another student in this same Virginia class, even though she may have never heard of Buckley v. Valeo, nevertheless suspected the principle could apply to a free press as well as to individual free speech when she wrote "If

a law were to be passed to restrict in some way the freedom of the press, I believe it would be abolished in the Supreme Court." "[Banning commercials) will also save the government money because the government is required to supplement candidates that cannot afford advertising." The above is a student's misconception that many candidates that cannot afford advertising wish were true! In 1907 Theodore Roosevelt proposed public financing of campaigns and this suggestion was responsible for the 1907 Tillman Act which prohibited banks and corporations from contributing to federal campaigns. Although in 1909 William Howard Taft sponsored a bill requiring that political campaign expenses be made public, it took the Teapot Dome scandal of 1921 to get something done. The Federal Corruption Practices Act of 1925 required reporting of campaign receipts and expenditures. Unfortunately it was easy to circumvent and was rarely enforced. The 1971 Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA) was the first election reform in forty-seven years. It established a Federal Elections Commission (FEC) to enforce the 1925 law. It offered federal matching funds for national candidates but required them to set up committees in at least twenty states and raise a threshold amount to show they were not merely frivolous candidates. This threshold was $250,000 for the Presidency in increments of $250 or less, $125,000 for the Senate and $10,000 for the House in increments of $100 or less. Loans and services did not count. The FECA limited a candidate's contribution to his own campaign to $50,000 and imposed spending limits on media advertising. Public Law 93-443 was signed into law three years later on October 15, 1974, reforming FECA. Since the spending limits set up by the 1925 law were never enforced and the 1971 law was repealed, October 15, 1974 is the actual date of our spending limits law for candidates. The 1974 amendments made other changes and in 1976 and 1979 additional amendments were enacted. Proposals for election reform have now become a Congressional tradition. In the following pages you will discover many reforms proposed by studentssome of them quite explicit and most concerned with protecting officials from influence by those with money and power.

George Will told David Brinkley's television audience on April 6, 1986 "There is no substitute in government, in the end, for trusting the integrity of your office-holders." Others believe if public office holders vote in a manner inconsistent with their observed philosophy, they should be called to account. If they are unable to explain their votes to the satisfaction of their constituents, then, and only then, should the lure of money be suspected. However, to ascribe money as the motivation for all political acts, and therefore to indiscriminately bind politicians hand and foot with numerous rules and regulations makes no sense. Even worse, it is to deprive the citizenry of exercising their judgment; a role intended for the electorate by the Founding Fathers. "The Constitution, as I understand it, trusts me with my own life within a set of laws and checks and balances that relieves us all from the need for great men and asks only, for our government, decent men." John Updike, Time 1987 My final illustration comes from a student in Illinois: "Newspapers and television stations all over the country leaned toward Bill Clinton rather than George Bush or Ross Perot. This happening is peculiar because the family of Dan Quayle owned two-thirds of the nation's newspapers." I asked Jim Quayle, Dan's father, to set the record straight. This is what he said: "The perception that Danny was rich was nothing more than one of many false images that the media portrayed. Danny does have a few shares in a corporation his grandfather founded, Central Newspapers, Inc. CNI has a total Sunday circulation of 999,577 compared to Gannett, for example whose circulation exceeds six million. There are 132 U.S. newspaper groups with a total circulation of well over 50 million, so the student was off just a tad." Jim Quayle, March 14, 1993 CBS was properly embarrassed recently when it was revealed that it had aimed rockets at a fuel tank to produce smoke and simulate a collision. This was more than an unscientific demonstration; it was deception. Their supposedly scientific report was staged!

But perhaps the most widely quoted indictment of the media comes from Ben Bradlee, editor of the Washington Post: "To hell with the news! I'm no longer interested in the news. I'm interested in causes. We don't print the truth. We don't pretend to print the truth. We print what people tell us. It's up to the public to decide what's true." Mitch Snyder, former advocate for the homeless, may have felt the same way when he purposely exaggerated the number of homeless people nationwide. His avowed goal was to arouse emotions and illicit action on behalf of the homeless and he was not ashamed to use lies to accomplish his purpose. Steve Schneider was quoted in Discovery magazine: "We have to offer up some scary scenarios. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being host.", to which Professor Richard Lindzen of MIT replied, "You can't just say 'the hell with the news', you're only interested in causes. A noble attempt to wake people up and make them aware of possible future problems does not justify those means." As one student said, "The media is scary!" Several years ago I wrote a book titled The Election Process. I would like to share with you the quotation I used to close that work: "The wonderful but awesome thing about America is that it all depends on us, on We the people. On the decisions we make, the examples we set, and the practical, far-reaching leadership we provide in the years ahead. That means electing men and women like those brilliantly practical bands of patriots that met in Philadelphia two centuries ago. Between them, they wrote an inspiring first chapter in the story of America. But the beauty and the challenge of the American story is that it's a never-ending one. Its greatest passages may be written in the century ahead... It's up to us to write them." Robert Dole, 1987 Margaret Bohannon-Kaplan Carmel, California 1993

Point and Counterpoint

On the one hand "There is a need for good analysis of the tangle of issues facing the electorate. Political games and evasionary tactics help politicians steer clear of hard stances while still appearing favorable to the voter. This sort of behavior is what editorials are needed for: to sort through the political rubbish to find the true candidate." OR On the other hand "It is hard to think for yourself when you hear people telling you what is good or bad, right or wrong. C-span's coverage of the GOP convention was a perfect example of good media coverage. There were no commercials or commentaries polluting the event; just the viewer and the convention. With this format, a person is more likely to form his own opinions. Maybe the media should take a small step back and cover the election as it progresses but not try to analyze every move a candidate makes. Let the people explore the candidates themselves. A person could learn more by collection and evaluating their own opinions." AR On the one hand "If the television reports wish to broadcast information on one candidate, they should avoid using excerpts from a speech and televise the entire oration." NE On the other hand "We should also praise organizations like CBS that has employed its new procedure not to air a quote from any candidate that is less than 30 seconds long on its evening news program. This strategy aims to minimize the misunderstandings that occur when a very brief quote is presented, often totally out of context." NY On the one hand "I feel to limit the bounds of the media is the only way the American citizens can feel there has been a fair and proper election process." OK On the other hand "A free press is one of the foundations of our country. Any regulations would undermine our democratic ideals." PA

On the one hand "Political campaigns in earlier times were run more honestly, but now they are dirty and basically uncontrollable." KY On the other hand "If the media of the late 19th century was anything however, it was biased. Almost all forms of the primitive, yet fledgling, mass media were controlled and owned by politicos with their own private agendas, of which the truth usually had little part. Those early newspapers were primarily interested in swaying readers toward the paper's, and ultimately the editor's, political philosophy or party. They featured extremely prejudicial articles whose sole intent was the degradation of any opposing party or opinion." MD On the one hand "I feel that it is better to be misinformed, instead of just not being informed." WI On the other hand "The man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who reads them, inasmuch as he who knows nothing is nearer the truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors." Thomas Jefferson, VA On the one hand "Bill Clinton was...picked on...because he wanted to raise taxes on the rich people. How else are we supposed to take care of the national debt if nobody raises taxes?" MI On the other hand "In the Reagan-Mondale election the issues were seldom brought up and often forgotten. Most of the time it was impossible to speak with Reagan [during] his photo opportunities. Reagan held fewer press conferences than any of the past presidents. Mondale attempted to bring up his ideas of a tax increase to help remove the debt, but the media decided that tax plans are dull and don't make a good story. Mondale attempted time after time to bring up the issues but the media did not want to focus on them. Instead the media brought up the bad financial record of Mondale's running mate's husband. All the media cared about was getting a good story." MD

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On the one hand "Who gave them the right to control the news; only allowing certain material to be said about certain persons? I ask this because today's media coverage has completely changed society's views of all campaigns.... The media has made the Presidential campaign a living nightmare for all participants." NY On the other hand "If the press doesn't do something to try and alter the appearance of public figures positively or negatively, especially those running for national office, then they are not doing a good job." NH On the one hand "Some people may want to know if a politician is having an affair or if he cheated on his college final, but I want to know if the politician is going to accomplish what he says he will do. To me the politician must be productive at the job. I want official that will get done what they say they will do and not just make a 'campaign promise' on television or in the newspaper. So I believe that the media should concentrate on the history of each candidate and present some of the different issues and the problems that need to be solved by our soon-to-be-elected officials instead of focusing on all the gossip and garbage that is said about our candidates." OH On the other hand "My opinion is that an election is boring or even just some news is boring. But by the media interfering in people's pasts, it makes it more interesting." NY On the one hand "The media has become a filter for the information rather than the direct channel that it should be, giving the public a cut and paste version of reality, rather than the straight information that should be presented. The media has too much influence over the Americans of today, dictating, possibly even more powerfully than the laws themselves, what the people should do and think." CA On the other hand "Jonathan Alter writes: 'The real fault of the press is not that it leads too much--tells the public whom to vote for--but that it follows too much; it

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wires itself to polls, then reverberates with an amplified impression of what it thinks the public already believes.'" TX On the one hand "[The following is a] quote from Steven V. Roberts, 'Choosing a president is a deeply personal process. The key to the campaign is the man, not the plan.'" IL On the other hand "Lyndon Johnson once said, 'A president's hardest task is not to do what is right, but to know what is right.'" PA On the one hand "Bush was favored because he was the incumbent." AL On the other hand "I rarely heard anything in favor of Bush while even Clinton's occasional job was glorified as a monumental event." OR On the one hand "In the recent 1992 election the media did an outstanding job of impartial candidate coverage..." IL On the other hand "The media's support for Clinton was probably the clearest example of bias that evolved. It seemed to me that the media could have made their position so much clearer if they just would have come out and said: 'We're for Bill!' or 'Vote for Clinton for Change!'" OH On the one hand "We don't need someone to tell us what we just heard. If you switch channels and listen to different analysts they sometimes have different opinions on what the speaker said. They can influence voters and I don't think someone should have his vote swayed just because he was watching an analyst who aired his opinion." MN On the other hand "The journalists and reporters are, in fact, translators and judges of what the aspirants stand for and of what they are saying. It's sometimes very hard to understand what politicians are really saying. . Afterwards, the anchorman can go back and explain, and in effect translate what each

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particular statement means and how it will affect certain groups of people and specific areas of life. This, of course, is very helpful. With the ability to tape news conferences and debates, commentators can reflect on the veracity of one individual's charge of another one's record. They can judge an outright lie from one that is the absolute plain truth. This is very beneficial too. As long as this privilege is not abused, and objectivity is maintained, media men and women can be held in high regard and respect." MD On the one hand "Not only is the media a tyrant, it is a peddler of sensationalism and lies rather than the necessary truth." OH On the other hand "Sensational journalism deservedly took a back seat in (the) 1992 Presidential election." MA On the one hand "The media should be restricted in what they are allowed to publish." TX On the other hand "I would hate, as would many other people, to see any more government controls on the media." OH On the one hand "First, each candidate should receive equal coverage, whether it be three minutes apiece on television or two columns in the newspaper. Second, the candidates should not be able to buy advertisements. If America would provide free prime time television for candidates during elections, campaign budget would be cut in half and the influence of private money in campaigns would be curbed." VA On the other hand "Too much of the press is entirely free as far as advertising. If the press would charge for all publication or viewing of any voting material, such as debates, it would reduce the amount of mudslinging as a whole for reasons such as lack of funds or support. One problem with that is the candidate with the least amount of cash or support at that time may be at a very large disadvantage. Another problem that may occur [due to] lack of funds may be an insufficient amount of publication." SD

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On the one hand "I feel like I have been blitzed by a liberal media shoving Bill Clinton down my throat. The television news reporting has constantly shown how Bill Clinton has persevered through the Geniffer Flowers and draft evasion allegations to survive, while they, in turn, blast George Bush for his treatment of Saddam Hussein. Also, while continually showing the poor side of Bush's record over the course of the last four years, either through Clinton's speeches or with their own data, no member of the television or radio media has yet to closely examine Clinton's Arkansas record...This year's media coverage has come with a liberal bend to it." MD On the other hand "The nature of media is to question, analyze and criticize the status quo.... They have done it with President Bush, President Reagan, President Carter and everyone else who has held office and will continue to do so with President Clinton. That's not bias; that is the role of media.... The liberal media is a conservative creation, created as an excuse for their inability to reach the people. I won't deny there are incidents of bias, of course there are, reporters are only human; but it all equals out. The media is neutral. The media should be neutral." OK On the one hand "I was amazed in how updated on the economy seemed to change overnight with the election of Clinton...The media scoffed and warned that George better face up to the issues. Then November 3rd rolled around and Bill Clinton became the president-elect. All at once signs of recovery flowed through the airwaves, when in actuality, nothing had changed. There are more examples. Pro-choice conventions are given extensive coverage by the media while Pro-life rallies and rescues made of up what the media calls fanatics are often ignored. Conservative politicians are labeled extreme rightists while liberals on the left are simply called activists...believe that the media's biased coverage did have a great impact on 1992's election and will continue to in years to come." SD On the other hand "The fallacy underlying the arguments of the media critics is the assumption that the goal of most reporters in writing is to swing the public toward their political convictions. This rules out the possibility of any kind of professional ethics. The insistence of some conservatives that the media is an army of liberals desperately trying to win their liberal war is ludicrous and vastly overplayed.... I think it's time to easy up on the phrase

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liberal media, in fact, if anything, their economic principles are very conservative." KY On the one hand "The media's ability to cover candidates fairly and not take sides is a joke. The media is biased." IL On the other hand "The five Newsweek magazines published between June and August 1992, contained a total of 21 articles on presidential candidates, Perot, Bush and Clinton. Either through coincidence, or editorial planning, there were seven articles, each covering the three candidates. Each of the five magazines contained a one page cartoon sectiondepicting all three candidates and/or their running mates in various situations. It would be difficult to conclude that one individual or party was abused more than the other." WV On the one hand "The major networks were covering election results as early as 7 P.M. central time after only about four states had closed their polls. These projections could encourage the Midwest and far west to vote a certain way, or if the race seemed far apart, it could influence west coast voters not to bother going to the polls at all." WI On the other hand "All the news anchormen and women deserve a standing ovation. They let all the viewers believe that President George Bush could win, when it fact virtually everyone we saw on...television knew that Bill Clinton had won way before most of the Midwest had voted. The reports all pretended to be ignorant to the fact!" OH On the one hand "The media should give more accurate polls. The people want the media to ask the people's questions." WV On the other hand "Media polling accuracy does not matter, because the more outlandish the prediction, the more interested the people...Unfortunately, this type of polling is...printed in newspapers and seen on daily news shows rather than the more precise poll...used to prepare (campaign) strategy..." MA

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On the one hand "Obviously it would take longer to accomplish a presentation of information on all candidates, but, in my opinion, each candidate is of equal importance and it should be a responsibility to cover each of their campaigns thoroughly." MN On the other hand "As the number of candidates is unreasonably high to allow the ample coverage of everyone, a qualification process, involving collection of signatures or a similar method of public input, should be introduced prior to extensive media coverage." NH On the one hand "The media has also made people more aware of minor candidates and what the minor parties they represent stand for... Andre Marou represented the Libertarian party and received more votes than anyone else who has run under that party. That was due largely to increased minor party coverage." MI On the other hand "I...was astounded when I saw a candidate from the Libertarian Party on a sample ballot. I had heard of the party and new of some of their basic beliefs, but only through word-of-mouth. I had not heard even one thing mentioned about the Libertarians in the press." NY On the one hand "The media obviously cannot be expected to give a detailed and comprehensive analysis of each individual candidate running for national office. This would be an impractical and overwhelming task. The media should and usually does choose the candidates with the most widely appealing platforms." IL On the other hand "The media has an obligation to notify the public of all candidates for major elections. The media, in general, have a tendency to concentrate solely on the major party candidates and ignore the others. This essentially keeps the large Democratic and Republican parties in control while leaving the smaller Libertarian, New Alliance, and other parties struggling in their wake, stifling any positive change that could occur. The smaller parties naturally receive less news coverage because they lack the finances to stage large media events, such as press conferences and debates. But this does

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not mean the media should pretend that these candidates do not exist. The press should strive to become more equal in their representation of various political organizations and their activities." OR On the one hand "A third candidate in the form of a little Texas billionaire really shook things up. His name is Ross Perot and I don't think we've seen the last of him... He offered hope by making people realize that maybe the American public really can regain control of the government." OR On the other hand "Perot's campaigning didn't do much except smear his face (or rather his ears) all across the United States. Running for President is great for publicity, but it's serious business; no place for Mr. H. Ross Perot." OH On the one hand "Polls are done scientifically..." MD On the other hand "Polling is not an exact science." WI "The credibility of polling has continued to be questioned with the evidence that the results of polling are influenced by the pollsters. Pollsters are aware that they are able to influence the results of their poll just by the order in asking the questions, word choice, and timing bias." OH On the one hand "I think the media has done a pretty good job so far, getting all the needed information across to the viewers." NY On the other hand "The media, in trying to present both sides of the issues, has [produced] a teeter-totter of opinion and fact that simply destroys all credibility." On the one hand "For now the media is adequately playing its role in providing equal coverage of opposite opinions." KS On the other hand "Election of 1992: Bush-Quayle v. Clinton-Gore; rather, should we say,

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Old Stupid vs. New Smart. This was how the media perceived this past election." NE On the one hand "Even though there are some media personnel who have given journalists a bad name by stepping over the boundaries of privacy, the media on [the] whole tries to report stories with tact." OR On the other hand "One of the networks even concentrated on the individual characters of each presidential candidate for three straight nights. The correspondents and reporters probed into past videos excerpting sound bites and airing them out of context. [They] researched into biographical history of the candidates, citing any instances that could spark yet even more controversies." MD On the one hand "Despite the defect of biased coverage, television's plentiful coverage of the campaign helped to make clear how the candidates stood on the issues, revealed the character of the candidates, and more than likely, encouraged more people to vote." IL On the other hand "Instead of saying: 'Here you go, you have to choose between these losers, who all favor the status quo, and no matter which way you go, you lose.' Give us knowledge that the American Dream is still alive and kicking and this or that candidate is ready to give it to us." IN On the one hand "The other winner of 1992 is the media, demonstrating its control on national politics and its unnecessary involvement in the personal affairs of the candidates. Its biased views and negative reporting have proven that is has become a bothersome, unfair, filthy institution, with its rightful place long since forgotten. When Thomas Jefferson made the comment, 'Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press.' he meant for the media to be a check on the government and watchdog of the people's precious democracy, not an aid to the corruption and an accomplice to the thieves." OH

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On the other hand "I believe that the media is doing a fine job and should continue to do its job in the same manner that it has always done." IL On the one hand "The American voter, assailed by an overload of information in the election, finds it all too easy to read the convincing words of a columnist and believe them. People need to understand that analysis is merely opinion; the writer is just arguing his stance to the public, not printing perfect fact. The reader can weigh the opinion on the writer, but does not have to accept it or reject it. Indeed, that is the premise of the editorial: allowing the reader to see a different viewpoint without subjecting him to wild speculation. As long as editorial information is taken with a grain of salt, the reader can protect himself from the pitfalls of opinionated writing." OR On the other hand "The media should live by the slogan, 'Just the facts.' Reporters should be required to report the news, not interpret it. The public wants hard facts, not a pompous editorial from an arrogant, over-paid network anchor. People have minds of their own, and they should be allowed to use them freely." PA On the one hand "To give the media their due...they covered the major candidates pretty much equally. They did not print harmful information blatantly. The election itself was covered very well. America, as a country, is fortunate to have free press. Generally, the media does give equal time to major candidates. Journalists do keep most opinions out of news reports and broadcasts. One must understand, though, that as long as journalists have opinions, their opinions will show up in their work. Our media is one of the most informative and unbiased in the world. It is a proud profession where people work hard to find the truth, even though it threatens their position. The people of the press are to be commended." SD On the other hand "The people in the media, like everyone else, have their own personal opinions, feelings, and biases. Though they are supposed to maintain a professional objectivity, oftentimes these opinions come through in the writing or deliverance of the news. They conveniently exclude 'minor'

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details, and when showing news footage, show to best advantage whatever or whomever they happen to support." PA On the one hand "The media system, for the most part, deserves to be commended. Millions of people were informed, influenced and drawn to the polls. Although the pressure of trying to balance the conflicting demands of the candidates and voters is almost impossible, the coverage of the 1992 Presidential election was one of the most successful of its kind." OR On the other hand "I feel that this past election was wrapped around Clinton. Everyone was Bill Clinton in the media's eye. Bill Clinton was going to win. So if the media thought he was going to win then [this] opinion rubbed off on the people." NY On the one hand "The facts of the election are never tainted..." MD On the other hand "There are many ways to lie without technically altering the facts. This can be done in print and on television. Reports use language, tone, and emphasis to accomplish this. There are much sneakier techniques used. Reporters sometimes select quotes that are harmful or beneficial to a certain candidate. They also deceive the public by dishonestly omitting certain facts. For example, reporters focused exclusively on all of the areas where George Bush failed over the last four years. There was absolutely no mention of the improvements that were made during his presidency." OH On the one hand "The media has become enormously powerful, yet their power is not abused." MD On the other hand "In a survey of people who viewed the 1976 presidential debate, statistics taken within 12 hours of the telecast showed that 53% of viewers felt that Gerald Ford had won the contest, as opposed to 35% who felt that Carter had won. When the same survey was taken between 12 and 48 hours after the debate, a marked change had appeared: 58% stated that Carter had won, while only 29% proclaimed Ford the winner. The longer lapse in time after the debate allowed people to view the news on television, where journalists

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reported that Carter had won due to Ford's mishandling of a question on Eastern Europe. And while only 10% of those surveyed remarked on this detail within 12 hours after the debate, 60% recognized Ford's blunder after the 12-hour span. Elections are all about winning and losing, and in this case, as in many others, the media depicted a winner and thus had a firm hand in choosing the nation's President." On the one hand "I think there should be a better distribution of all the political advertisements. For example, a maximum of only two commercials per hour should be permitted, in order not to persuade the people's votes too much...Perhaps some sort of television station could be paid for by the candidates for political advertisements, and then when the press conferences and debates are scheduled, they would be televised on this special station." PA On the other hand "Ban all advertising. This will help to keep people interested in the election... A band would also help force the issues because politicians would no longer be able to 'bad mouth' their opponents through radio and television ads." IL On the one hand "The incumbent always has an edge while a contender has a harder time." NY On the other hand "The challenger gets more recognition than the incumbent because the citizens of this country know what the incumbent has to offer." WV On the one hand "In each of the first two parts of my survey, the incumbents were recognized three to one over the challengers." PA On the other hand "One hundred percent felt that they were more informed on the challenger versus the incumbent. There was more to be learned from a newcomer than an old-timer. The person who was already in office had pretty much shown the public what they could and could not accomplish." FL

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On the one hand "The media presents the issues that are in the best interest of the American people. The media must continue to provide fair and accurate information regarding issues because the American people have come to trust and depend on the media." MD On the other hand "In the August 24, 1992 issue of Newsweek, we saw a cover that shoed President Bush and was entitled Dog Days. In the article were results of a poll that Newsweek gave to 750 registered voters over the phone on August 13 and 14. The question stated, 'Have things become worse, better, or stayed the same because of Bush's policies over the last four years?' The report showed only those who thought it was worse. They never shoed who thought it stayed the same or who thought it got better." SD On the one hand "The role of the media is generally a positive one. They try to find the truth, the real story and nature of events, and to inform the public of what, how, and why exactly something is happening." MD On the other hand "The media can 'pick and choose' words spoken by a political candidate in order to represent the person in a manner other than what he or she stands for or believes. Facts can often be totally misrepresented with the addition or deletion of a few simple words. While this fraudulent practice is extremely illegal, the media can usually work around the formal legalities and avoid prosecution." MO On the one hand "...the media is biased towards female candidates....Reporters from papers like the Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times wrote almost nine paragraphs more each day about races with female candidates." TN On the other hand "If a woman were to receive as much publicity as a man, would a woman have been President by now? If not, at least women would have had a better chance than they have had so far." OH On the one hand "With an editorial, a reader can learn the opinion of a person without getting opinions and facts confused. Editorials should definitely be the

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procedure newspapers and magazines use to keep from taking advantage of, and manipulating its readers." KS On the other hand "...the coverage of national candidates should be no place for editorializing. The public should be given objective factual information regarding the issues and then be allowed to make their own intelligent decisions." IL On the one hand "The more impressive and overall influential source of information regarding the campaign would be the many television debates programmed nationwide. By tuning into these debates, the American public was able to understand the true nature of the three candidates and their economic, social, and foreign policies. The candidates were forced to legitimately and directly answer all questions proposed to them since the program was aired live and their reputations were at risk." NY On the other hand "Debates are image-promoters instead of a chance to voice views. The planned issues and unequal allotment of time for specific matters is proof that debates are beauty pageants and not information sessions. The platforms are nearly forgotten and appearance becomes the full focus." KY On the one hand "I feel the debates are some of the best things that the media covers....The candidates that do the best in the debates show that they have some of the necessary skills that are needed to successfully run a political office. They show that they can communicate their ideas, stand up for those ideas and speak under pressure to large audiences. The debates also show some of the character of the people involved." MN On the other hand "Debates are another way in which the media creates a false sense of reality. To most Americans a debate is a challenge, two people spontaneously expressing their ideas and opinions. Not in presidential debates! The entire process has been altered so that each candidate can present himself in a positive way. The candidates simply repeat the same rehearsed answers to the same questions we've heard. They know the questions beforehand and their answers are perfected. They no longer truly debate each other. They simply answer the questions from a panel, and have very little interaction with each other. With no worry as to how they

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will perform, their attention has turned to how they will look while they are performing. The question of whether or not to wear stripes or solids in the artificial lighting, or how far from the candidates to place the panel of questioners, has more impact than the arguments. We have begun to place more value on the appearance and speaking ability of the candidates than the issues. A candidate could give a great speech, but if he stuttered or appeared fatigued, these negative aspects would be the main focus of the evening news. The media has changed the art of debating into the art of acting. It no longer really matters what you way, but how you say it, and how you look while you are saying it." KY On the one hand "The press does a great job making the presidential debates fair and equal for every candidate. All candidates are asked the same questions and they all have the same amount of time to answer each. This course of action is what the people of America need in order to make their own true decisions." CA On the other hand "Not only is bias evident during the news shows, but also during coverage of such important occasions as the presidential and vice-presidential debates. Perhaps if the candidates were actually allowed to debate with each other rather than be allotted a certain amount of time in which to make a statement, the American people would better understand each candidate's stand on the important issues. That way, the public could decide for themselves whom they would rather support instead of relying on television personalities, or other members of the media, to make the decisions for them." MD On the one hand "Anchormen and women for the major networks were not biased toward any party or candidate. Each party and candidate appeared to have been treated fairly." MA On the other hand "Broadcasters tend to promote their favorite candidate and often the other candidates are referred to negatively." OH On the one hand "Voters are also influenced [by] debates. We hear the debates and develop an opinion, but then immediately following, hear from these 'spin-doctors'

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on who won this debate, or who won that issue. Our opinions can easily be influenced [after hearing] what they have to say. Their job is to control [our] perception of what [we] just saw, to what they wanted [us] to see." OR On the other hand "It seems that even in a debate there is a journalist telling the viewing public which candidate has answered a question correctly, or which candidate has won the debate. This input from the media is due to the fact that the reporter covering the debate covers political affairs almost daily. That journalist is an expert in the field. That reporter makes a living watching the candidates day in and day out. The livelihood of the reporter rests on how well versed the reporter is on the behavior of the candidates for national office. While the general public sees the candidates only at a passing glance, the reporter sees those candidates daily, and is therefore a highly qualified judge of a candidate's performance....The media has a responsibility to the American people to (provide) those citizens who choose to vote with all of the unbiased, impartial information needed to make an informed decision on election day." KS On the one hand "Instead of the usual mudslinging and bashing, we got to hear the viewpoints of all the candidates involved. The media, therefore, began to embrace those who talked about the issues, and destroyed those who tried to mudsling." MD On the other hand "The issues were pushed into the background as the race became a contest to see who could get out the most scandalous piece of information. The media turned what is one of the most important activities in the entire world into a three ringed circus." PA On the one hand "The media must learn just how powerful its influence over the people is...just like when War of the Worlds was originally aired and people committed suicide because they thought the Martians were coming. People are still following the media like lemmings over a cliff." PA On the other hand "...not all mass communications are successful in affecting opinions, attitudes, knowledge, or behavior. The process of mass influence is far

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from sudden or automatic, and the public's role in this process is far from passive." NH On the one hand "...reporters must set aside their own thoughts, feelings and opinions along with the opinion of the network and just do their job. Report the news fairly. Nothing less and nothing more." CA On the other hand "Honestly, when did voicing an opinion become a crime in this country? ... See, no matter what the media says, whether it agrees with the reader/viewer or not, those readers and viewers, along with every other American, makes his or own decision." OH On the one hand "Our earlier Presidents did not have to worry about their private lives being broadcast all over the television screen or in the newspaper." AL On the other hand "Media has had control of presidential elections as early as the 1800 contest between Thomas Jefferson and John Adams. Supporters of Thomas Jefferson passed out handbills that accused John Adams of being an aristocrat. The Federalists countered by calling Jefferson an atheist and an enemy of the Constitution...Andrew Jackson was accused of stabbing a man in the back and personally shooting a soldier that disobeyed him." KY On the one hand "We have gone from a time when the personal lives of candidates were more or less off-limits to a time when they are discussed in detail. In a way, I think this is good; however, we cannot believe much of the propaganda that we hear. We should be alert and disciplined in the way we deal with this material." OK On the other hand "There are records stated that the media called (President) Jackson a murderer for once killing a man in a duel. Statements were also made saying he and his wife were adulterers because his wife had been married once before. Newspapers even brought Jackson's mother into the mudslinging, by calling her a prostitute. Usually during those times a President would have about sixty to a hundred journalists on the payroll, ensuring satisfactory stories about the administration." OH

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On the one hand "Take the Clinton issue for instance. Does the possibility of his having an affair really affect his ability to rule the country as a good leader? I do not agree that it does after I think of all the other Presidents who have had affairs and have still proven to be good leaders." AR On the other hand "Some people believe that a candidate's personal life has little, or nothing to do with the way that person will perform in the office. They believe that if a person has tried drugs in the past, or has cheated on his wife, it will not have any effect on his performance, and when such things are brought up they accuse others of not sticking to the issues. This, of course, is not true. Is it possible for a person's private and public life to be so separate that they do not interact? Is it possible for a person to be dishonest in his private dealings, and yet be an honest, upstanding public servant? The answer is no If a person is dishonest in his private life, he will also undoubtedly be dishonest in his public life in office. It should therefore be the responsibility of the media to inform us of the personal character of the candidate so we can make an informed decision." SD On the one hand "The President of the United States can still veto a bill, settle foreign disputes, balance the economy, and improve the state of the nation, even if he has the worst personality or the dirtiest character of all. The job is separate from the man." PA On the other hand "Americans judge public officials on the wrong aspects of their private lives. The fact of adultery is not in itself necessarily significant. However, its circumstances may be condemning, because it may reveal a flaw weakness or bad judgmentthat constitutes a valid reason not to vote for a candidate. As far as the candidate is concerned, the courage to be honest is a far more real test of ability to govern than is lifelong fidelity." OH On the one hand "In my opinion, the media should present all the candidates that are running for national office...Maybe the people to not like the views of either the Republican or Democratic candidates, but end up voting for either one just because they do not have the knowledge of the other candidates." PA

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On the other hand "If candidates are covered indiscriminately, every publicity-hungry candidate might be encouraged, and the media would be overwhelmed and forced to make subjective decisions." AL On the one hand "I do not understand why a media person goes over a speech a candidate just gave. To me they are insulting my intelligence by explaining what I already understand. Many times the media person puts his own opinions in his explanation." PA On the other hand "If the media explains the issues...people could make their own choices. This would reduce the go with the flow or bandwagon effect. People do not understand...the candidates' positions...[or] their plans of attack...Bill Clinton promised to reform health care, and yet, no one (knew how). Voters, not knowing who or what they are voting for, make blind decisions and our country suffers the consequences." SD On the one hand "The media has become a commonplace for tabloid journalism. It is a system where there is such great attention drawn towards gossip stories and other inconsequential information that the media has lost touch with the public. The media sources have, in effect, become vultures, simply harping on the negative aspects of political issues." MD On the other hand "The media at this time does a very accurate and efficient job. They sometimes go a little biased for their choice candidate but that is just human nature. The media handles their important task in a professional way by making the truth known about all the candidates, good or bad. The media gives each candidate a fair amount of publicity time and takes the contemporary campaigns right to the voter's homes. The media deserves two thumbs up for involving the voters and keeping them aware of what the candidate and officeholders are up to lately." PA

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The Way Things Ought To Be

"What role does, and [what] role should the media play in choosing our candidates for national office? This is a question that should be asked more than it is." PA "The use of media began back in 55 B.C. when the first written tablet he Actus Diurnus was published. This was a daily written spectacle which was printed during the time of Julius Caesar's empire, and hung in the forum to detail daily happenings." OH "Media, noun, (1) a channel of communication; (2) a publication of broadcast that carries advertising." SD "The media is playing the role it should in choosing our candidates for national office. They provide live political debates on TV, and they provide daily updates on the candidates on the news. This is the only role the media should play in choosing our candidates for national office." OH "When pondering the role of the media in elections, it is of significance to examine its historical ramifications. During the French Enlightenment, the philosophers Locke, Rousseau, and others, through the media, laid the framework for the American, and later the French Revolutions. The media was, in essence, the bellows that fanned the flame for the American insurrection. James Madison's toil in the passage of the Bill of Rights was a direct correlation to his belief in the principle of the free press. That the media could influence elections was undoubtedly realized by our forefathers and deemed to be acceptable and necessary." MO "What is the role of the media in politics, and for that matter, society today? That is a good question. But first, we should try to get a feel for what its role was in the past. It served as an informer of the people, as an aide to the public, and it did not serve as a political indicator." MD "The media's role in my view is to inform the public, not to be used as a tool for advertisement." MN "The original intent behind forming the media was to inform the public of the events and people that surround them in their world everyday." IL

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"The media's goal should be this: not to print any information that does not directly relate to a candidate's ability to execute the duties of the office for which [he is] running." OR "The truth should be revealed and nothing kept hidden. The media should be an institution separate from all outside influences. All opinions should be labeled as such" CA "While I agree that the media plays a vital role in providing its readers and viewers with information, freedom of the press as mandated by the Constitution provides a license to paint either a positive or negative image of people. The power of the media cannot and should not be underestimated for it has many times made the difference in the selection of candidates for public office. The media today plays an even greater role in that it provides instantaneous information which can help modify the position that people will take in the voting process." NY "It's [the media's] job to inform and educate the public on not only the issues of importance but also on the persons running for office." KS "We are a society raised on TV's images, bombarded by them since infancy. And whether accurate or inaccurate, it is what most voters rely on to choose their president." KY "To compare it, journalism to other news makes the question should the media persuade or inform? Absurd. Weather reports are given by journalists. The report gives you the information that tells you how to dress or what appointments to make. It's not the job of the weather man to convince people what clothes to wear or appointments to cancel. It's his job to provide the information needed." MD "The media's most difficult role is that of a governmental watchdog. Watergate and other political dramas are proof that without the media being there justice would not be served." IL "But after years of being barraged by the media telling us everything that is wrong with the candidates and nothing is right, the public might decide: 'Fine, if they are not worth it, then neither is my vote.' Who will lead us then? Instead of perpetuating the cynicism of the American people, as far as government is concerned, the media should give us hope for the future. Instead of saying: 'Here you go, you have to choose between these losers,

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who all favor the status quo, and no matter which way you go, you lose.' Give us knowledge that the American Dream is still alive and kicking and this or that candidate is ready to give it to us." IN "The media should inform the public on election topics by covering all of the candidates on all levels, not just presidential, and also through objective fact reporting and overall fact accuracy...the media should become an unbiased, reliable, knowledgeable source for people to turn to for election issue information." MD "The media does not like to be manipulated. Try to step on its toes and it throws freedom of the press in your face. But what happens when the manipulator is manipulated? You have political coverage. Politics manipulates the media. The media and politicians, especially in national matters, are co-dependent. The media depends on politicians to create 'news,' the politicians depend on the press to report 'news.' One role of the media in choosing our candidates is one of manipulation." PA "Reporters, newscasters and authors are human also. They will have opinions concerning their choice for a leader, but it is their job to monitor these and not let them appear in factual broadcasts or articles." KS "When this nation was young...the American people knew little about many of the men they elected or their policies, but these men had proven themselves on the battlefield or in some other fashion." CA "Any survey will support the fact that today's public knows much more about their candidates than the common man of 100 to 200 years ago knew about theirs." OK "The media should report the stories that the American people need to know, not what the American people want to hear." MD "The newspaper should not be considered a reliable source of facts. The newspaper, more or less, can be used as a paper to open one's eyes to different angles that may not be so apparent to the readers." IL "...the media controls the appearance of everything it shows; its purpose is to inform and influence. While it is a major resource for marketing and communication, it can also become a dangerous weapon. When a society

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such as ours revolves mainly around the media, the people can be easily misled." OH "In my opinion, the role the media should take in national elections should be very little, if any at all." PA "The Watergate proceedings and the media's role in the bloodless coup of the Nixon administration was undoubtedly the media at its best. A corrupt government was undermined by two members of the press. In All the President's Men, one can see how a single newspaper, the Washington Post, changed the course of the political proceedings in this nation." MO "The media is the bridge of information that crosses between the candidates for national office and the public...The media would not be so powerful if it were not the only link that most Americans have to politics." KY "I agree that everyone should have freedom of speech and freedom of the press, but this selection process is not a job for the media. It is much too persuasive. The media should present equal information, good or bad, about every candidate and not show any favoritism." PA "Although it is impossible, the media should be offering equal time and nonbiased coverage of all candidates" CA. "It would be more beneficial to us if the media attempted to be as objective as possible, and focused on what our candidates could do for the nation, and their significant credentials, rather than biased, irrelevant facts - or allegations." NH "If a paper only did what it had to, it would report only the bare facts. But if it did what it should it would report everything it could to get a rounded, equal view of the issue. An example is: A reporter stated that a girl is 17 years old, attends Bloomfield High School and is a senior. Another reporter, speaking of the same girl, states that a 17 year old senior at Bloomfield High School, has good grades and is very active in many activities. The first reporter told the facts, which is OK. But the second told the facts and a few more details to give you a better picture." IN "Reported news should not be accepted blindly and at face value. There must be, however, a point at which we stop our questioning, because, if

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there is no such point, we will never find any answers to believe in the end; the questioning will go on and on." OH "If the media gives only the facts and nothing else, it forces the people to think and form their own opinions based on those facts and therefore vote intelligently." IL "The media should live by the slogan, 'Just the facts.' Reporters should be required to report the news, not interpret it. The public wants hard facts, not a pompous editorial from an arrogant, over-paid network anchor. People have minds of their own, and they should be allowed to use them freely." PA "At times people confuse the fact that editorials and commentaries are not hard core news. When this happens people may mistake opinions as fact." OH "There is no longer a division between editorial and fact." MD "Conflicts between facts and opinion often arise in the media. One of the major reasons is due to the opposing demands from the voting audience. There are people who believe only confirmed, accurate news, unpolluted by a reporter's background or particular views. Still others appreciate an intelligent and well-supported commentary. Journalists need to find a balance between straight facts and covering conflicting opinions." OR "There are a few reporters who express their opinion in a story and try to pass the opinion as fact. Reporters of this type are abusing their rights as members of the press. The press should only be used as a vehicle to relay information for people to read and form their own opinions." OH "The media should present only straight-forward, unbiased facts; opinionated statements made by media personnel should be clearly shown as opinions, and they should not be presented as a fact in any way." MO "They need to tell the facts, and nothing but the facts. There is no need for the rest." SD "'Just the facts ma'am, just the facts.' Friday was no Sherlock Holmes, but he knew what was important." PA

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"Conflicts between facts and opinion often arise in the media. One of the major reasons is due to the opposing demands from the voting audience. There are people who believe only confirmed, accurate news, unpolluted by a reporter's background or particular views. Still others appreciate an intelligent and well-supported commentary. Journalists need to find a balance between straight facts and covering conflicting opinions." OR "The press should provide people with straight facts. Its opinion should not be involved in news coverage." OH "Good news reporting should be strictly factual and never subjective, except, of course, for editorials." MA "The media's job is to inform the public with the truth and the facts and leave society to form its own opinions and conclusions on subjects." VA "The role of the media should be one of an onlooker. The media should stand by and report on a story with impartiality and composure, with equal air time for both candidates. If the media would stand back and let the public view a scene without the extra media dramatics, it would be easier for the public to make their own interpretation. In today's society, with anyone being able to make a statement or print what he wants, it is getting harder and harder to form your own interpretation." MD "While the media does have the freedom to say what they want, they should use common sense and fulfill their status as unbiased newscasters. If they wish to voice their opinions, they should do it through the proper forum such as an editorial or similar medium. This does not mean they cannot show the negative information about the candidates. On the contrary, this means they should give the people this information, but they also must share the negative material that pertains to all other candidates. They must not consistently repeat one candidate's bad points while only making a passing remark about the others. They must balance their remarks so that they will have an equal impact upon the voters." OK "The media play an important role in the outcome of an election. But they need to be more bi-partisan and unbiased in their reporting on the candidates. The press should use its power to inform the American people not to influence them." AL

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"In short, the media needs to stop gossiping and telling private facts about a candidate's personal life. Instead, they should provide fair, objective reporting for the voters." MI "The media should be an institutional place from which any person can draw true and important information that can and should be used to help every individual make a decision about which candidate to vote for." KS "The public reads and listens every chance it gets, hungry for information about the candidate's opinions and views. It is up to the media to present to the public the facts, and not direct their attention to other unimportant nonpolitical issues." WI "The media did not adequately cover the candidates' stands on relevant issues." PA "In order to increase public awareness of the issues, all networks should have a minimum of no less than three minute clips of a candidate's speech." NY "Just like it is the candidate's job to become elected, it is the journalists' job to make sure the public knows everything about the candidate before Election Day comes around." OR "The media needs to realize that they are the general public's eyes and ears. They need to give the citizens of America all the facts so the people can make up their own mind without the media's little hints. Remember, the citizens own the airwaves, so they should get what they want." IL "No one can deny the 'power of the press.' But that power can be abused and corrupted. The media does not belong at the helm of political thought and political elections. Its job is to keep the people informed and aware of political events." OK "Who will lead the people? This question must be decided by the people and the people alone. The role of the media is to present facts to the American voters and let them make their own decisions. Their job is to inform the public of each candidate's qualifications that pertain to his character and to his capacity to lead. The media are supposed to be the purveyors of truth. They should always present both sides of the story. In this way, they cannot be accused of unjustly influencing an important

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public decision. These are ideals that need to be kept in perspective by responsible media reporting." CA "Although slime sells papers and boosts TV ratings, one must sit back a minute and realize that the media was made to inform and enlight, not to manipulate and control." OH "When candidates decide to run for office they must be very conscious of their actions, being aware that anything they do could open themselves up to the press. And hopefully, when it's all said and done, the media will get a hold of the dishonest, unfaithful and cheating politicians, sending them home where they belong, not in Washington running our country." SD "In the realm of politics, is not the primary function of the media to educate and enlighten the people rather than to entertain? PA "The purpose of the media during elections is simple: give us the facts, and tell us what is important. Unfortunately, this is not the role the media currently chooses to take." SD "The media is the life-line of politics. Political candidates depend on the coverage they receive through the media. The public depends on the media to tell them who is running for what office. The sole purpose of the media is to inform and possibly educate the public. We, the public, rely on the media to give us unbiased and well researched information. We develop most of our opinions based on the information provided by the media. It is the responsibility of the media to provide truthful and completely unbiased information." OK "The role of the media should strictly consist of informing the public of facts and incidents that have importance. Importance doesn't mean who's with whom or who has done what years before, but importance means ideas, possibilities, and plans that may affect the future. The news should show no signs of gossip or unfocused facts." OR "It should serve as a resource that people can use to find out about the candidates with relative ease, but at the same time, it should make an effort to keep its reporting as unbiased as possible, leaving the voter to make up his own mind." MD

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"That role the media should play in the campaigns is that which they pretend to play--a simple informer. The only opinions which should be expressed through the media are the candidates' opinions on the issues. The only influencing should be done by the candidates. But] 'Joe American' cannot just walk up to a candidate and have a one-on-one discussion. For this reason, the role of the media is much greater than that of informer to the American public. The media has now become our political adviser." OH "Although the press is also entitled to freedom of speech, their personal views should not be brought forth to influence the public. The candidates' future plans for our country should be presented, and then left to the people to determine their own opinions. The role of the media should be to present the important information as simply and as truthfully as possible." MA "The media should show both sides of a contest and show them fairly." IN "The media should give the public a fair overview of the candidates. They should let citizens know facts about the candidates, and aid the citizens in researching the candidates. The media's job in choosing the candidates for public office should be straight forward factual information." IL "In trying to reason out what role I feel that the media should play in national campaigns, I realized what a difficult position the media is in. On the one hand, it has a responsibility to report information about the personal lives of the candidates because it may affect the way that they perform their jobs. However, reporters also have to use discretion in choosing between what is reporting and what is slander. The effects of the decisions that reporters make regarding the coverage of personal issues are so far-reaching that they inevitably make or break the candidate. If people set up guidelines as to the parameters of reporters' responsibilities and force them to stay within these boundaries, then the quality of national election coverage will gradually improve. We, the people, have a right to know the truth about our candidates." PA "In order for the media to fulfill its duty, it should release only the facts that deal with the election, not with lifestyles, history of the candidates, and their personal opinions. The events should be reported as they happen and they should report only on what the candidates say, not what the reporters interpret. When the candidates aren't campaigning or giving speeches, the

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news reporters should do as the former president of CBS News, Richard Salant, suggested, and that is to report on the candidates' 'record in public office or his past statements on the budget deficit.' He also said that the news reporters are sometimes 'just too lazy. It is easier to cover the mudslinging.'" OH "Who will lead the people? This question must be decided by the people and the people alone. The role of the media is to present facts to the American voters and let them make their own decisions. Their job is to inform the public of each candidate's qualifications that pertain to his character and to his capacity to lead. The media are supposed to be the purveyors of truth. They should always present both sides of the story. In this way, they cannot be accused of unjustly influencing an important public decision. These are ideals that need to be kept in perspective by responsible media reporting." CA

The Media and the Issues

"Something we heard a lot about during this election was the issues, not so much about specific issues like health care or taxes, but the issues as a general topic. The media constantly charged that the candidates weren't addressing the issues. The candidates complained that the media wouldn't cover the issues. In order to get their stands on the issues known, candidates have resorted to everything from publishing books to buying prime-time television spots to air infomercials. Unfortunately, both of these methods, as well as many others can prove to be costly, thus forcing a candidate to accept large sums of money from special interest groups if he wants to be taken seriously." MD "I think this past election proves that people are tired of hearing the trash and want the issues. This message was sent to the press as much as it was to the candidates." OK "Does the media take sides with the issues battled by the candidate, or does it take sides with the candidate's wallet?" CA "Newspapers also become active participants in the political mudslinging battles of the candidates. One of the earliest examples of this was the 1884 election between Grover Cleveland and James Blaine. Blaine was suspected of having some shady deals involving railroad stocks and bonds. Later in the election the Buffalo Evening Telegraph discovered and published the discovery of Cleveland's illegitimate child." PA

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"Through all the mudslinging and gossip, the media managed to thoroughly inform us on the candidates' stand on major issues." AR "Clinton was busy developing a new form of election communicationthe Bill Clinton Interactive Kiosk. This disk for computers outlined his plans for the country, which included health care, the economy, welfare reform and affordable college education." OH "The media should explore the issues on hand rather than the skeleton clanking in someone's closet." VA "The media would prefer to cover a scandalous story about Bill Clinton being a communist rather than a story on his plan to improve health care. I believe that the people are wearying quickly of scandal; they want issues. If an elected official doesn't do what people want, the people vote for someone else. What can we do when the media doesn't give us what we want?" PA "It wouldn't be surprising if some people in the United States don't know anyone who is running for Congressional or state offices, or even that certain offices exist. Half of the issues that will take their toll on American voters this year will be state issues. Where does a concerned citizen go to find out information about such issues?" MD "In Indiana's recent senatorial race between incumbent Dan Coates and challenger Joe Hogsett, Hoosiers were swamped with campaign ads challenging voters to decide which was the true Joe Hogsett. We were told that Dan Coates had a life outside of politics - he was a grandfather. Hogsett's campaign ran similar personality ads favorable to Mr. Hogsett. Unfortunately, due to the mass media, Hoosiers may have been voting for a candidate they viewed as the grandfatherly type rather than evaluating the candidate's stands on the critical issues facing our state and our nation. All this, thanks to too little public demand for coverage of issues by the various media." IN "If the press only reported issues such as Clinton's economic agenda or Bush's foreign policy, the collective nation would probably fall asleep." IL "A study done by Marjorie Hershey revealed that, on the average, print media coverage from September through election day in 1988 only dealt

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with issues one-third of the time, while two-thirds of the content was devoted to campaign strategy." PA "In the Reagan-Mondale election the issues were seldom brought up and often forgotten. Most of the time it was impossible to speak with Reagan during his photo opportunities. Reagan held fewer press conferences than any of the past presidents. Mondale attempted to bring up his ideas of a tax increase to help remove the debt, but the media decided that tax plans are dull and don't make a good story. Mondale attempted time after time to bring up the issues but the media did not want to focus on them. Instead the media brought up the bad financial record of Mondale's running mate's husband. All the media cared about was getting a good story." MD "The idea of the juicier, the better, is what leads many members of the media to report stories with little or no bearing on the campaign. the media can easily sway the opinions of the public by reporting the dirt on candidates and paying less attention to the issues." TX

The way things really aredo the various media have undue influence?
"In recent years, the media has changed its role for the worse. Today it is the reporter of private lives and scandals along with the issues of the campaign." NH "The media has photographers follow the people around that are running for president of the United States to take a picture of their every move. The press takes pictures, for instance, of Tsongas in the swimming pool, Clinton getting off an airplane, Clinton holding a saxophone in the crowd of people and also Clinton and his wife standing by a tree and hugging. The media should stay out of people's personal lives; they can't even go swimming without a person from the news team there taking a picture." SD "Jerry Rothman Serot and her opponent were running for a Missouri State Office. The campaign ads were not about the qualifications or important events that would help in office, but how much money the other spent on a house or child care." MO "Intertwining TV and politics, journalists have gotten into a vicious battle to keep up with each other and learned an important factor on the way--gossip sells." VA

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"Reading the newspaper and magazines or watching the news on television is no longer only about trying to learn more concerning our nation and world news; it's more like reading or watching a soap opera to see who is stabbing whom in the back" WI "The candidates of the 1992 election year treated the media as a pet. They fed it whatever lies and smut their campaigns could discover and hoped it would not devour the hands that gave it life...The media has gone from being an organization of truth, to one that forces people to cover it up." OH "If candidates want to dig up trash and put each other down they should do it face to face. I think cutting a guy down is a total misuse of the media." MN "One of the networks even concentrated on the individual characters of each presidential candidate for three straight nights. The correspondents and reporters probed into past videos excerpting sound bites and airing them out of context. [They] researched the biographical history of the candidates, citing any instances that could spark yet even more controversies." MD "Media personnel are spending far too much time trying to make an interesting story and end up not covering the real issues adequately." KS "Many times the dirt is not brought to the surface by the media, but rather from tips of campaign opposition investigators." OR "The strengths and positive qualities of the presidential candidates are often drowned out by the dirt that is dug up on each of them." IL "Mud-slinging is a proper term for journalistic attacks because mud sticks to a person, dries, and is sometimes difficult to remove. That is what happens when the media attacks a candidate with a negative journalistic reviewit sticks to the person, stays there through continuous reference to it, and try as they might, it is very hard to overcome." OH "Reporters were bumping into one another here in Arkansas trying to dig up some dirt on Bill Clinton. When he started getting ahead in the pollsit really got bad." AR

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"It is a sad fact that people are more knowledgeable about Bill Clinton's alleged infidelity than about his national health care proposal." WI "The fact that Bill Clinton had an extra-marital affair should not be public knowledge. It will not make him a worse President." KS "It is none of the voting public's business what candidates for national office do after the lights go out." SD "For years, there was sort of a gentlemen's agreement among reporters who covered public figures that certain issues were off limits. Many presidents, ranging from Warren G. Harding to Franklin Roosevelt to John Kennedy were widely known to be conducting extramarital affairs. Yet reporters, for the most part, avoided the subject in print." PA "We have gone from a time when the personal lives of candidates were more or less off-limits to a time when they are discussed in detail. In a way, I think this is good; however we cannot believe much of the propaganda that we hear. We should be alert and disciplined in the way we deal with this material." OK "Scandal stories were first routinely seen in tabloids, then they were carried somewhere deep inside a newspaper; however, now they are slated for the front page. Why the change in standards? If this pace is to continue, what will the next generation see on their front page? The same standards apply to television; the more salacious the story, the more coverage. The new standard seems to say 'A rumor's circulating; dig something up about it. Being first to cover it or print it is better than being right.'" MO "Presidents John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Dwight D. Eisenhower had sexual encounters that the media never touched. Why the change? They (the media) no longer live by a code. Today, the media doesn't just inform us in order to regulate criminal acts, they do so to gain listeners or readers and fame. As a result of this immoral form of reporting, the campaigns have resorted to dirty pool. If something horrible comes out about one candidate, that party makes sure the same happens to the rest." SD "Bill Clinton's success in candidacy shows that the Americans can distinguish public life from the private; Clinton's personal scandal as reported by the media did not destroy his campaign." MN

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"As the election is drawing closer to an end, the media is realizing that the American people are disgusted with all the rubbish being dug up on candidates and they are now more interested in the issues and the candidates themselves than all the name-calling and mud-slinging that has been going on recently." MD "A lot of the people in the press do not know when to use their best judgment, such as printing what the president's cat is doing! During the time that the reporters wasted, they could have used this precious, expensive time to tell more about Clinton's qualifications and if he can run this country effectively." SD "In the few weeks before election day, Bush was always proclaiming that 'We don't care about the polls!' But what he did not realize was that the polls are also a powerful device in the shaping of public opinion." OH "If the voter is somehow manipulated or controlled into forming his opinion about the candidates, and thus casting his ballot in a certain way, then in actuality, the. . .voter's opinion, and consequently, his vote, is determined largely by the information that he absorbs through TV, radio, newspapers, etc. The voter is unable to contest the control of the media simply because he lacks the resources and the time to do his own research on each of the candidates. Any information that the voter uses to form his view of the candidates is spoon-fed to him by the reporters, and so, just as the puppeteer is responsible for the movements of the marionette, the media is responsible for the decision of the voter." MD "The way the media convinces people is through a kind of brainwashing. How many times have you fallen asleep watching TV or sing a song you heard on the radio all day long because you could not get it out of your head? When you hear things over and over, you accept them as your own thoughts." PA "Influence is what the media gives us. They say to us pick this candidate because he was a Boy Scout, and he supports the death penalty. Support him because he was a blue collar worker like most Americans. The media gives us reasons for support that we can relate to but sometimes leaves out important details. It is a proven fact that if a person is told something over and over again, the person will start to believe it. If you don't hear about anyone else or an opposing opinion, you may start to believe what they are

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telling you. Repetition is also a tool used by the media, and if we aren't aware, they may get to us." OH "The news is followed with commentaries on what the news really means. Not only does the media present the issues and campaigns of their choice, they also tell the public what to think." SD "Excessive media influence in elections undermines the very foundations of our democratic government." OR "Whether it be intentional or accidental, news agencies tend to show partiality towards their favorite candidate. The information that people living in small cities and communities learn about politics may depend on the decisions of just half a dozen men and women a thousand miles away. Even in major cities where the media have access to several news agencies, the number of people who ultimately decide what to use is relatively small. They have the ability to shape the public's view of the world according to the stories they choose to release." AR "The media has a hypnotizing affect on how we think. They should be a little more careful. This isn't a game." SD "The media has a thousand faces and they are all believable.... The power of the media lies with the public's willingness to believe." WI [QUESTION] "Who does elect our president? Did we formulate our own opinion or did we borrow opinions formulated by the media?" MO [ANSWER] "In the end, it was really the media who elected Governor Clinton." PA "I would have loved to have seen the results of the 1992 election without the media, reporters, and everyone talking on television about a certain candidate." IN "Shimkus, who is running in the 20th District for U. S. Congress [IL] sent out a video tape on what he believes. We watched the video in our American Government class. Our class didn't see a video on Durbin who is running against Shimkus. So, automatically, the students started to choose Shimkus. The media should make sure it covers each candidate with (an) equal amount of time." IL

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"We all carry a picture in our heads. Who puts it there, why, how and under what circumstances? Beyond our limited daily experiences, it is television, radio, newspapers, magazines and books [the media]. The media brings to our consciousness the events, people and [determines what] we call 'reality.' Though reality is what happens to three and a half billion people all over the world, 24 hours a day, we receive from that total experience only fragments that are deemed significant." SD "In 1898, before photographs could be put into a newspaper [and] artists were needed to draw events, an American steamer was fired upon by a Spanish ship. An artist drew a ship being torn in two by the blast. The public's outrage pressured President McKinley to enter us into a war with the Spanish." MD "The media has taken on more than just the task of reporting the news to the public; it has now assigned itself the task of deciding which stories constitute news and which do not." VA "The media used its position to influence potential voters rather than educate them." OH "The problem is that it is too easy for people to read an eloquent commentary on the issues of the day and have an opinion formed for them, rather than drawing their own from the facts of the campaign. People swing back and forth on their stances of candidates by who happens to have a column on the editor's page that day in their local newspaper. Opinion polls swing from high to low from what television analysts say in the closing five minutes of their newscasts. Radio fans find talk shows that favor candidates and find themselves favoring the candidate also. The individual minds of the electorate become so dulled by crossfire opinions that they will believe anything set before them." OR "Today, because such a large percentage of Americans own a television, the media's influence in politics has been boosted." SD "The media system is splitting into two parts. There is the Old Media and the New Media. The Old Media consists of the networks, news magazines and widely known newspapers. The New Media consists of CNN, CSPAN, talk shows, satellite hookups and computer bulletin boards. The New Media is less elitist and more democratic. These aspects are good, but the New Media is less analytical, which is bad." VA

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"People today rely too heavily on the media to help them crystallize their personal opinions. People would rather take on the feelings of the television station. The media is to blame for spreading this apathy." OR "It seems that in this day and age, the way the media sides in an election is the way the election will go. Whoever they throw their support behind, is the [candidate] who will win. The people have no say in it anymore. They will vote with the candidate who has the most media backing." MD "During the hard economic times this past year, deep budget cuts at news organizations is felt to have lessened some of the media overkill. This sounds somewhat positive. Perhaps with less overkill, the public will finally get only useful coverage of the campaigns. However, this may cause a potential danger. With political coverage viewed as an unaffordable extravagance, wide leads in polls can form the basis of an excuse for not really covering campaigns. Campaigns arethe only time the public can fully explore the condition and future of the country." MA "The media also can take too much time covering the candidates' events, such as with three hour television specials and everything that the candidate does. There are even news programs with the history of a certain candidate's life." SD "The role of the media seems to have become one of selling candidates, as if they were products, not person running for President." KS "The role the media plays is clear, but unfortunately, it is the role of a manipulative tyrant." OH "Numerous random events occur daily. Journalists face the dilemma of determining what is newsworthy and what isn't. They must answer the big question, 'Should it be covered at all?' They must become gruff football coaches. They pick and choose the stories they cover, just as a coach picks his players. And like a coach, some stories are cut, determined not to be in the audience's interests. Whatever the media determines to be news, becomes news.' The audience's attention is focused on these issues, while everything else is thrown away and forgotten. A major problem arises [when]the political stories and candidates which the media publishes don't interest the public." PA

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"Newspaper reporters, radio talk show hosts, and television news anchors play a very substantial role in the presidential elections, but not as large as [in] past campaigns. The public is more cogitative and forgiving of a candidate's past errors." OR "Since many voters are not able to hear what each candidate has to say first-hand, they seek other sources to provide them with the information they need. . . the sources which many rely on are not relaying all the information essential to make a fair judgment of a person running for a national office. In fact, the credentials of newspapers have been doubted so frequently, call-in radio and talk shows became popular in the 1992 elections. [The media] decides what is 'news worthy' and what is not. I think the media covers candidates based on the interests of a rough majority of its viewers, the candidates' chance of winning, and the candidates' popularity." NE "In 1975, shortly after he left the governor's office, Ronald Reagan had his choice of two offers to start doing news commentaries. One was to alternate with Eric Severed on the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite. The other was with Mutual Radio. Reagan chose radio explaining to his media advisor, Michael K. Deaver that he thought the medium was a better way to reach people because it had more credibility with many Americans than the network news." IL "Is the media too intrusive? Maybe they are just doing their jobs, but whichever way the voters look at it, the media is still overexposing too many unimportant facts and not enough of the important issues." KS "Because of all the jokes about Dan Quayle, voters pay more attention to whether or not he makes an error than to what he says about today's pertinent topics." WI "(Regarding) Dan Quayle's misspelling of the word potato in a recent spelling bee: Granted it was funny, but was the public aware of why he was there or even where he was? The media used the potato event over several months to discredit and belittle the Vice President." OK "The media should have been reporting on candidates and issues, not on misspellings and rumors." TN

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"What the media must understand is that they are the catalysts for improvement." MD "It is the media's job to inform the viewer and listener, not to educate his opinions. Most listeners have full-time jobs and families to support. Some have very little time to find the facts about the election themselves and depend on and turn to the media to do the job for them...It is much easier to flip on the television than to spend hours reading and researching and newspapers and magazines. Consequently, if the media's information is false, the viewer suffers." SD "Like the antagonist of a well written novel, it (the media) slowly increased its power over the candidates until it had almost full control. It searched for well hidden secrets, from avoided drafts to Nixon connections." OH "The media amounts to a fourth branch of the government. It is a branch which holds the same powers of checks and balances, although the checks outweigh the balances. The media continuously checks the government by reporting to the people, while the government tries to maintain balance by using the courts, ruling on the ethics of the media. The point being made is, how much better suited is the media, another branch of the government, in choosing a candidate than either of the major parties? How well can this judgment be trusted?" PA "Because of our government's size and complexity, we the people cannot simply investigate every questionable matter in our federal system. If we are unable to be the watchdogs, then shouldn't an institute that was not mentioned in the Constitution be used to monitor and report the doings of our government? MD "These three topics: lack of coverage, too much emphasis on unimportant issues, and the making and breaking of campaigns show the large role the media have in choosing our candidates for national office." IL "The media is vital to the election process. It is the most important communication we have. While free press should always be preserved, so should media standards. Character bashing and manipulation are useless to voters. Voters should be given only important information and the candidates' plans." KS

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"In 1944, Franklin Roosevelt was slowly dying. This fact was known by the press but it was kept from the public. The press felt that it was not in the best interest of the country to report that the president of the United State was dying." MD "The press is the one source of public information that a politician cannot control and should not be able to control." PA "If the media is biased it is because they are only responding to what the people want.When the media restricts themselves to what they perceive the public wants, they are in a way restricting the very freedom of press often used to defend themselves." TX "The media's power to report and cover what it deems important may be healthy for the media, but is unfair too and bad for the political process." IL "The issues were pushed into the background as the race became a contest to see who could get out the most scandalous piece of information. The media turned what is one of the most important activities in the entire world into a three ringed circus." PA "(How does one know the future? Isn't the past the only indicator?) "When a voter goes to the polls the focus should be on the future not on the past. But because of the media, and also the voters, the whole election is focused on the wrong things." MI "Former Senator John Tower of Texas was nominated to be Secretary of Defense, but was rejected for that position after being charged with 'decades-old, unverifiable boozy womanizing.' He was unpopular with his colleagues in the Senate and the relevance of his private behavior to the Pentagon duties was never made quite clear. Another such case was a rumor that [Senator] Charles Robb had observed illegal drug use at parties he attended several years ago in Virginia Beach. However, the Washington Post stated its inability to confirm the truth of that rumor while still placing it on the front page. Whatever happened to the American right of 'innocent until proven guilty'? Even though the media doesn't directly say 'Yes, the candidate did it and has no right to be in a public office.' that candidate will be scarred." MO "The media can determine elections in several different ways. First, they can report on a candidate's past record and personal life. Second, they can

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incorrectly release information on a candidate who is trying to run for office. Next, they can back a candidate by declaring their support for that candidate. Also, the media can take polls that supposedly show how people will vote on Election Day. Finally, the media can declare a candidate a winner before all the results are tallied." KS "Numerous political magazines and news stations state their opinion of who they think will win, who they think should win and who, in their opinion, is winning. These statements [have influence.]" KY "When the press starts tainting the facts with its opinions or becomes involved in the mudslinging, it starts to program the people. This programming comes in the form of propaganda. This propaganda consists of articles that catch your attention with flashy titles. Finally on election day, when the people go to the polls, they pull the levers that they were programmed to. They do this with the same lack of consciousness that a rat has when running a maze. In essence, the media is completely undermining the democratic system. By programming us to their way of thinking they are attempting to personally decide who wins the election. If this is the way we want things to be, then we should just drop the election process and turn the decision over to the media." PA

If you can't say anything nice . . . negative?

Is the media too

"Sixty-four percent of the people polled in a class questionnaire stated that the media should not report on the negative aspects of a candidate's personal life, but rather on the issues that are important to the welfare of America." VA "The only stories that usually make the news are the things that are bad. Often the good points are overlooked, and something that is very minor may be blown totally out of proportion. It has to have an effect on a person to always be hearing the bad things about a certain candidate." MN "I randomly picked some political cartoons from the Oregonian starting with the month of September to the month of November 1992. The political cartoons seem to focus on the negative aspects of each candidate, but I believe that these negative views are what make the cartoon funny. I think it would be hard to get a laugh off the good things the candidates did rather than their mistakes. Although political cartoons have been around longer than the radio or television, they are still, I think, the best way to

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enjoy the elections along with giving you some information to form an opinion and choose a candidate." OR "According toDr. S. Collier who conducted a recent survey, people are most likely to vote for the person about whom they see the most positive things. With fifty percent of the readers of magazines only flipping through the pages catching the pictures and the bold print, this could prove to have an extreme impact." KS "Try to imagine these two events occurring in your day: first, overhearing a man teaching his son the importance of education in a heart-warming and inspirational speech; second, witnessing a drug-deal turn into a murder two totally opposite events that create two totally opposite feelings, hope and fear. Which story would you be more prone to tell first to your family and friends? It is and always has been human nature to emphasize the negative rather than the positive. We must not blame the media for doing something that we are guilty of doing ourselves." TX "The money from the research and air-time candidates spend saying bad things about their opponents, they can say twice as much good things about themselves." IL "The important issues, like the national debt, taxes, and foreign policy, took a backseat to the media's scrutiny of the candidates' early lives. It is true that the candidates' individual flaws should be brought to the public's attention, but the bad qualities should not be the center of attention." AR "[Pessimistic] reporting keeps the American voter from feeling secure about the candidate he or she chooses." WV "The media should offer a positive image of our country instead of always looking for the faults." CA "I find it extremely frustrating that all we hear and see are the negative aspects about the candidates. Therefore, we have a hard time choosing a candidate we respect for his positive side, and instead vote for the lesser of two evils. We should be hearing more of what they can do for our country, rather than what they are unable to do for it. This negative reporting tends to develop an uncomfortable feeling that anyone we decide to vote for will be insufficient and make poor decisions." OR

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"Is Carol Moseley Braun really a thief and a racist, or does she have good ideas about how the government should be run? These are questions that cannot [or will not] be answered by our local media, because our local media has been concentrating more on her negative points during the past pre-election weeks." IL "The media spends most of its time reporting on the negative side of the candidates' lives and very little time on building them up and showing what they can do for the country. They seem to show only what they cannot do. Rarely, if ever, does one see a news story giving a positive report on the private life of a candidate." SD "One of the biggest problems in the news today is the amount of time spent covering the negative. Even issues such as Bill Clinton smoking marijuana and the Dan Quayle/Murphy Brown incident that the public seemed to have lost interest in, were kept on a respirator by a scandal-hungry media." OR "Reporters are sometimes too caught up with what the politician did wrong, than what the politician could do to make our country a better place." NY "Reporters often ask a question so that the candidates cannot respond in a positive manner. This method of reporting causes a negative reaction towards the candidate from the viewers. The media also changes the context of a candidate's statement, sometimes only using parts of the statement." WV "In my opinion, the role the media plays in the election process is scary." TN "The media is out of hand and will only get worse over time unless something is done." NY "Members of the media are known for their political mud-slinging and judgmental views." CA "The media is insensitive to anything or anyone." AL "Most journalists are by nature opportunists whose loyalties would never stop them from pursuing a career-making story." TX

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"Society's busiest busybodies are the press, where, under cover of the Constitution, they expose, scold and ridicule public figures and sometimes win Pulitzer Prizes for it!" OK "When made-for-ratings programming prevents the real decision-making factors...from reaching the public, then the media is not doing its job." OR "The other winner of 1992 is the media, demonstrating its control on national politics and its unnecessary involvement in the personal affairs of the candidates. Its biased views and negative reporting have proven that it has become a bothersome, unfair, filthy institution, with its rightful place long since forgotten. When Thomas Jefferson made the comment, 'Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press,' he meant for the media to be a check on the government and a watchdog of the people's precious democracy, not an aid to the corruption and an accomplice to the thieves." OH "Government's tool, the media, shuts the door on the public. The media seems to give power to the people, but it is the few chosen and wealthy who become participants in our government. The government does what the few chosen want and then the media tells the general public what the government did for the people." MO "I will definitely think twice about believing what the media has to say when I am of the voting age." IL "The problem with the media lies in the three areas: accountability, responsibility, and their attitude about news reporting." KS "The only thing I can see the media has done that is really worthy is that they printed the great speech by Abraham Lincoln 'Four Scores and Seven Years Ago.'" IL

The media isn't all bad

"The media isn't all bad. It has a tremendous potential to become a positive aspect on the election scene." WI "For years now, people have complained about what a travesty our newspapers, magazines, and evening news shows are. But the simple truth is the media is not that bad.

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"For the most part, our legitimate news sources are accurate. They may be biased at times, but they usually present the whole story. And what's wrong with being biased? Does it really affect what we believe? If it does, we have a serious problem. Certainly we are influenced by what we see (factual evidence), but does biased broadcasting actually change our views completely? The American people are not stupid, or at least they shouldn't be, nor are they easily manipulated. "As a matter of fact, although a majority of journalists are Democrats, and a majority of those Democrats are liberal Democrats, their political standings often don't even affect their spoken or printed report. When I would look at a Newsweek or U.S. News and World Report with a story on the recent election [articles printed prior to the election] they would tell the different views of each candidate, weigh advantages and disadvantages of each issue/idea, and give a realistic perspective to everything. The phrase 'When I want an editorial, I'll ask for it' is heard by those magazines. Of course there is an opinionated column or two in there, like in any other publication, but so what? "We must see the media as an advantage and a great source of knowledge which has helped to enrich our lives. The media is there to find truth and express it in a professional fashion. If we look at the media in a positive light, we can see the benefitsoutweigh the negatives. This is why the media does and should play a large role in helping to choose our candidates for national office. The media should be commended for their superb job and effort to help inform us on political matters." TN "According to a local influential lawyer, 'A well-informed public is the cornerstone of a democracy.' This lawyer feels that the media are an absolute necessity. If it were not for the reporting skills and investigative ability of the media, the voters would have to accept the candidates' personal accounts of their characters. The media also help the voters to sort out the rumors that arise during elections. The media make it possible to draw the line between truth and rumor." AL "Generally, the media merely becomes a scapegoat for either the ignorance or the apathy of the people." IL "Overall the media is a wonderful, useful service to the American public. They bring us the news we need to know when it comes time for elections. They also bring us the information we need to know." WI

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"In my opinion, the media works hard and does a fine job at what they're doing. My overall evaluation of the media coverage is that it's good as it stands, and I think it is and will be improving. Now it's up to the public to get involved." NE "The press is as vital to the nation as the nervous system is to the body. The press relays information to the individual portions of the nation so that it can react properly. Only by forcing fair coverage of both candidates can the flow of information be adequate. Although our system has its flaws, we have to appreciate that it functions extraordinarily well given its job description." OK "Despite having a party preference, a member of the media must present the facts about each candidate truthfully. Therefore, because one might have to go against his beliefs, I think that being a member of the media is one of the most challenging and emotionally draining jobs in the world." AR "The press does the best job they can to filter the facts out of all the propaganda thrown at them. Journalism is not an easy job and if anything, those that are in that line of work should be commended for their part in helping the public to decide which candidate they want to vote for...most of the time they are very helpful in the decision making process in the election of our nation's officials." KS "The media just helps people make up their minds a lot faster than they would other wise." MI "The media do a very good job of informing the public. It takes people who are organized and people dedicated to their jobs, people who can take criticism from others, and people who can obtain facts and information rather than rumors." WV "It is the media that narrows down our choices for candidates for national offices by what they find after researching certain ones. It is the media that informs the public of the plans of the candidates, and what they will do for us as a nation. Furthermore, the media manages to filter out dangerous people.... The media also challenges our candidates by raising questions.... If a certain candidate has shortchanged us, and not given out enough information about him/herself, they will not last long in the media." NH

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"From a holistic view, though, our political system and media coverage are the best in the world, and while we sometimes might not agree with everything that is done or said, we should, as a whole, support the system and be thankful that technology does allow us to be well informed and be active participants in our election processes." OK "If it wasn't for the media today, people between the ages of 18-24 would be unduly influenced by the [votes of their parents]. Today, because of the media, we can decide for ourselves by watching television or reading the newspaper." MN "My opinions of the media are more good than bad. I feel that more often than not, the media does a great job in reporting to the world. Through this assignment, I have found a great interest in the media. With all of these factors in mind, I think we are very lucky to have such dedicated people that will give us the news daily." OH "We are one of the few countries able to know so much about such issues because of the media we have and the rights that allow them to do some of the things that they do. Would we really want that changed?" OH "The media keeps the candidate in check. The media acts as an information booth which on a daily basis relays important actions or ideas which the candidate has announced he wished to implement." MA "If the media did not print it, some people would never know it." IN "Without the newsmen and women, people would be left in the dark about the crazy world we call politics." WV "In conclusion, the media's role is more helpful than harmful." NY

Accuracy in media: distortions are in and candor is out

"Among all the American political virtues, candor is probably the most necessary. Candor is telling the truth about what people know, think, and see. (Early American author) James Fenimore Cooper argued that the word American was synonymous with the habit of telling the truth: 'By candor we are not to understand trifling and uncalled for expositions of truth; but a sentiment that proves a conviction of the necessity of speaking the truth, when speaking at all, a contempt for all designing evasions of our real opinions.'" SD

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"Finally the media played a large role in elections by interpreting and giving opinions on everything. For instance, every paper had editorials and syndicated columnists and most news programs had segments where people were brought in for analysis of some news item. Also, journalists interpreted political ads for the public. While some ads had things in them that the average person might have missed or misunderstood, we didn't need it quite on the scale that it was done. Lastly, the media interpreted debates and then announced the 'winners.'" PA "President George Bush was criticized by the New York Times for supposedly being amazed at the scanning device at a local supermarket. In reality, the President had been at the National Grocers Association meeting in Orlando and was amazed at the ability of a scanner to reassemble a torn label. No one ever bothered to check on the accuracy of these allegations." SD "The mediacontrols public opinion and can promote personal beliefs through what the people believe is unbiased news coverage. This practice could endanger the democratic vote by allowing the people to decide the fate of the nation knowing only half the available information. The media should instead offer a fair and equal amount of time to each candidate, without biasing the report in any way, regardless of their own convictions. Although this can be difficult when one candidate is more visible and active than [another], all reports should be purely factual, and any opinion stated should be in the form of a quote. This allows the public to make a competent and well informed choice knowing all available information as well as the difference between fact and fiction." OR "If the facts would be clearly stated instead of the 'stuff' that is printed we would be better off. How are we supposed to distinguish fact from fiction." PA "Mixed in with the facts on a candidate are pieces of information that may or may not have any shred of truth buried under the haystack." MO "In another survey I took, eighty percent agreed that the media should report facts to the public and not be opinionative. The other twenty percent said, 'That is what campaigning is all about." FL

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"It can be easily summed up in the words of my father, 'I think the media should report the facts of any situation and the pros and cons so that people could judge by the facts and...form their own opinions.'" PA "We have all had to do those worksheets in elementary school on facts versus fiction. Were all the reporters absent on those days?" WI "Let people think for themselves, without the distortions." KY "In the 1920s and 1930s newspapers clearly stated the opinions of the writers." NE "Rather than being informed of the candidates and where they stood on the issues, the public was told how the editor of the city paper was going to vote. This is not paid advertising, this is free publicity because the newspaper staff happened to feel that their choice for President should be known." SD "We all know that the media will bend toward the candidate who will benefit them the most. The media would wildly deny this accusation, but it is only human nature to tend toward something beneficial as opposed to something that may harm you. Therefore, the media sacrifices fair coverage in order to bring you the news of the moment." PA "The journalists that make up the media are just human so their opinions are bound to influence their report." OK "There is no such thing as objective reporting. Editors, publishers, and reporters all have beliefs that are shaped by their education, environment, and social circumstances." TX "If we're to tell a true story to someone, and we have done a lot of research, we cannot help from forming an opinion on the subject ourselves. Once we have formed an opinion ourselves, it is virtually impossible to walk away knowing that they do not know our opinion." NE "Although the media try to be objective, it is obvious that certain media persons let their value judgments and opinions get in the way of unbiased reporting...it is impossible for the media to state all the facts, because what might be irrelevant in on person's eyes might be extremely relevant in

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another's, and as soon as one piece of information is selected before another, the view is already slanted." NH "Usually what is seen is the public forming its opinion around the media's opinion. These opinions should only be printed in the editorial sections." SD "The entire basis of cartoons is to let the cartoonist express his or her opinion on a subject through the drawing of a parody or caricature. This opinionated form of press goes against the basic principle of the media which is expressed in its definition." NY "Cartoons are often biased toward one candidate. They accentuate mistakes that politicians made or mistaken phrases they may have said. Perot's ears and Clinton's hippie years are two examples of the flaws that newspapers highlight." OR "Although it is perfectly acceptable for the media to supply information, it should not supply opinions and ultimately, our nation's leaders." NH "It is important for newsmen and women to stay objective. This should be the biggest concern of the media.... They can show us the stories and speeches, but they must show us everything, so that we, the people, can make our own decisions and not be brainwashed by a few nutty extremists." MD

Above all, the media cannot be seen as boring

"It isn't that the media means to mislead the people, but they just cannot seem to tolerate being thought of as boring." MA "The media has been known to purposely mislead the public if only to foster their own political beliefs...For example, even though both Bush and Clinton had sufficient votes for nominations prior to their respective conventions, the media at times attempted to inject doubt in order to maintain listener interest and probably justify their being at the conventions." MA "It seems that it is journalistic nature to overemphasize and glorify the real picture, therefore misinforming the public." PA

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"The present ratings system places intense pressure on news programs to find news stories that will attract the most viewers no matter how outrageous. This pushes reporters to the point of drumming up stories where no news is happening in order to boost their program's ratings. This rat race has a way of forcing television news to at times twist the truth to make a story more appealing to their viewers. This may even lead to circumventing the truth in a vain attempt to create a story out of nothing. Trading its soul for money and power, the media no loner portrays the truth of news to the people. Reporting the news no longer rests on hard facts but rather on its appeal to the greater audience." CA "Many people do not realize that there is bias in what is not printed as well as what is." OR "If the journalist breaks...a story that the public will find shocking and interesting, it will sell better." NY "Headlines are usually the first things people read and if they're not interesting then the people won't read the rest of the article. The problem I find here is that the headline makes you buy the paper and read the article, but then you find that the article is a hit and miss on the issues. If they give you a snappy headline they could at least give you a complete story." SD "The problem is that in the real world, where most people are only barely paying attention, the headline Bill Clinton, Draft Dodger caught their attention. Bill Clinton Talks About the Draft (did) not." SD "The papers with captions such as The Governor's Gennifer, sold well, and increased circulation is the goal of any paper or television show." PA "The New York Times printed a story about Mondale having the biggest lead of any non-incumbent in history. On the same morning John Hart triumphed in New Hampshire despite the story. Hart, however, lacked the power to overcome huge fund-raising and organizational advantage that Mondale got from early front-runner status.... Such headlines as Bush Needs Big Victory in Tonight's Debate, Nervous Bush Staff Sends Out Resumes, He Can't Win, Pollster Says of Bush, and Bush Showing Is Too Little, Too Late indicate that the Presidential Election of 1992 may have been undemocratically influenced." MA

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"People have to use several media sources to understand the whole story and even then they may receive false images of candidates. People should be able to watch a newscast or read an article, without wondering if it is the truth, or a twisting of it." PA "The media can take a simple little statement and twist and turn it until the little statement has been blown completely out of proportion or twisted into something that it really isn't." SD Example: "When Vice-President Dan Quayle attacked television character Murphy Brown in a family values speech, the media rebuked relentlessly. They magnified and distorted the one-line comment, pelting Quayle for identifying with a fictional character." PA "The media also tends to alter the candidates speech to mean something that the candidate certainly does not mean. When a media source does this they usually distort the information to make it appealing to a certain ethnic group, race, political faction, or special-interest group. Sometimes the media alters the speeches to make a candidate unappealing to all of these groups. For instance in a June issue of Newsweek they took one statement...and based the President's position on race on this one statement." OK "Some television news cuts away from live speeches. Then an anchorman cuts in and describes, in his own words and views, what the candidate was about to say. The commentator gives his views of the speech and those views could be wrong or misleading...What a candidate said could be changed by the media. For this reason, a candidate would rather explain his ideas directly to the voters rather than let the media interpret for him." MA "The press filter between the candidates and the American people is very thick. This malady may be remedied by longer sound bites of candidates' speeches so that people can hear what is actually said rather than a journalist's version." IL "There was some controversy over our winning U.S. Senate candidate, Bob Packwood. Ten women have accused him of sexual harassment, and the media may have known about it before the election. If they had told us about it, Packwood probably would have lost the election because Les Au Coin came very close to beating him as it was. The media may not have

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had that information at that time, but if they did, they definitely influenced the election by not publicizing it." OR "When people buy a newspaper they assume that the coverage is precise and informative, yet by leaving things out, sometimes even adding a little, and all in all bending the story to their own like, the author can actually make his article into an advertisement for whatever product he wishes." OH

Bias in the media?

"Biased reporting is not without impact." PA "The job of a journalist is to chronicle events, not to stand up and cheer for one side or another." KS "It is inevitable that a certain amount of bias is filtered through the media. I once heard it said that everything that is said is biased, because each individual delivers information from their point of view." OH "When asking twenty adults of my community the question: 'Do you think that reporters should have an unbiased opinion when covering presidential elections?' Nearly all of the people answered yes. When asked if they felt that our media today was unbiased, the answer was almost unanimously no." KS "Television was found to be the most influential, but also television was the most biased." MD Examples: "Our economics class collected articles over the month prior to the Presidential race and we also did an analysis of the political cartoons which portrayed negative characteristics of the various candidates. In our city's paper, The Austin American Statesman, you could tell which person was favored by the journalists to be President...In the number of (political) cartoons collected, most of (them) showed Clinton in a more favorable light than either of his opponents. He had the least amount of negatives in the cartoons. President Bush and Perot tied in number." TX "I found a line graph summation of the presidential election entitled the Bumpy Trip to the Top in Newsweek. Included with this graph were several pictures. At first glance I noticed the obvious fact that there were two

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pictures of Clinton and just one of Bush. After looking closer I noticed that in the picture of Bush, he had clenched fists and a very stern look on his face. This contrasted greatly to the pictures of Clinton. In one he was playing the saxophone on the Arsenio Hall Show, and in the other he had his arm caringly wrapped around the shoulder of his running mate, Al Gore. Mark Davidson, a television documentary producer once said that 'pictures always have exercised power that is unique: power to influence illiterates, seduce sophisticates, and manipulate the minds of everyone inbetween.' Pictures are more looked at than anything else in newspapers and magazines and are a powerful bias. Another example is the October 19, 1992 issue of Time. The cover pictured Bush and Perot looking on during one of the debates as Clinton spoke. Ones eyes are drawn towards Clinton (since both men are looking at him) to such a degree that the picture might just as well have been of just Clinton." NY "If a candidate's picture taken at an upward angle is compared with a picture taken from a downward angle, then in the upward-angled picture the candidate will be perceived as an honest and noble person, someone that people look up to. However, in the downward-angled picture, the candidate will be perceived as just the opposite. In the October 23, 1992 New York Times, for example, there [were] on opposing pages, two pictures of Bush and Clinton. On one page there (was) a picture of a few Bush supporters at a rally in New Jersey who [were] posing with a cardboard cut-out of Bush. Directly under this picture was a smaller picture of Bush eating lunch with some of the local Republican officials. The headline at the top of the page next to the pictures read, Vulnerable, Bush Makes A Last Effort to Connect. When all three of these things are viewed together, the impression that they leave on the viewers is one likely to cause dislike for Bush. Many viewers will assume that Bush would rather eat lunch with politicians than go to a rally with supporters and that, contrary to his supposedly wanting to 'connect' with voters, the cardboard cut-out suggests that he's superficial. On the opposing page Clinton is pictured speaking to a large crowd of supporters and the headline above the picture reads Clinton, His Western Tour, Reaches for G.O.P and Independent Votes. In this picture the New York Times is actually showing Clinton connecting with many people as he's reaching for votes. In contrast, these two pictures generally cause viewers to feel a favorable opinion for Clinton and an unfavorable one for Bush. For an example of the affect of camera angle on viewers' impressions of candidates, in the October 13 [1992] New York Times, there was a picture of kids at a Bush rally and on the opposing page there was a picture of Clinton speaking at a rally. In the picture of the Bush rally, some kids were photographed at a

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downward angle as they were standing on the many Bush/Quayle signs that littered the ground and playfully wasting the Bush/Quayle stickers by sticking them all over themselves. On the other hand, in the picture of the Clinton rally, he was photographed at an upward angle while he was standing on stage before a crowd of people. In comparison, these two pictures show how the newspaper was giving viewers the impression that Bush was insignificant and not really taken seriously, but Clinton is someone to listen to and look up to. Secondly, television news programs can use editing to show viewers the version of the story that the editor wants them to see and hear, giving the editor the power to greatly influence viewers' perceptions of a story. For example, Bush staged a great photo opportunity when he arranged to meet with the leaders of Canada and Mexico in Texas and declare his support for the North Atlantic Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Bush's intention was to get a message to viewers that he wanted to create more jobs for U.S. workers and he thought NAFTA could accomplish that. However, when the story was broadcast on NBC News, the sound of Bush's voice was edited out and replaced by John Cochran's commentary, which accused Bush of making an unnecessary trip to Texas just to create a photo opportunity because he wanted to carry Texas in the election. This example shows the power of the editor to cause most viewers to have the opposite reaction that [a candidate] intended. Recently, Bush has been attacking the media with the slogan Annoy the media. Re-elect Bush. Bush began this attack because he argued that the media wasn't letting his messages reach the viewers, or was manipulating them. At a rally in Alabama, Bush asked the people, 'Have you heard this on television tonight? That unemployment claims have gone down to the lowest in two years? Have you heard that inflation is down, that interest rates are down, that total employment is 93 percent inflation, 2.5 percent to 3 percent, home mortgages are 8 percent?' Even though all of these points were true and Bush was speaking about them at rallies, the media [chose] to report mostlyBush's bad points." NH "Camera angles and the style in which the commentator reports the convention can have a major effect on the viewer's opinion of the convention. If an important speech is being given and the camera shows someone not paying attention or the commentator uses negative words, the viewer may get a bad impression of the speech." WV "Bias can also be seen through the time, order and space of election material. For newspapers, the length and location of the articles are

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important. Material found on the front page is especially crucial because that is the information that catches the public's attention. The article size and layout can benefit one candidate over another. One may be featured on the top column of a page while another is in a lower corner. Photographs show skepticism and partiality, whether it be Perot smirking, Bush speaking in front of chickens at a rally, or Clinton waiving to supporters in Baltimore's Morning Sunit has become habitual for the media . People absorb biased information without being aware of its affect..... Anything other than unbiased, objective news is detracting the media from its effectiveness." MD "I noticed that during the campaigning, when the evening news would come on, Clinton's achievements for the day would always come first before any of the other two candidates. This was the same pattern followed in the newspapers." OR "After reading a few past issues of my local newspaper, I began to notice a trend forming. The incumbent got all the negative attention, and the challenger was thought to be the superman capable of solving all those problems. Big headlines would read, Economy Going Downhill While Bush Watches. Below it would be an article entitled, Clinton Promises Radical and Swift Change. These articles showed Bush's policies failing, as Clinton promised new radical policies guaranteed to work. However, in reality, many economists warned that plan would actually make the economy worse. This, however, was nowhere to be found in these two articles." OH "Appearing in Newsweek's November 9, 1992 issue by Jim Squires: 'It's hard to imagine Ross Perot as the answer to anyone's prayer.' This quote displays obvious dislike for Ross Perot. Another example as written in Newsweek's November 2, 1992 issue by Jonathan Alter: 'The main reason the President has received a bad press is that he's done badly.' This statement is obviously opinionated." MA "Within the media, if a majority of the writers/news anchormen lean toward one candidate or the other, then this bias will show ever so delicately in their style of reporting, becoming the equivalent of a subliminal message. It is well known that words carry certain connotations. Therefore, if one candidate is portrayed as tired and worn out, and the other as vibrant and full of life, which would you feel would be better equipped to handle the stresses of a national office?" PA

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"If the media was making Bill Clinton out to be an unbeatable candidate back in January, it is no wonder he won in November." KS "The media also tends to portray candidates as either good or bad. In the 1980 presidential race a desperate Jimmy Carter began to lash out at his opponent, Ronald Reagan. The Washington Post portrayed him as a man gone haywire...Clinton, on the other hand, has been portrayed as the little boy being beat up by the big bully, George Bush." PA "The Media Research Center studies by S. Robert Lichter and Stanley Rotham, who compiled their findings of 240 leading journalists and their personal views . . . found that 81 percent of the journalists voted for Democrats between 1964 and 1976, and supported affirmative action. An overwhelming 90 percent surveyed were pro-choice on the issue of abortion. Another poll, taken by the same researchers, questioned reporters on their sources; 75 percent of the time liberals were consulted, conservatives only 22 percent. However conservative groups were labeled 58 percent of the time, when identified, while liberal groups were tagged with the leftist term only 2 percent." OK "Kennedy in his thirties was the young hero our nation needed as President, but Dan Quayle in his forties was too young to be our Vice-President. Interestingly, Kennedy, a man of extreme wealth, was never portrayed as an aristocrat. However Dan Quayle, whose wealth was much less [than] that of the Kennedy dynasty, was characterized as a privileged, country club rich boy. It was apparent in the Bush-Clinton election and it was apparent in the Bush-Dukakis election, the media has walked all over the Republican Party. They deliberately belittle certain candidates and can manipulate reporting to make the Grand Old Party appear as elitists, negative, and out of touch." KY "In this year's election, instead of providing full coverage of all candidates, each station went for what they believe sells news...the liberal side." IL "In an article titled Debate Left Bush in the Cold, they accused Bush of not having enough 'zip.' That title was totally subjective. Zip? So what if Bush isn't fifty years old anymore. I always thought that being older makes one wiser." KY "Most of the time, Republicans and Independents are looked down upon and made fun of, while Democrats are presented favorably." IL

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"I rarely heard anything in favor of Bush while even Clinton's occasional jog was glorified as a monumental event." OR "In my opinion, the media was the one who elected Bill Clinton, not the voters. The media made George Bush out to be the bad guy in the debates and interviews. The media told the American people that they needed a change and that change lay with Bill Clinton." OK "Election of 1992; Bush-Quayle vs. Clinton-Gore. Rather, should we say, Old Stupid vs. New Smart. This was how the media perceived this past election." NE "[Talk show hosts] have been able to contribute to their candidate and promote their show by creating controversy. Does this suggest profit as a motive for biased reporting?" KY "The press is eager for a change. A change from the same old stories and ideas to fresh new ideas that are different. A new administration is good material for news stories." TX "The public should also be able to accept information or exclude it as they wish. For example, in Time, October 19, 1992, there was an article Are the Media Too Liberal? In this article, a Washington reporter was quoted as saying, 'God, I hope Bush doesn't get re-elected. It'll be so boring, no fresh ideas, the same old people running the show and more Capitol Hill Gridlock. A Clinton Administration would be a much better story.' This was an excellent job by this reporter: he spoke what he felt and might have persuaded a few voters. This is the job of the media." IL "In this election, I think the media was biased against George Bush simply because if elected president, Bill Clinton would give them something new to write about." AR "It seems they the media forgot to tell the American public about Clinton's problems in his own state. It seems Clinton's great state had many problems of its own. But we never heard about those. We only heard about the glory stories of Clinton." OR "The media's support for Clinton was probably the clearest example of bias that evolved. It seemed to me that the media could have made their position

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so much clearer if they just would have come out and said: 'We're for Bill!' or 'Vote Clinton for Change!'" OH "I feel that this past election was wrapped around Clinton. Everything was Bill Clinton in the media's eye. Bill Clinton was going to win. So if the media thought he was going to win then [this] opinion rubbed off on the people." NY "Favorite candidates of the press are given unfair advantages such as more coverage, different types of questions, and less scrutiny. No, the media cannot create news, but it does choose what is reported." MD "The media has the ability.to support one candidate over another by either running a disproportionate amount of good coverage on the candidate they support or a disproportionate amount of bad coverage against those they don't." MI "When newspapers and magazines take sides with one candidate or another, or editors put in articles that support their party preferences, readers get a biased report of the presidential race." MN "The media's way of thinking for the people is through their bias shown in an election.... The media always has its favorites and lets the American people know who those favorites are." PA "Although television and the press claim not to be biased, it is very obvious that they are. Many stories reported in newspapers will disgrace one candidate while praising another. The writer may not purposely do this, but often the reader can detect which party or candidate is being supported." OH "The media, important as it may be, is a fairly prejudiced system. Maybe [it is] not prejudiced against color or creed, as in the past, but [is prejudiced] against a person or an idea." CA "The media's ability to cover candidates fairly and not take sides is a joke. The media is biased." IL "Most of the major newspapers in the country openly endorsed a candidate during this last election. How can a form of media that chooses one candidate over another remain unbiased?" MD

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"The whole reason journalists sensationalize what they report on is to influence public opinion and to sell their work. Why is this popular in the United States? People like gossip. Here in many of the small towns of the Midwest that is people's favorite pastime. They seem to get a tremendous joy out of it. So I can see why the media reports the news the way it does. That still does not excuse bad behavior." SD "Jeff Beauchamp, the vice-president station manager for WBAL 11 Radio, agreed that indeed the media is very biased. Reasons he stated that contribute to this problem are the media's hunger for viewers/listeners and, therefore, the inclination to focus on sensationalism rather than the candidates' actual stands on issues and their plans to better help the United States." MD "CNNhad a special report on whether the campaign coverage was being fairly reported. The purpose of the program was to alleviate complaints that the campaign coverage was one-sided. The outcome of the program resulted in a group of smug journalists talking about how fair coverage really was. Just as there should be a balance in nature, the American people should be provided a balance in journalism." OK "I think it would be nice if we could buy a newspaper that told us just the facts, covering both sides of a story equally. I think that there would be a large market for a paper like that and the people would be more informed and able to come to their own conclusion instead of following the biased opinions of the media." OR "As for the equality part, the media attempts to the best of their ability to be impartial and to give equal coverage to each of the real candidates. David Kiem said 'our paper's first priority is to be fair and give equal coverage, but to think we're totally impartial would be absurd.'" OH "In eleven issues of U.S. News and World Report dated from April 20, 1992 to November 23, 1992, there were 26 articles dealing with the election of the President of the United States. All of the candidates got basically an equal amount of coverage. There were seven articles on Clinton, eight articles on Bush, and six articles on Perot. There were also five articles dealing with all three of the candidates. On Clinton, there were five positive articles and two negative articles. On Bush there were two positive articles and six negative articles. And on Perot there were five positive articles and one negative article." MO

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"In reality, every conservative candidate from Nixon in 1968 to Bush in 1988 received between 66 percent and 80 percent of the daily newspaper endorsements. The notion of liberal bias was thus assumed even when the evidence contradicted it." KS "This past election is said to have sent a message to Washington. I heard several times how people were tired of mudslinging and that they wanted a change. I watched President Bush in his campaign and in the debates run Clinton down. I remember the officials of the debates asking Bush a question and then him turning it around and talking about Clinton protesting in Russia years ago. I also remember seeing Clinton trying to stick to the issue of the economy, no matter what the press or President Bush said. I even recall Clinton saying at a press conference that he was not going to drop to a level of calling names. Now that the election is over, we can see which style of campaign won." OK "In most cases...it seems as though the incumbent is the only recognized name on the ballot.... In addition, the local newspaper of our area, which is predominantly Republican, allows very little coverage for the more liberal candidates and their issues. Because the staff of that newspaper has no equally liberal adversary, the people here cannot rely on the written word to obtain information on a strong Democrat." IL "The press labeled him (Clinton) Slick Willie. That nickname gave him an image of a sly individual on the lookout for only himself. Americans started to read into the nickname as Clinton's side of the draft issue "changed". In the end, a Media Center study showed that Bill Clinton received 55 percent negative coverage from January to June 1." OH "It seemed this election was somewhat one-sided. Although reporters were knee deep in Arkansas, Bush still seemed to receive more exposure than Clinton." KS "On the other hand, there is certainly bias in the reader as well as in the reporter. If a story conflicts with a reader's opinions, he may judge it to be slanted." OK "The press usually is not one-sided." KS "Readers and viewers tend to see only what they want to. For most reporting there's usually somebody who is going to consider it biased...the

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media has in fact been doing the best job humanly possible in bringing forth the news without bias." NE "Overall, the majority of nationally known periodicals have leaned towards the liberal side of politics while small town and local newspapers have been predominantly conservative." KY "If there is a bias in the media, what difference has it made? Despite the supposed liberalism of the major news media, American voters have put conservative Republicans in the White House in 20 of the past 24 years." TX "Take the Nixon-Humphrey election for example. A study on the news reports on the candidates reported that between the three major networks, NBC, ABC, and CBS, a total of 8,428 good words to 8,307 bad words were recorded to have been said about Humphrey. This seems only a bit odd because we usually hear more bad news that good but this might still be considered unbiased. But when you take into consideration that a total of 1,620 good words compared to an outstanding 17,027 bad words were bias about Nixon, the tables seem a little lopsided. And when you also take into consideration that over 80 percent of the media polled voted democratic in that election, you can see how the opinions of the media affected the news that the television viewers watched. Let's match those statistics up to some taken from the 1984 election between Reagan and Mondale. The amount of good air time for Mondale and Ferraro was 1970 seconds compared to 1,450 seconds of negative air time. But for Reagan and Bush the ratio was 730 seconds positive to 8,740 seconds negative air time. That represents about 12 minutes versus almost two and a half hours. And there was not even one second of positive air time for George Bush in that election. Not one second! But did these statistics have any effect on the results of the election? We know that neither the Nixon-Humphrey nor Reagan-Mondale election was very close, and we also know that the winners in both of these elections were not those that the media would have had us choose. And we also know, by a study done in 1984 covering the Reagan-Mondale election, that only 3 percent of the voters were swayed by the media, and of these, 70 percent switched from Reagan to Mondale and 30 percent vice-versa. So it seems that the media had a negligible affect on the final outcome of the race." MD "Polls given to journalists indicate that they are overwhelmingly liberal, yet the companies that own the television stations and newspapers, which are

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owned by businessmen and women, are usually hardened conservatives, so perhaps an impasse is the best way to describe the media's bias." MO "In the recent 1992 elections the media did an outstanding job of impartial candidate coverage.... As evidence of this impartial coverage, in a national poll taken September 22, 1992 for Times Mirror 71 percent of the respondents thought Bush had been treated fairly by the media and 74 percent thought Clinton had." IL "Voters also have to keep in mind that the people in the media are also trying to encourage the public to vote for the same candidates that they believe in. This causes different sources of the media to report different things depending on how they want people to vote. That means that if an individual looks only at one or two sources, the individual will be usually hearing only one side of the story, and won't be fully informed. The best voting decisions that I feel people make, are after viewing and reading about the candidates from many different viewpoints." MN "When I looked at Time's coverage, I looked from July 20th up to the election. I found six different issues of the magazine with a political cover story. The first issue (the July 20th issue) featured Bill Clinton and Al Gore standing together. The second was the August 24th issue, which featured George Bush. The third issue from September 14th showed Hillary Clinton. The fourth issue was from September 28th and was featuring the economy. The fifth issue with a political cover story was the October 12th issue, which proclaimed Perot's return and sported a picture of all three candidates. The final issue with a political cover before the election [Oct. 19th] showed the three candidates after their first debate. The only major political candidate that was not featured without the others was Ross Perot. Bush and Clinton got equal time, while Hillary Clinton was the only candidate's wife to show up on the cover. Next I looked at the articles in these six magazines. I found a total of nine about George Bush, one about Barbara Bush, two about Dan Quayle, one about Marilyn Quayle, eight about Clinton, one about Hillary, three about Al Gore, one about Tipper Gore, seven about Ross Perot, and one about the Republican Party's woes. There were no articles on Stockdale or the Democrat Party. There was also one article that judged how well the media was doing in covering the campaign.

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The articles were generally written without bias, although occasionally a few statements would color an article. The editors did a good job in keeping the magazine balanced. There were nearly equal numbers of articles on each person. The lack of articles on Perot in general and Stockdale in particular is because of Perot's dropping from the race, and his late pick of a vice-presidential candidate. Throughout the period that Perot was out of the race, very little was said about him. There was a small biography on Stockdale in the October 12th issue, but other than that, Perot's candidate for second-in-command was rarely mentioned. The magazine also tried to put in the same number of letters for and against each issue. Even though the editors undoubtedly received piles of mail on one position, and few on the other side, they usually ended up putting in a good balance. The article, Are the Media Too Liberal? takes a look at how well the press has done in covering the campaign. This has been compared to asking a congressman if he did a good job on the budget on the eve of an election. The article comes to the conclusion that nearly all of the press has been fair throughout the campaign. In coming to this conclusion, they use quotes such as Richard Cohen's quote, 'Liberal or conservative, a reporter is a primitive being who would go after his own mother if he thought that was a good story.' The author of the article also points out that a media conspiracy would be impossible because of difficulties in getting a paper published at all. The article goes on to say that any bias that is detected can be dismissed because the press wants some new blood in the White House, and it will probably just reverse in four years. They also point out that some of the strongest criticisms of the candidates came from their party. They also point to a poll that said that over 70 percent of the people surveyed thought the press had dealt with the candidates fairly.... In conclusion, it is tough to tell whether or not the media as a whole was biased. It is necessary to take a look at each publication on an individual basis before coming to a conclusion...Time did a relatively good job of keeping the field even." WI

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Media

as

an

establishment:

business

is

business

"The news media has been changed from a brave, controversy-seeking faction to a community of self-censoring, congress-fearing puppets of whom the politically powerful are the puppeteers...the media is not the same establishment that once looked for the Extra, but it is merely a reserved, timid society, a society that has ignored its once unquenchable thirst for the truth in order to satisfy its hunger for the more material things, money and power." KY "Members of the media, who see fit to secure their future, may sacrifice the principals of honest journalism to obtain a quick profit." MI "The truth is not always as interesting as a scandal." NY "I don't think the media will change the slant of the newspapers during the presidential campaigns because they sell a lot of papers that way, but I hope this helps them learn that people would like less coverage of their personal business and more information about issues that would really affect us." TX "The economic arguments are unmistakable. The fact is that writers want to sell their magazines and newspapers. Anchors and reporters want people to watch their programs, thereby supporting their network. The media is a huge capitalistic industry.... They cover the candidates that have the most support, who will help them to sell their magazines, newspapers, or network....the media is an industry, set up to cater to the consumer." KY "Hardly anything is ever written about candidates for local elections, except the advertising space bought by a campaign office." AL "The candidates are buying media time up there because 60 percent of Illinois votes come from Chicago. The rest of us are left out until later... Even our local newspaper owner will not come to our school to cover a candidate, because the candidate will not run an advertisement in his media source. The candidate wants a free ad, so in return he is not going to get covered at all." IL "It seems that the media does not support candidates or their campaigns. They more or less favor the candidate which will benefit them with the most profit." MN

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"When looking into personal lives, the media may not be doing it for the good of the country, but maybe to boost television ratings or to sell more papers." MI "Scandals will sell a magazine or increase the number of persons watching a certain show, which is exactly what the media thrives on." MO "The media is a business and they need to sell their product. So it is no wonder that the media focuses on sensational articles if that's what a majority of the public wants." WI "I feel that the media is too commercial. It seems they will do anything to get ratings! Sometimes I think that the press gets the attitude that it doesn't matter what the front page story is, as long as it gets the public's attention along with what they consider most important: ratings." OK "Advertisers, who pay the high costs of air time, want to reach the largest possible audience. Because most people are more interested in being entertained than they are in being informed, we find very few public affairs programs aired in prime time." IN "The reason that the media coverage is infested with biases and unequal coverage of candidates and issues is because it is a business. Competing networks sometimes do anything to distinguish themselves in their coverage of the same news because money is involved. If a network is primarily concerned about making money, a conflict of interests may arise, given the opportunity. I work on a newspaper, and an editorial was discarded when it was learned that the institution it was criticizing was buying an ad." TN "An important story may get put on hold because advertising material had already been laid out and there is no room for the news." NE "Journalists frequently have a limited amount of time and space, and they must balance between straight facts and far more interesting action. This especially applies to TV which often has a mere thirty minutes to inform, all the while trying to put in enough entertainment to prevent the average viewer from changing the channel to A Current Affair." PA "If the people of this nation find the coverage of candidates appalling, they should refrain from buying the paper or listening to the news stories. Like

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any other business, the media must make a living. If they cannot create enough interest in their news stories, they will go out of business." OR "The media is a business and, like any other business, needs to make a profit..... The media will not choose to report only the political issues unless the political issues are what sells. Therefore, the American people have the responsibility of choosing to read about who will lower the national deficit and listen to radio broadcasts about who will create jobs. If the American people choose to watch the TV shows, listen to radio broadcasts, and read the newspapers and magazines about the political issues, then the media will report about the issues because the issues will be what sells." IL "Does the media want a ratings boost or a good leader in the government?" PA

East-West poll closings exit polls and the media

"People complain that it is not right for reporters to create a phony suspense by sitting on poll results the night of an election. Some argue that election night reporting resembles the early days of baseball broadcasting where the announcers knew the final score but would not tell you. When reporters tell the outcome in some states before the polls have closed, it creates three problems. First, western states have a poor voter turnout. Second, it discourages potential voters. Third, the polls are unreliable." MA "A lot of people were...angered in the last election due to the fact that the people on the eastern coast already knew the winner of the election hours before the last vote was cast." NY "Television networks have been criticized for predicting the winner of elections before the polls have even closed on the west coast. Some stations on the west coast refused to air coverage of the elections because political forecasting discourages voters from participating in the election process. KS "If television and radio would not reveal the results until the polls are closed in the west, there might be greater turnouts at the booths.... Hopefully this essay will stir some thoughts in the minds of people who can do something about irresponsible media and keeping results secret until all booths are closed." OR

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"These (exiting polls) tell who the projected winner or loser is going to be. This can be bad for the people in California when they hear that one candidate is winning by a landslide. They might not even vote because they will not think that their vote will make any difference. It is being debated whether they should wait and tell the public who will be the president until 2:00 a.m. eastern standard time. This way they could prove if the exiting polls have any effect on voters." KY "Television networks should wait until 9 PM central time on election night before releasing results in order to give most of the voters a chance to get out and vote before they hear any projections that may influence their decisions." WI "Predicting the winner before all polls were closed, in my opinion, was not a wise decision. California is the largest state in the U.S. in terms of population as well as electoral votes. It is also on the west coast, three hours behind New York, where the networks reside. California was considered to be the key state in the elections. Whoever won California was sure to take the presidency. However, Bill Clinton had already been projected the winner before the California polls had even closed. The media had affected the results in California by making their votes unimportant." MD "Exit polls should be done away with. It is very annoying to see who is most likely to win before a person leaves the house to vote. Undecided voters may suddenly, on impulse, decide to vote for the leading candidate in the exit polls. People who were going to vote for the underdog may change their minds after seeing how badly their candidate is doing in the exit polls. Nobody should know who will win the election until all the votes are tallied and the winner is announced." CA "On election day, television networks fight to see who can release the earliest poll predictions and results. Voters hear which candidate is in the lead before they have the opportunity to vote!" PA "The high coverage on election day with the stressing of early exit polls and early projections on the outcome has a negative impact on voter turnout. People have a 'one vote doesn't count' mentality and when they hear the candidate they were planning to vote for is losing they don't bother to go out and vote. On the flip side, if a voter hears their candidate is ahead in the projections they may declare victory early and not go out and vote.

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The east coast coverage has been proven to have a negative effect in the west." MI "The media shouldn't be allowed to cover the election unless all voting hours are done nationwide." MN "One vote is significant in the local and state elections. If people do not vote in the national elections, they do not vote for the issues in their states. Because of the rivalry between national news stations to be the first to report the results, state elections feel the wrath. The media should withhold all results until all the polls across the continent have closed. People on the west coast would feel like their vote really did make a difference." OR "Voters should not be advised, one way or another, how the election is going until the election is over. By not knowing who is winning or losing, voters would feel that their votes truly do count. This would provide for a more accurate count of what the people truly want. It would also make for a better voter turnout." FL "A real point for controversy is the exit polls done by television networks...the networks should take into consideration that some people want a little suspense." WI "A heated argument began on the evening news the night of the election. One of the newscasters believed that the people on the east coast are entitled to see their results, and disagreed about withholding the information until the west coast was finished. The correspondent believed the opposite. One of the other newscasters stated that he thought people on the east coast should just wait until midnight to reveal the winner and forget about showing the progress of the election until then. Needless to say, the man with compromise settled the argument." OH "I support Rube Goldberg of the New York Times with the idea of extending daylight savings time for two weeks in the west, keeping east coast polls open until 9:00 PM, while requiring the west coast polls to close at 7:00 PM. This system creates a 'uniform poll closing' which keeps westerners from having a devalued vote when eastern votes are in already. Knowing the results of an election before all the votes are in undermines the purpose of democracy and the importance of the people." NY

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"The media, however, decides that there will be 'no joy in Mudville' and tells, not once but over and over and over again, who the winners will be [with a margin of error plus or minus three percentage points]. They told the ending!" IN

Polls---do they lead or follow ?

"I also think there should be fewer polls aired on media airways. These polls may sway our opinion to a more popular candidate instead of the best candidate." IL "The most disgusting part, in the midst of all that chaos, was that the media seemed not to know its own strength. The television blurted out facts and figures daily; the people watched expectantly to see which candidate was on top. The problem with that was that the public assumed that the man with the best total score was the best choice, and that is not what choice is about." OH "But do the polls result [in] change when they are made public? I believe that they do. The bandwagon effect is the major cause of this. The public wants to be associated with a winning team, so they will change their votes to be associated with this winning combination." IN "A local resident admitted, 'The only reason I voted for some candidates on election day is simply because that person was the one who was winning in the polls before I left to vote.'" IL "They should not be able to use polls as a means of determining who is in the lead." TN "Polls are cheaper to produce than actual informative stories, and the media contends that the public is not interested in anything else." KS "Many readers of opinion polls come away with mixed feelings. The media, in trying to give the public an idea of the standings of popular candidates, may only confuse voters.... Instead of reading polls, voters should read other material on the candidates and decide for themselves who to vote for." NE "The use of sample surveys and election polls by the news media do not help voters assess the qualifications of the candidates. Figures do not tell if candidates are competent. Election polls are like editorials. They are public

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opinions and they tend to be biased. In the recent election, the media gave election polls extensive coverage, and some voters used these polls as their basis for their decision." CA "Polls could possibly be misrepresentation of what the American voters want. Polls are in the first place, only a limited survey of subscribers taken in one day after an event. Voters will sometimes see which candidate the consensus of Americans are supposedly voting for, and will take a more critical look at one candidate's issues and ignore others. These polls could most definitely be a misrepresentation of American voters and could be wrong. Polls should take into consideration political rallies, conventions, or poor television coverage and they should print largely what region the poll was taken in and a short description of their polling consensus." OK "A poll often becomes a source of misinformation rather than insight into what's happening." WI "The media needs to categorize lesser known candidates under important information, and polls under unimportant information." CA "For instance, if the media is continually polling the same group of people the results will turn out the same and viewers will think these opinions are from a wide variety of people. This sort of deception is what the media specializes in." TX "Among the many polls discussed during the vote counting, one that stuck out in my mind was about the category - white Protestants in Florida. I do not think this is worth reporting; it is such a small group of people." PA "The USA Today CNN Gallup Poll telephoned one thousand registered voters considered to be likely to vote. They added that there was an error margin of three percent. It does not mention, however, where the voters live. If the particular voters were a majority of Democrats, the poll would tend to favor Bill Clinton, and would not be as accurate as it may appear. In its chart, USA Today compares the results of that poll to an earlier poll. [It showed] Clinton's [favorable] percentage [was down] by seven percent. Bush's percentage [was] also off but only by three percent. Perot's [ratings], however, increased by eight percent. Would the decrease in Clinton's lead be an accurate reading? We don't know if the voters were the same as before or not. If the voters were the same, it may be a true indication of the success of Perot's campaign. However, if they were different voters each

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time, then the poll may not show how the public's opinion has changed." PA "Poll results often give information that is misinterpreted. The outcome of the polls depends on who is asked and how the questions are asked." OH "The media gave information such as who was ahead and who was behind but most of the media source that did the polling failed to disclose the information on how they did the polls. The public is not informed of how many people, where polled, or their political party. It could have been a poll of ten Democrats or of ten Republicans. The public just assumes that it's a random sample of people from different parties." OK "The statistics found in polls often vary and are very undependable." CA "In 1936 a poll conducted by the Literacy Digest incorrectly determined that the Republican candidate, Alf Landon, would win the U. S. presidential election....In the 1946 election, most polls mistakenly predicted a victory for the Republican candidate, Thomas E. Dewey, over President Harry S. Truman.... Since 1948 techniques of public opinion research and polling have improved considerably. Efforts are now made to select respondents without bias, to improve the quality of questionnaires, and to train reliable interviewers." MI "They [voters] were continually told of the media's opinion of which candidate was leading in the polls. This led to many persons deciding not to vote because they felt it would not make a difference." IL "By telling the entire nation who is ahead, the people begin to feel that maybe because everybody else is voting for this candidate, they should as well. I am sure that there are many registered voters in America that [base] their vote on the feeling that the majority cannot be wrong." CA "There hasn't been a day in which there isn't a new poll released telling the public who we think is going to win the election.... In the two months before the election, Bill Clinton led both incumbent President George Bush and independent Ross Perot in the polls by 10 to 15 percentage points.... This gave voters the impression that Bill Clinton would win the election in a landslide." MD

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"The media overdosed on polls, it seemed that every day a new one was out." PA "Who will vote for Ross Perot if the media keeps telling us he cannot win? For that matter, why bother voting for Bush when everyone knows Clinton is up by ten points?" IL "The results of the polls usually show the candidate chosen by the media in the lead. If the polls do not show what the media would like, then they are sometimes discarded. [According to Doris Graber, author of Mass Media American Politics] 'Gallup Poll ratings in early February that gave Carter only five percent of the national vote were ignored.' I believe they ignored the poll because they wanted the public to believe that Carter was the most popular candidate. This causes a portion of the voters to believe that the candidate with the best outcome in the polls is the candidate most favored by the voting public." NY "Constant concentration on who is ahead in the polls limits the real choice of American voters and violates the democracy and integrity of the electoral process because the voters are not getting the real facts on the issues." MA "Polls can help focus attention on questions concerning the public and stimulate discussion of them, or polls can shape the opinions they are supposed to measure...They are helpful to the candidates in an election, but to the majority of the public, polls offer no benefits and are merely interesting. When the public is accurately informed on the issues and candidates in an election, the question of who comes out on top will take care of itself." MN

How can we improve the media? Ideas

"What I have gathered from people by talking with them is that they are fed up with the media...one person said, 'It's supposed to be news about our nation, so it should not sound like it's coming from the National Enquirer.... We must look to the people and what interests (them) as individuals. The most common subject is other people's dirty laundry.' This is a response from one of the people I interviewed about his opinion of the media." WI "Another responsibility of the media's, which is sadly not observed, lies in making sure the transition from uncovering dirt to creating dirt is not made." SD

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"The media needs to only take statements directly from each candidate's platform documents. This allows the public to know exactly what each candidate says. It also forces the candidates to actually write their opinions out instead of talking their way around the issues." IL "The media should be more concerned about relaying the facts of not only who is running for office but what plans that person has for the future of the United States." OK "With less focus on scandal and more focus on the determining issues, the nation can best decide who to choose to lead its country." OR "The people want the reporter to cut beating around the bush and get into the issues that really count, such as issues on the economy, defense spending, foreign policies, and health care." NY "The good news is that the public grasps the distinction between real news and mere campaign issues. It was this clear sense of what is important, more than all of the media's analysis of Bush's charges that kept all of the media hype from seriously harming Clinton." MA "The final decision...to communicate garbage or information rests in the hands of the heads of every major news service." PA "The media must start putting the rights of the candidates to be left alone above the right of the public to know." SD "I personally feel that if the candidate has a problem that will affect his ability to run [for] office then the press should let it be known, but if it has no relation to the presidency, then give him a little privacy." CA "In the 1886 novel The Bostonians by Henry James, the author created the character Matthaid Pardon, a nosy and insensitive newsman who thought that everything was the public's business. The character caused quite a controversy, and led to the 1890 Harvard Law Review article concerning the right of privacy of an individual by future Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis and the Boston social and business figure, Samuel Warren". MD "Many of the politicians that were ruined because of the media's probing might have been really good presidents, senators, and such. The only things that really might affect someone's campaign is having a drinking problem

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or tax problem. The media should stay out of any other issues or else we are going to lose some very capable individuals." MN "Candidates' personal lives should be kept out of the public eye.... Candidates should be chosen for what they do or will do while in office. They should be known for their strong points, not their faults. Nobody is perfect. Even the best presidents in the history of the United States made their mistakes. We just didn't hear much about them because the media wasn't as influential as it is today." PA "They should start leaving out the candidate's personal life unless it is something that will affect his job in office." OH "I feel that the most pressing issue involving political campaigns is the media's constant allusion to the candidates' personal lives. All of their trials and tribulations, misfortunes and mistakes are promulgated throughout the nation." PA "First, exactly what degree of proof is required to consider a story [true]? Second, even if the story is true, should it...out of respect for the candidate's privacy,[be] kept behind closed doors? And 'third, are the candidates' private lives really relevant to their ability to function in office?" MI "The media should not dig into the past records of the candidates." IL "Not only are personal lives non-relevant to the job an official can and will do, the sources that are used to obtain these personal stories are often unreliable and, in the cases above, often deceitful and misleading." OR "The candidate's private lives should stay just that, private." SD "The real question is whether the private lives of public figures matter." OH "Sometimes I feel I receive more truth and facts in the Enquirer than in the daily newspaper. At least in the Enquirer it's fun not having all the facts and truth but in a newspaper it's expected to have the whole story. Until the press cleans up its act and gets its head out of the trash it should only play a minimal part in national elections." PA

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"The media should not pry into the private lives of political candidates. The public is more concerned about the issues at hand and how the candidate responds to them. The media should just tell the facts and not rumors that cannot even be proved. The media has several roles to fill and prying into private lives is not one of them." OR "The private lives of some are exploited, while others' private lives are hidden and explained away. Although regulation of this is difficult, it needs to be addressed. Much of the information dug up by journalists has absolutely no relevance to the office for which the candidates are contending. Some things are better left alone." SD "The private lives that the public wants to hear about are their own. They want to know if they will have a job next year and whether or not they can get an abortion, not if George Bush had an affair with his secretary twenty years ago." OR "Their [candidates'] personal lives should be exactly that, personal, not juicy table conversation for every family nationwide. I believe in freedom of the press, but I also believe in the candidate's right to privacy." OH "I think the media should bring out the helpful truth not the damaging trash." PA "Unbalanced and biased reporting may indeed be the exception to a respectable rule, but the media will have to work to eliminate such reports if they wish to regain the public's trust and respect." OK "In my opinion, sexual allegations should meet the same standard of proof as allegations on any other subject. Most sexual allegations are very difficult to prove. And this is, I think, the reason not to print them." SD "The press has not always stooped to sensationalizing the private lives of candidates; in fact, that area of candidates' lives has been pursued more in the past 20 years than ever before." OK "Andrew Jackson lost a large number of votes because of rumors that his wife was married to two men. But even though this scandal was a major problem for him, obviously many people were concerned with his ability to be a good president, not with his private life. Only recently has a politician's private life become a main issue." PA

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"I believe that the media should take part in presenting to the public how each candidate is doing in the election, what they intend to do for our country and how they are going to perform these tasks." MN "As for the woman writer who [authored] the New York Times The Faces Behind The Face That Clinton's Smile Masks; you know she was either pro-Bush or pro-Perot from the way she talked and ripped apart Governor Bill Clinton. That shouldn't be allowed to happen." NY "Giving an unbiased report of a candidate should be the goal of every member of the media. Those who have different goals are either in the business for sensationalism or money....When people want an advertisement they can get one from the campaign headquarters of a candidate, but they should not be getting an advertisement from their newspaperespecially when they are expecting unbiased truth. What the media can do (and still be unbiased) is show two advertisements for opposing candidates and then point out the fallacies in each." OK "Politics can influence the media even as the media manipulates the political scene." PA "The media shouldn't worry about things in the [candidates] private life or stuff that happened in the past. It should just report on the present, and how it will affect us." MN "Some action needs to be taken to return media to its singular role as an informational tool." OK

Media coverage of elections: how important is a candidate's character?

"Maybe character should be an issue, but it should be about occurrences in the last few years, not decades." AR "They [the media] should not drag up things that happened before the candidates were adults with a mature outlook." AL "As far as I'm concerned, whatever candidates do before they run for a government position is their own business, but what they do while they are in office is our business." SD

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"We must take everything we hear about the candidates' lives in stride, because we may never know the truth of the matter. Candidates should be judged on merit, not on character. 'Character is something that evolves. It isn't static.' " PA "Public office is not a question of moral character, it is a question of ability and that is what the press should pay attention to; ability." SD "While most journalists believe character background is important in a candidate, they also believe that a line must be drawn between what is reasonable character background, and what is extraneous information, or even slander." MD "The media's coverage should reflect the issues and objective information without opinion interjected...some background on candidates is necessary because it shows their character. Prying and digging into someone's past is taking coverage a little too far." OK "If there were some kind of laws, perhaps with stiff penalties, governing this matter, maybe potential stories would be forgotten instead of published." MI "Sometimes, a legitimate connection can be drawn between a politician's private life and his public position." PA "Why doesn't the media find that important (Clinton's alleged affair). Why? Because Clinton and other products of the 60s generation were part of the 60s sexual revolution where marriage fidelity was not emphasized. If a man cannot even be truthful to his wife, why would he be truthful to his country? A liar is a liar." KY "The media is spurred on by the public's apparent need for a personal relationship with the candidate. Voters must continuously know where a candidate is and what he is doing during a campaign as secrecy and privacy are seen as inappropriate. In our poll, barely half of those polled said that the personal lives of candidates did not affect their opinion. Personal presentation by the candidate is a very important factor. Over 80 percent said that how a candidate behaves and controls himself affects their opinion." VA

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"If a man can't be loyal to his own wife and family, how can he be loyal and honest enough to run our country? This fact really bothered me, and it still does." OH "If reports on marital infidelities are true and properly documented, then they are important in judging the character of the candidate. This should also be the case with other reports that question the candidate's trustworthiness and integrity. The media is responsible in bringing the character issue to the attention of the American voters. Media coverage of the 1992 election did not put much emphasis on the character issue which deserves equal presentation and analysis." CA "It is part of the media's job to fill in facts and questions about a candidate that he may not want known, because the way a person lives his life indicates his depth of character." OH "The media supporters claim that reporters should investigate the honesty of the candidates. This relates to their ability to properly perform their duty for the voters." MA "The Gennifer Flower-Bill Clinton story can be seen in bad taste; it also can be seen as a report on character, an important factor in choosing a candidate." OK "The personal lives of the candidates do make a difference. The best indicator of future behavior is that of the past." NE "Instead of focusing on the more important issues relevant to today's world, the media dwelt on an event which occurred twenty-five years ago during the candidate's youth. Yet, there are those who argued that this [avoiding the draft] was an indication of Clinton's patriotism, loyalty, and character all important in a Presidential candidateso the media had a right, or even an obligation, to report it." OH "Even though they may go to extremes, the media must be nosy. If not, then the people may never find out the truth about a candidate. Real stories break as a result of the media's aggressiveness." MA "While most would agree that focusing on the issues is important, some go so far as to say that it's the only thing to consider. They are of the opinion that the media has no business prying into the personal matters of political

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candidates. They believe that the right to privacy is clearly being violated. Besides, no one's perfect, why should we expect our politicians to be? As long as they are qualified for the job, their personal life should have no bearing on whether or not they win the election. "I happen to disagree with the argument above. I think it is quite important that the American people know what kind of men or women they're voting for. This surely does not mean that the candidate has (to sacrifice) all privacy. However, it does mean that they cannot expect to have extramarital relationships without the press reporting the story to the nation. Gary Hart found this out in 1988 and dropped out of the presidential face. Some might find this unfair but I believe we must remember what positions these people are running for. Being the president of the United States means [being] the leader of a huge mass of people [with] the potential to do an unbelievable amount of good or bad, much depending of course on the Congress, who also should by no means be exempt from the media's attention. I believe the personal life of a candidate does indeed give us a very good indication of how he/she will perform in office. Can we expect a president who can't keep his promise to his 'beloved' wife to keep his many promises to an entire nation? Can we expect a Congress who consistently writes bad checks of their own to be able to handle the federal deficit? The answer is obvious. "Don't get me wrong. A person is capable of changing. Thus, it is important that the media is careful in deciding the amount of time spent covering the candidate's personal life, leaving the choice of whether to forgive and forget up to the people." SD "The media should just present the public with the candidates' views on important issues, and leave their personal lives and past out of it." MA "The media should stay out of the personal live of all candidates, and look at them in a purely professional way." IN "It is truly a sad state of affairs when an entire country becomes so desensitized that we push the media to dig into personal lives, the part that should be kept private." IL "A president doesn't have to talk about his sex life, marital problems, childhood, or any other personal details to inform the public of the way he'll perform as president." PA

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"Privacy for candidates should stop where wealth and health begin; nobody should test personal morality as a condition of employment." SD "I believe that people or candidates who want to gain the public's trust should be willing to give up their privacy on matters of money and illness but that is as far as it should go." TN "If the person is a drug addict or an ax murderer that is on thing, but truthfully how relevant is a candidate's past to his future in office? Will we keep choosing our officials this way until we end up with some perfect unflawed stiff in office with no idea of how to run the country?" IL "A politician making a decision of whether to run for an office must make certain that he has never missed a car payment or looked at a neighbor wrong. Pointing out all the bad points in another person in an attempt to place one's self higher up on the success ladder is considered a turn-off in society. The idea that if I can make him look really bad, I will seem even better seems to be dominating much of the campaigning. Media needs to make an effort to stop coverage of downgrading remarks, and present only the facts." SD "The media says that the people have a right to know about the character of the person, but character is just a term that serves as a blanket justification for all media excess." PA "I was watching 60 Minutes one evening when they were interviewing Bill Clinton. Instead of asking him anything worthwhile, they asked him about his alleged affair with Gennifer Flowers. The interviewers wanted to know if it had happened or not. I don't believe it did, but even so, it's irrelevant. If I had the chance to be on that show, I would be mad if I couldn't talk about my positions on important issues. They practically beat the subject to death trying to milk him for details about an affair that probably didn't happen and if it did, why would he want to sit on national TV and admit to the world and humiliate his wife?" TX "Television news broadcasts should concentrate more on candidates' achievements and ambitions rather than their personal life as a teenager and the complications in their marriages." NY

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Ethicsyours, mine and the media's

"Overall, the world of journalism should increase its morals, ethics, and standards so that Americans can be informed and make effective, factual decisions and the country, as a whole can become agreeable and productive together. The responsibility of informing the entire country should not be taken lightly. There are reporters out there who are interested in bettering our country and those dedicated journalists should be heard and become examples for all. To be a journalist is an honorable profession and should produce results that reflect the meeting of the needs of the uninformed public." PA "An average citizen is not allowed to publicize or broadcast false or damaging information, and neither should the media [be allowed to do so]." SD "No one knows exactly what the moral code is, but I think alleged love affairs and taking drugs would not follow under a moral conduct code for President of the United States." OK "Though the press does not always show the best ethics, I don't believe it is fair to ask the media to change its unethical ways when the public seems to enjoy it the most when it is being unethical." PA "The majority of American voters, however, are not concerned about the moralistic values of our country. Turn on your television. Go see a movie. Does it look like we as Americans are basing this country on morals or religion? AR "I feel that in order to encourage the media to report on ethical and verifiable information, a committee of representatives from most major newspapers, TV station and radio stations should be formed. This committee would vote on the legitimacy and ethics of all stories of each individual station or newspaper. If the station or newspaper met certain criteria, as voted on by the committee, then it would earn an approval stamp to show to the public that it is unbiased and reports on ethical verifiable news. As a result, the public could distinguish between legitimate newspapers and sensational, fictional periodicals [i.e. the Enquirer]. The voters could also discriminate between real news and sensational shows such as Hard Copy and A Current Affair." OR

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"Let's beware of the vultures of today's society; let's set an example ourselves of being honest and treating our neighbors as we would want to be treated ourselves." SD "As children we are taught to take things at face value and that everyone is honest, but really life is not like that at all." PA "I don't believe that a candidate's moral standards define how good a politician he will be.... I think that media coverage of moral issues confuses the campaign even more and overshadows the candidate's political views." MA "Nowadays image is more important than honesty." IN "Personal ethics should be irrelevant unless they are directly related to the candidate's capacity to serve." OH "The media always has such cunning ways and extraordinary schemes to find out anything they can about anyone in the public eye. All they care about isratings and awards. They don't seem to mind whose life they disrupt or who they hurt...do you honestly think they really care if what they say or print is the God's honest truth? In my opinion their top priority is the ratings and headlines." SD "In this ever-changing world of deceit and corruption, it would be a comfort to know that at least the media told the truth. Sometimes it is doubtful whether the media is embellishing a subject or just plain lying." IL "It scares me to think that the person or people who I am relying on for the truth...may be lying to me." PA "They (the Clintons) specifically barred photographers from bothering their cat. What did they [the media] do? They used catnip to lure the cat out of the mansion. This was about as dumb as they could get. A picture was taken and all these photographers were either lying on the ground, or kneeling to get pictures of the cat. It really made them look stupid. First of all, who cares what kind of cat they have, or who cares if they have one at all?.... To me, it shows you can't trust these people. It also makes me wonder what schemes they can come up with on other subjects." SD

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"There was no limit to the mudslinging that took place in the elections. For an election where one of the main issues was values, the media and candidates certainly put theirs on hold." MA "Show business, politics, and the press have become one inseparable business, however, and the ethics of unbiased reporting seem to have been lost with the principle of ethical government." PA "When the media broadcasts a candidate's lifestyle, it gives people a view of that candidate's moral standards. It is important for us to know these standards because, as a person in leadership, the candidate will be an example for others to follow." SD "Public opinions seem to become lost in a labyrinth constructed by our own government and controlled by the media. The values that each person discusses at the dinner table never reach the far and away distance on the government's work tables." MO "In the end, it all becomes a question of morality and values. What the media feels should be released." OH "While establishing ethics in journalism and broadcasting is important, it is not easy to achieve. There should be a Media's Code of Ethics put together by reporters, broadcasters and journalists to outline the ideals that they deem necessary for proper presentation of information. Media presenters would be likely to accept their peer's standards if they are presented to them in a nonthreatening way. "Another way to monitor the quality of a news reporting organization is to establish an overseeing committee of professionals who critique...their peers. This committee's suggestions would carry the weight of peers and the public." NY "People are at the mercy of the journalists' integrity, because they have no other means of ascertaining the information that they need. This is particularly important at the time of an election....While the country is embroiled in a heated race for the presidency, and honesty is most important, somehow the truth and campaign rhetoric become clouded. The media does little to alleviate the difficulty of choosing the most trustworthy candidate." PA

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"A very important point to remember is that influence by the media is not something that is required to happen, but rather something that is allowed to happen." TX

A little media history

"In the early days, most of the political news was spread by word of mouth or small, opinionated, local newspapers. Thomas Paine presented ideas to the public in his pamphlet Common Sense during Revolutionary times. Mass media did not exist and therefore votes were cast on the basis of knowledge of the qualifications of the candidates and by opinionated conversation." OK "More than 200 years ago in 1789, George Washington was elected the first President of our country. But before this historic election, there was debate among the delegates on a means to select the President. Many delegates argued that the people would likely be uninformed. Charles Pickney, a delegate of South Carolina, said that providing an election for the people would be like 'offering a choice of colors to the blind.'" OR "In the 1800s, Presidential candidates were chosen by the leaders of their political parties. In those days, the political parties, newspapers, and magazines discussed the issues and the candidates' plans for the workings of the government. But in the early 1900's, primaries began, and these same political parties began to lose their power to the media." MD "No two Presidential candidates have been more different than the men who opposed each other in 1828. Andrew Jackson, the candidate of the new Democrat Party, was a tough, tough frontiersman and military hero. John Quincy Adams, the candidate of the National Republicans, was a Harvard-educated Boston lawyer and diplomat. As a politician, Jackson was armed with personal charisma and widespread popularity as the great hero of the battle of New Orleans. But his most powerful weapon was an aggressive, publicity-wise political machine. Jackson's campaign set a new pattern in American politics, and many historians consider it the first modern Presidential campaign Jackson bombarded the newspapers with images showing him as a friend of the common man, and Adams as a friend of the rich. Jackson supporters organized rallies, barbecues, parades, and demonstrations. After Jackson's win it became difficult for any politician to win the presidency without presenting himself as a friend of the common man and without a party affiliation. KS

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"If the media of the late 18th Century was anything however, it was biased. Almost all forms of the primitive, yet fledgling, mass media were controlled and owned by politicos with their own private agendas, of which the truth usually had little part. Those early newspapers were primarily interested in swaying readers towards the paper's, and ultimately the editor's, political philosophy or party. They featured extremely prejudicial articles whose sole intent was the degradation of any opposing party or opinion. But due to the rather severe viewpoints these newspapers held, not to mention the rather huge expense involved in the production of an issue, most had very limited influence. Very few even had more than one thousand readers. "However, in the 1830's, a publisher by the name of Benjamin Day revolutionized the role of the press in society at that time. He began to publish an objective newspaper that printed articles on a wide range of subjectscrime, accidents, gossipthat would appeal to all readers. Day's paper covered many different viewpoints, especially concerning politics and government. Soon many other newspapers with the same publication formula began to dominate the newsstands. The day of the blatantly biased newspapers was gone." MD "What would have happened if the media of today had covered the Presidential election of 1860? Thirty seventh-graders at John F. Kennedy School in Somerville, Massachusetts did exactly that. In researching the four candidates of the 1860 election, the students were amazed to find out, that at the time of the 1860 election, Lincoln had no intention of abolishing slavery in the South. Michael Pabian, the students' teacher said that, 'They [the students] thought that seeing and hearing Lincoln actually say, looking out into the camera, that he was not going to take their slaves away from them, would have made a big difference to the majority of Southerners.'" KS "The earliest media event can be traced back to 1896. Mark Hanna, campaigning for McKinley, did most of the work from his candidate's home in Canton, Ohio. He even included marching bands, parades, and pilgrimages by local supporters. Hanna kept in mind that his constituents consisted of urban workers who grew up on farms and suffered from the first major industrial-era depression. He fittingly named the campaign, McKinley and a Full Dinner Pail." PA

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"If you reflect back to the Spanish-American War of 1898 you would see that the media are one of the major reasons it got started. They called it yellow-journalism. This was when the media [meaning newspapers] would print ideas that would make the Americans react to the Spaniards. The problem was that not all of the information they printed was the truth.... At this point in time the Spanish-American War, and how the candidates were chosen in that era of time, is irrelevant to the American people of today. Although the media has chosen not to change, citizens of the United States of America have." SD "William Howard Taft, 27th President of the United States, serves as a good example of how times have changed. Taft was a modest man who felt that he was not qualified for high office. {According to] the World Book Encyclopedia, 'He had no gift of showmanship, and none of the sense of drama and color that wins the hearts of many persons.' In addition to this he was a very large man, certainly not the type who would impress you while jogging on the White House lawn. Would this man have won a modern-day election? Would he have won a modern-day primary? Probably not In 1909 though, Mr. Taft's physique and apparent lack of vigor were not an issue. The voters formed their decisions after having gained an appreciation of the candidates' positions from newspapers and journals." NY "In 1934, socialist writer Upton Sinclair ran for governor of California on the Democrat's ticket. Initially dismissed as an idealistic fringe candidate, Sinclair astounded everyone when he won the primary election with a thumping majority, receiving more votes than all of his opponents combined. Republican businessmen, realizing they could no longer afford to dismiss Sinclair and his visionary ideas, collected the previously unheard of sum of $10 million to mount an advertising campaign against him. All across the state they rented 2,000 billboards, plastered with alarming quotations that they put his name to as if it were his quote. Many went against him. Sinclair, whose candidacy had at first seemed so strong, was easily defeated in the election by a candidate whose own supporters described him as 'lackluster.' It was by no means the first or the last time that a political candidate would be defeated by the combined power of advertising and corporate money." SD "All of this opponent-bashing and name-calling that we see in a campaign on television and in the newspaper today started in the 1934 California governor's race when Upton Beall Sinclair won the Democrat's primary by

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a very large margin. The other candidates decided that if they wanted to win this election then they were going to have to think of something quick and good. The Republicans hired two political consultants who put together, with an artist, many cartoons quoting Sinclair out of text from his many books and [made him] look like something he wasn't. After this, almost every newspaper in California went after Sinclair. Then, there was the first use of motion pictures in a political campaign. Louis B. Mayer, head of MGM, got a large portion of the studio bosses in Hollywood together and they made short films and sent them to theatres [free of charge] all over the state to be played with the movies. These short films had a huge affect on the voters. This and other contributing factors helped Frank Merriam beat the once popular Upton Sinclair in the 1934 campaign and changed politics forever." KY "Advertising executives, rather than politicians, directed Eisenhower's presidential campaign." MI "In the late fall of 1953, Dwight D. Eisenhower and Richard M. Nixon released a commercial.... It centered on getting the people who watched it to jump on the bandwagon and vote for the best leader.... Since that fateful day, commercials that fill up our television screens and signs that clutter our yards have been more important than the issues that swell in our brain." MO "Primaries grew from 17 in 1968 to 37 by 1980. Primaries became the vehicle to the White House, and the media assumed the mission of informing the public about the candidates." MD "But nothing could compare to seeing and hearing the candidates whom you would be voting for. Thus, media coverage of elections went from simply being a way to inform the public of an election and who would be running for a specific office, to being as it is today; a major factor in who will be elected." OH

Just For Fun:

"Each candidate seems to have some sort of skeleton in his closet which hangs around his neck like a noose, just waiting to be pulled." VA "I do not think that it makes a difference to our country's success, if the Vice-President knows how to spell potato. It is nice to know how to spell vegetable words, but" OH

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"We don't need to cut down an idea or a candidate who is doing the best job he can with what little he has to do it with." SD "Somebody somewhere must be satisfied with the present turn of affairs." PA "Obviously, our media is not perfect. It is influenced by personal and corporate biases and human error. Until computers research and report all of our news, or CNN hires God, the present system will not drastically change on that level." OH "When all is said the media keeps America running and without them life would be dull and void." OK "Do you remember how stories such as Dan Quayle's inability to spell potato (sorry no 'e' Dan) were noted in every major magazine? Why was such a big deal made of it? So what if the man could not spell potato. Weren't dictionaries invented for a reason?" PA "Dan Quayle, as he did during his term, stuck his foot in his mouth quite often. From his misspelling potato(e) to blaming the deterioration of American family values on television character Murphy Brown deciding to have a child out of wedlock, if Quayle accomplished anything in his campaign, it was acquiring a fondness for the flavor of shoe leather." IN "If you're not from Idaho, what would make the act of misspelling potato such a felony? I don't think that the United States will ever be in a conference with a foreign country, playing Scrabble or something, and go to war because our Vice President tried to pick up a triple by adding an "e" to potato." MO "[Regarding] Vice President Quayle's spelling of potato....When I am able to go and vote, I would rather vote on issuesnot vegetables." PA "All writers of articles should be open-minded, and most of all, be somewhat objective." NY "A new President is to reporters what a new continent would be to explorers." TX

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"If the media ever begins doing what they have been accused of, then we must put a stop to it." KS "The press works in mysterious ways." TX "Television, either directly or indirectly, regulates our work, sleep, play, and even our bathroom habits. Water pressure drops dramatically during commercials and between television programs. In fact, the water department of Lafayette, Louisiana, reported that during the first showing of 'Airport,' from the time the bomb exploded to the end, hardly anyone left their television sets. But after the show, over 20,000 people flushed 80,000 gallons of water nearly at the same time." KS "Without the press the candidates would be just a bunch of strangers to us." TX "Trying to decipher the confusion of the media can cause one a lot of heartache." TX "Clinton has much time to speak with the press since he has no job to attend to." TX "The media for the most part does a good job. The only thing that they have to work on is getting the facts straight and getting the truth." MI "There will be a future; there is no doubt of that." CA "The technical term for this is mud-slinging. The art of mud-slinging should be seriously reduced by means of some sort or another." SD "Feel that politics is a hard and tiring job to have." IL "All too many times the media molds information like a plastic surgeon molds breasts" IL "If the media did act as a fourth branch of government, the public would probably be well informed on critical issues such as the extent of the President's morning jog around Washington." MD "The media seems to be more trouble than it's worth." MD

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"The media are not obligated to tell the truth." AL "I know that the media is what keeps the world going." AR "The self-made millionaire [billionaire]...was more liked because he was an average person." WI "All is fair in love, war, and the media." NE "There should be set limitations on how many reporters can cover a candidate. Someday a swarm of reporters is going to kill somebody by trampling them." PA "[Perot] had a lot of money. They [the media] knew he did not have to take this job." WV "Superior intelligence cannot be assumed on the media's part." CA "Coverage of candidates is popular with their [the media's] audience and it makes the media seem truly useful." OK "If there is one thing that a candidate had better be when he runs for office, it is clean. If he is not clean, he will be miserable indeed when he cracks open the morning paper." AL "We cannot expect the candidates running for national office to know at birth that they're going to be campaigning and should therefore live a perfect life up until this time." NH "If the candidates claimed to be mistake free, one could not trust them." AL "The purpose is to find someone who has the ability to run a country. It does not matter that the person might have had an affair or that he has a dog that wrote a book." AR "The media are the voter's education and the candidate's salvation or cremation." WV "A story about protesting the war shot Clinton down." MI

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"Sometimes the media could be a little more tactful with their ideas, but for the most part, they are, if nothing else, entertaining." WV "Trying to remain unbiased during an election is much harder than covering the United States in a war." AR "Even in the media, there are Republicans, Democrats, and Independents." AR "The media have so much other news to cover, such as weather and sports, that there is hardly fifteen minutes left for political coverage." WV "No matter what you hear, believe it or not it might not be true. The media has been wrong before and will most likely be in the future." WI "To trust a stranger is to be a fool, and I do not know Sam Donaldson that well." IL "The candidates should stay away from the media during elections." IL "Because the media is now unofficially part of our government, it is also prone to corruption and dishonesty" MI "We have to remember that the members of the media are only people too." SD "Some think that if politicians are going to run our lives, the least we can expect in return is some entertainment value out of them." TN "True journalism is as hard to find as a truthful politician." IL "No one knows what it is like to be President of the United States.... I would love to see one of the journalists in a national office." "The media also wasted time and effort reporting [what] presidential pet is going to be in the White House next. They went as far as to give Bill Clinton's cat catnip just to get a picture of it. If I had to start taking pictures of cats for news, I would stop being a reporter altogether." PA

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"Every time there is a new candidate for office, the media treats the man or woman like he/she is a diseased animal." SD "We don't have time for television debates but a simple look at a newspaper should tell us what happened." NE "Basic human nature hampers the ability of those in the media to leave the news as they find it." CA "They [the media] have become very liberal with their views and have gone astray." CA "At times, the media may seem fictional." OH "It is impossible to exclude human nature from anything humans do, and journalists do not necessarily exist outside of the human realm." OH "According to the available information, the toothpaste used by the candidates is not held against them. Perhaps the media does have some respect for privacy after all." SD "The proud lion lived in a jungle. One day, a large bull became lost in the jungle. The lion came across the bull's path, and crept up behind the beast. With a single swipe of his enormous paw, the lion killed the bull. Then the lion settled down to feast. When he was full, he rose, stretched, and proclaimed his pleasure with a terrible roar. The lion was unaware of the game-hunter in the jungle. When the hunter heard the roar, he tracked the lion. The hunter came upon the king of the jungle in all of his ferocious glory...took aim...fired...and killed the lion with one shot. The moral to this story--When you are full of bull, keep your mouth shut!" OH "Even the nonbelievers are still going to think twice before casting their Clinton vote when they see 'Clinton's Wife Gives Birth to Alien Baby' on the cover of the current Enquirer." OH "Unbiased journalists are hard to come by, and the ones that exist never get good jobs." NY "They [the media] should be the soul provider of information to the voters." IN

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"I believe that reporters-journalists have the job they have because they enjoy intruding on people's lives." IN "The media tried to help George Bush and Dan Quayle, but by the time they realized that Bush and Quayle needed help, it was too late. Bush and Quayle had gotten themselves into a deep hole, a hole which they were never able to overpower." IL "The press could maybe take a break and write every other day or when something really important happens instead of the monotony of everyday on the news." PA "The President doesn't need chastity to be in office." PA "The person with the least amount of secrets may simply be hiding them better." PA

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1992-1993 What Role Does and What Role Should the Media Play In Choosing Our Candidates For National Office? Participating Schools Choctaw High School Butler, Alabama Malvern High School Malvern, Arkansas Los Angeles Baptist Los Angeles California Armwood High School Seffner, Florida Ramsey High School Ramsey, Illinois Joliet High School Joliet, Illinois Harrisburg High School Harrisburg, Illinois Williamsville High Williamsville, Illinois Bloomfield High School Bloomfield, Indiana Conway Springs High Conway Springs, Kansas Danville High School Danville, Kentucky Dundalk High School Dundalk, Maryland Loch Raven High School Loc Raven, Maryland Somerset High School Somerset, MA Kelloggsville High School Kelloggsville, Michigan Benson High School Benson, Minnesota

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Falls City High School Falls City, Nebraska Hanover High School Hanover New Hampshire Egg Harbor High School Pleasantville, New Jersey DeWitt High School DeWitt, New York H. Frank Carey High Franklin Sq., New York Central Islip High School Islip, New York Bucyrus High School Bucyrus, Ohio Carrollton High School Carrollton, Ohio

Columbiana High School Columbiana, Ohio Rock Hill High School Ironton, Ohio Salem High School Salem, Ohio Broken Arrow High Broken Arrow, Oklahoma McLoud High School McLoud, Oklahoma Paoli High School Paoli, Oklahoma Harrisburg High School Harrisburg, Oregon Phoenix High School Phoenix, Oregon

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Deer River High School Deer River, Minnesota Willard High School Willard, Missouri Salem High School Salem, Missouri Boys Town High School Boys Town, Nebraska Hyndman High School Hyndman, Pennsylvania Big Springs High School Newville, Pennsylvania

Marion High School Marion, South Dakota Camden High School Camden, Tennessee Germantown High Germantown, Tennessee Davey Crockett High Austin, Texas Hereford High School Hereford, Texas Marion High School Marion, Virginia

St. Basil Academy George Wythe High Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Wytheville, Virginia Fayetteville High School James Valley Christian Fayetteville, West Virginia Huron, South Dakota

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More About The Harry Singer Foundation

The Harry Singer Foundation is a national non-profit 501(c) 3 private operating foundation (IRC: 4942 j 3) located in Carmel, California whose purpose is to promote responsibility and involve people more fully in public policy and their communities. It was founded in 1987. It actively conducts programs, and is not a grant-making foundation. The Foundation invites participants of all ages and countries to participate in its programs but has been concentrating on young people because they are open and eager to learn, are not saddled with a myriad of other social responsibilities, (like raising a family and making their own living), and they will be around the longest and therefore have the best opportunity to make their projects work. They are ideal experimenters because time is on their side. Participation on our programs is through the Internet. We have been operating our programs on the Internet since the fall of 1994ancient history in light of the Internet's growth since those early days. You may read this information and view our programs at www.singerfoundation.org . We bring people together to network at our headquarters in Carmel, California. When participants come up with ideas, HSF provides the opportunity to put to the test, those ideas that garner the most enthusiastic response. We do this via Pilot Projects and interacting with grant-making entities and far-sighted businesses. Most businesses rightly have more than

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altruistic motives. They are concerned about maintaining a stable and growth-oriented economy as well as finding responsible future employees. Our projects inadvertently foster these aims as well as philanthropic goals. Although HSF is an educational foundation it realizes it is not enough to think, write and talk about problems. HSF shows what ordinary people are capable of achieving. The objective is to find out what works within a desired framework. We know a pilot project has been successfully launched when it attracts enthusiastic volunteers that we call Champions. Those familiar with the Suzuki method of teaching music will understand when we analogize to the child begging the mother to turn over the childsized violin she is playing. Champions are those whose enthusiasm leads them to volunteer to take over a pilot project that strikes their fancy. In the process they release their own unique pent up creativity while the Foundation continues to support them in their efforts to expand the project. Steve Platt, the Champion of Singer Kids4Kids is one example. We also offer materials online, free of charge, which can be printed and used in the classroom or for individual education or research. The Workbook section of the HSF web site features data to encourage logical thinking and attention to the unintended consequences that often accompany government or personal solutions to perceived problems. HSF believes that society has encouraged technology and management while neglecting principles. We need to consider not only can we do, but should we do. To that end you will find an introduction to the seldom taught subject of logic in this section along with frequently updated ethical dilemmas. The Harry Singer Foundation mission is to prepare participants for a future where there may be less government and a weaker safety net. Such a future would require greater individual character, responsibility and knowledge. There may be a need for responsible people able to care for themselves and their less fortunate neighbors. Before one can either reflect or help others, one must survive. HSF has archived the thoughts of teens over a twenty year period in the Teens Speak Out and the Archived by State forums as well as in the published books that resulted from 41 of the 46 essay contests it conducted between 1988 and 2007. Although many of these teen authors now are adults with children of their own, their reflections are relevant to today's youth who

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must learn to make successful personal and social choices regarding their own ideology and their careers. They too must withstand the peer pressure of gangs, violence, irresponsible sex and addictive substances. People change but the social issues remain.

We invite you to explore our web site at www.singerfoundation.org. We look forward to your comments and participation and will be happy to provide additional information or respond to any questions you might have. The Harry Singer Foundation Board of Directors has promoted programs that provide information and teach people how to think, but not what to think, until they have looked at more than one side of any question. After research and analysis, program participants are expected to form their own opinions. Advisory Board members are championing programs that often take participants into their communities to interact outside an academic setting. We invite you to browse our pilot projects and hope that you may be moved to Champion one of these projects in your own community. Together we believe we can make the United States, and the world, a stronger and better place to live, for this generation and generations to come.

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