Philip Grant Politics and the Media
Dr. Sellers 4/17/04
HOW DOES THE MEDIA RESPOND TO HEALTHCARE PRESS RELEASES?
In the 2004 Democratic presidential primary, each of the major candidates presented, with varying degrees of depth, a plan to reform various problems apparent in the nation’s health care system. But after formulating a hypothetical policy designed to improve our system through insurance expansion and reform, each of the candidates for the nomination was faced with the task of publicizing his specific proposal, and in doing so convince the public that his proposal was more cost-efficient, practical, and generally comprehensive than those of his rivals. In order to best convey the strength of his proposal to the general voting public, each Democratic candidate relied heavily on the media to achieve that goal.
As in nearly all political scenarios, the media acted as an intermediary between the politicians and the people, supplying the connection between the output of information from the respective campaign offices and the input of information into the minds of the voters. But to what extent do the media actually fulfill that role? How faithful is the media to a candidate’s publicity attempts in its reporting to the American public? Using the health care reform proposals of John Kerry, Howard Dean, John Edwards, Dick Gephardt, and Wesley Clark as a case study, this paper will attempt to supply to its reader a general understanding of the media’s role in politics, as well as to explain the extent to which candidates’ efforts to attain a positive image of their proposed policy initiatives through the media are successful.
This paper will address a number of issues that concern the three-way interaction among politicians, citizens and the media, both in the theoretical sense and the specific question of how well the candidates were able to dictate coverage of their health care proposals. On the applied level, this paper will touch on whether these attempts at coverage (for the purposes of this paper we will primarily utilize candidate’s press releases as their mechanism for drawing favorable coverage from the media) were successful. Or in other words, whether the media were able to bridge the selected output of information from the campaigns (selected in the sense that it was an issue that the candidate in question chose to present on a given day, as opposed to posed questions in campaign formats such as debates or press conferences) and the input of information to the voting public. In addition, this paper will address some of the broader, more macro level factors that can influence coverage on health care, such as particularities of the topic itself.
LITERATURE REVIEW
In today’s political climate, as well as in the broader sense of political discourse, there can be no question as to the relevance of health care in the citizenry’s selection of its political leadership. One can argue that there is no better way to for a leader to ensure the safety and vitality of his or her constituents than with competent and affordable health care. Thus as a topic in the political arena, the question of how best to devise such a system has attained a permanent pertinence. However, the specifics relating to health care policy are, generally speaking, exceedingly complicated and inaccessible to the average voter, especially one who is not especially politically inclined. Not only is health care policy a highly complex matter, but it also touches on a number of broad theoretical questions and covers the spectrum of concerns, from political to economic to social.
So, in taking these general truths into account, one can immediately see a problem in the media-led transition from the politicians to the people. Namely, the topic of health care, in all its complex and multifaceted glory is simply too inaccessible to be translated into the brief, “sound-byte” type coverage that is favored on the most politically influential (in the sense that they reach the most citizens) broadcast; the network news, and only slightly less so in the print media. It is necessary to keep in mind that the influential, mainstream media outlets are not simply public servants, but also self-interested businesses with a driving desire to attract more viewers or readers than their competitors. While the particulars of our nation’s health care policy are certainly important, they are simply not entertaining or even of interest to scores of network viewers to which the self-interested media are beholden.
In addition, health care as a political issue is always of more importance to some than to others. The elderly and infirm are necessarily more concerned with the quality of health care that the state provides, since it directly impacts the quality of their day to day lives in a manner unlike any other constituency. Thus, in competing for votes at election time, the campaigning politician must tilt his policy on this matter to those who are the most interested, namely those who are personally affected, in order to maximize his or her own electoral advantage. This inclination (to direct policy in a manner that furthers one’s own career) on the part of candidates and elected officials alike reflects one of the political problems with health care reform, that more often it is used a tool for political advantage instead of a whole-hearted attempt to improve service and care for all.
Above all, the question facing the campaigning politician in the context of health care is the question of allocation. To which regions should funds be dispensed? To what constituencies should tax breaks and free care be given? And since the financial resources of any state are necessarily finite and limited, these questions of allocation inherently allow only for certain population demographics to be fully cared for, while others are left out in the cold. This political conundrum is aptly presented in an article by the American College of Physicians: “None of the candidates appear ready to tell voters that we can’t have it all. Would it be better, for instance, to spend $400 billion on providing Medicare prescription drug benefits, as is currently being proposed, or providing health insurance benefits to the 41 million Americans with no coverage at all?” (http://www.acponline.org/journals/news/oct03/washington.htm) Clearly the economic principle of scarcity is particularly bothersome in the context of health care, and it has and will continue to force the Democratic presidential hopefuls to juggle competing but equally pressing political concerns.
Thus we can see two separate obstacles that are unique to the arena of health care, in both the political process (the problem of allocation) and the transition of information from the political decision makers to the average citizens (the complexity and inaccessibility of the issue itself to the public). But transcending these obstacles and maintaining health care in the political limelight is the sheer importance of providing affordable and competent health care for the citizenry, and the staggering social and economic costs of a failure to do so. According to the Institute of Medicine, “leaving such a large number of people without coverage (estimated to be around 44 million Americans in 2002) costs the United States $65 to $130 billion annually, mostly from lower earnings due to lost productivity and reduced educational achievement” (page V). But there is more bad news, an indication that shortcomings in health care are damaging to more than just the government’s pocketbook. The Commonwealth Fund reports that: “In a study of 4,700 adults followed for 13 to 17 years, lacking insurance coverage was associated with a 25 percent greater risk of death, even after taking into account other socio-demographic characteristics and risk behaviors. By comparison, being overweight increased risk of death by 40 percent, living in poverty by 26 percent, and getting little or no exercise by 14 percent.” (Page 4) One can interpret these sobering facts to mean that the direct impact on the constituency, as well as the enormous social and economic costs that have resulted from failures in health care policy have forced the issue into the front lines of domestic political discourse, despite its inhospitality to the casual political observer.
In attempting to flesh out the complicated nature of health care reform, and understand some of the shortcomings within the system, we can understand its problems under two primary umbrellas; the large number of citizens left uninsured under the current system, and the tens of millions who are unsatisfied with the costs and services that are already provided for them under the same system. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, a health research group: “more than a third (of Americans polled) now say they are worried about the rising costs of health care – many more than say they are worried about losing their jobs, losing money in the stock market or becoming the victim of a terrorist attack (nytimes.com, 5/1/2003)”. No matter how boring or inaccessible the topic of health care itself, it remains at the forefront of the domestic policy debate simply because it poses direct risks to many American citizens, more directly so than two other major domestic policy issues: jobs and homeland security.
As we have briefly touched on in a previous paragraph, the problems surrounding the nation’s system of health care are defined by almost competing goals and interests. In other words, any legitimate attempt to reverse the loss of capital and lives that result from health care inadequacies must be prefaced by placing priority upon one problem, while acknowledging that helpful reform in one area could exacerbate other problems within the system.
For example, John Kerry, Howard Dean and Wesley Clark have all espoused health care reform plans that extend coverage to a majority of the 44 million Americans who currently have no health insurance (Dean targets coverage to 31 million uninsured, Clark 32, and Kerry 27) {Commonwealth Fund}. In addition, all of the Democratic hopefuls have stated a hypothetical desire to eventually provide universal health coverage within the foreseeable future. In other words, to bring all 44 million Americans without health insurance under a government sponsored health plan. To do so would mean saving countless lives and recovering billions of dollars that are currently wasted due to lost productivity and education. However, each of these ambitious plans would come with costs ranging from $772 billion (Clark) to $932 billion (Dean), over 10 years. Representative Dennis Kucinich of Ohio is the only major candidate to have overtly presented a plan that would provide universal coverage within the course of his administration, and the immediate costs of such a plan to the federal budget, according to his own campaign, would exceed $6 trillion over ten years. Clearly the costs of such an ambitious remedy are absolutely staggering. In an era of a large federal deficit, and the government surplus but a distant memory, the nation can ill afford such expensive initiatives, unless they come at the expense of other major governmental programs, or they would force a significant tax increase.
Once again, the question of allocation presents a huge dilemma for those in the political arena, as the resources needed to increase the scope and effectiveness of health care would necessarily detract from other worthy or initiatives or be financed at the expense of the average taxpayer. And when placing this difficult question within the context of political messages and each candidate’s goal of appealing to voters, we can see that it may be difficult for a presidential hopeful to willingly present such grim news to the people whom he is trying to win over.
Another aggravating factor to the issue of health care is the multifaceted nature of the potential solutions themselves. Should we fix Medicare by extending coverage to all who are uninsured? What about addressing the decline in employer sponsored health insurance coverage (whereby an improvement would possibly lead to significantly increased productivity and worker morale, necessarily providing a boost to the economy)? Finally, what about increasing the scope and quality of insurance coverage itself? Each of these tasks would result in a marked improvement in the nation’s health care system, but it is unlikely with the means currently available that significant progress could be made on all these fronts within the near future.
Very clearly, the issue of health care is one that
demands of the candidates an apt understanding of the problems inherent in
the current system, as well as the specific ways that
As it stands in the 2004 Democratic primaries, health care is in dire need of improvement, and despite all the potential political pitfalls, each serious candidate for the nomination has come forth with a fairly detailed proposal on how to improve the system. Returning to an earlier theme regarding the interaction between politicians, citizens and the media, we now look to examine how their efforts to yield positive coverage were interpreted by the media, and finally passed along to the general public. Throughout the course of the primary season (more specifically the first three primaries: in Iowa [caucus], New Hampshire and South Carolina) each of the five major candidates for the Democratic nomination (Wesley Clark, Howard Dean, John Edwards, Dick Gephardt and John Kerry) released a number of statements to the press regarding their respective stances on the issue of health care and their plans to fix the ailments therein. Each of these press releases was designed to generate favorable coverage from the media, in order to convey to the voting public that the candidate in question possessed the means to best lead the country through a period of successful reform and superior health care for the citizenry.
The media, in turn, was charged with receiving these attempts at free publicity, and deciding which were to be considered to be “news-worthy”. In addition, other considerations were at play for any decision by the media to publicize or to ignore a press release, namely time or space restrictions (depending on whether it was print or audio/visual media) considerations of fairness, that is, an inclination to avoid the appearance of favoritism toward a specific candidate by publicizing the candidate’s policy positions equally, and finally, the question of the interests of the media outlet itself.
It is safe to say that all major media outlets consider themselves, at least on a certain level, to be public servants. In other words, in their reporting they will place a certain emphasis on looking out for the welfare of its viewers, the people. However, the attractiveness of its newscast/print publication is the foremost concern for all ‘central-decision makers’ in the media who value their own jobs. Thus, in relaying the information from politician to citizen, we can understand the media’s concern for the well being of their own specific entity to be somewhat akin to certain information being ‘lost in translation’.
DATA AND RESULTS
But to what extent are all these factors truly present? How successful were the five candidates in dictating their health care coverage through statements released to the press? The next section of this paper is dedicated to exploring in detail the connection between candidate’s efforts to generate news coverage on the topic of health care and the number of stories on this topic printed in the two leading print media outlets in the country, the New York Times and the Washington Post. Did the media merely convey the information disseminated by the five candidates on to the public indiscriminately? Did they disregard candidate press releases and merely discuss the topic of health care when it was in their interest to do so? Or was their reaction somewhere in between?
For the purposes of this case study, we will be evaluating all candidate initiated attempts at coverage on the topic of health care within the dates ranging from the first of September 2003 through March 3rd, 2004 (known as super Tuesday, and in this primary, the day that John Kerry all but secured the Democratic nomination for president). By candidate initiated, I mean that the discussion was unsolicited by anyone outside his campaign and was a topic overtly chosen for coverage by the candidate in question. This distinction eliminates (among others) debates and ‘Q and A’ sessions with reporters, and is meant to primarily focus on candidate press releases, with the notable exception of Howard Dean’s health care press conference on the 15th of January, 2004. All in all, each of the five candidates presented to the media a number of statements regarding their position on health care reform, and the media responded to each of these attempts by choosing either to publicize them or not to do so. For the next few pages, we will analyze in some detail certain pervasive trends that occurred in the interaction between these publicity attempts and media response to these attempts.
In predicting the general trends of this case study, I initially predicted a spike at or near the beginning of the primary season, when each prospective candidate unveiled his health care proposal. Since the bulk of these proposals were presented before the beginning of our range of analysis, I instead look to find an increase in coverage for the ‘front-running’ candidate, whose policy platforms will be under the heaviest analysis and scrutiny from the media as well as the general public. As a follower of political developments would know, the first three primaries of the 2004 season produced a shift in front running candidates from Howard Dean to John Kerry, so we may be able to extract a significant response when taking that shift of power into account.
Due to the fact that we are using the health care field as our case study, it would be logical to begin our research with none other than the good doctor himself, Governor Howard Dean of Vermont. Due to his extensive medical background, Dean seemed like the most likely candidate to have his initiative proposals taken seriously by both the media at large and the general voting public. From the first of September until his departure from the race on the February 18th, Dean issued a total of 17 press releases solely concerned with health care and held a press conference in which to elaborate on his reform plan.
And as one might have predicted given his background, the national media took notice of these publicity attempts, much more so than even his ultimately more successful rivals. More specifically, Governor Dean was the only candidate to have a direct universal correlation between his health care press releases and subsequent favorable coverage by the two newspapers of national ‘record’, the New York Times and the Washington Post. In numerical terms, on any occasion that Governor Dean issued a press release (or press conference) on health care, there was a 71% increase in the likelihood that one of the two major print media outlets would provide positive coverage toward his health care reform efforts in the following day’s publication. What makes this information even more pertinent is the fact that Governor Dean is the only candidate of the five in this case study who showed a direct universal correlation between his publicity efforts and media coverage. In other words, he is the only one who could release a statement on health care and then expect a positive response (in the sense of coverage) from the media simply because he had issued a statement to them. None of his competitors, even the stronger John Edwards or the ultimately victorious John Kerry, can make such a claim.
How can one best understand why this is the case only for Governor Dean? His number of releases to the press (17) places him third among the five primary candidates, so it wasn’t simply that he was issuing more statements. But further inquiry into this question can lead one to three potential factors that contributed to the media’s proclivity to convey his messages to the public more than other candidates.
The first possible explanation would be the fact that before entering the public sector, Dean was a successful practicing M.D. in Vermont for many years. It is highly possible that the media gave his theories on reform more attention because his previous stint as a doctor simply lended more credence to his opinions, under the assumption that he was more knowledgeable on the subject due to his years of experience in the field (this experience includes a tenure as co-chair of the National Governor’s Association task force on health care, which implies that Dr. Dean had the ability to combine medical knowledge with political administration).
The second possible explanation for his strong influence over the media is the extraordinary momentum garnered by his campaign during the early stages of the primary season. It follows that the media will (almost) always pay more attention to the frontrunner in political contests, as he who is most likely to eventually win office deserves the attention and scrutiny of a nation evaluating whether that person is fit to govern the nation’s citizens. For another perspective, let’s briefly analyze this trend within the context of the range of dates for this case study (9/1/03 -> 3/3/04). Throughout the course of this range, Dean was the likely Democratic nominee for a bulk of the time in question, and began to freefall immediately before and (in spectacular fashion) just after the initial Iowa Caucuses on the 20th of January. Dean dropped out on February 18th. Thus, we need to keep in mind that although his final showing was somewhat lackluster, Dean was in control of the race for a majority of the range given, and thus predominantly received media coverage worthy of the likely nominee.
Finally, although Dean initially got the nation’s
attention through his vociferous opposition to the Iraq War, he did dedicate
a majority of his domestic platform to discussing the issue of health care,
and his plans to reform the system in the event of his election. In addition,
Dean was the most committed of the five major Democratic candidates to the
notion of universal health care in the
But how successful were the other candidates in their interactions with the media? The short answer is that among the other four primary candidates discussed in this paper, none were able to manipulate a significant increase in media coverage on health care solely through press releases. However, there were a number of external factors apart from simply a release to the press that could determine when a candidate received coverage from the Times and Post in regards to his plan for health care reform. Let’s take a look at certain situations that lended themselves to increased coverage.
For example, Representative Dick Gephardt of Missouri remained in contention for the nomination from the beginning of our range on the first of September until the day after the Iowa Caucuses on January 20th, 2004. Within that three-plus month time frame, Rep. Gephardt released a total of 10 press releases in regards to health care. Unfortunately for his campaign, Rep. Gephardt did not receive the same level of media attention for his releases as did Governor Dean. In fact, there were no significant factors during his actual campaign that affected media coverage on the issue of health care. Why might this be the case? In short, one can begin to explain Gephardt’s failure to attract media coverage to his health care policy primarily to the single minded nature of his campaign. From the outset, he placed nearly all his political resources into attracting support from labor unions (his primary base of support, Gephardt ran largely on a ticket of pro-labor stance) and turning this support into a momentum boosting win in the initial Iowa Caucus. His ‘eggs in one basket’ strategy was disastrous, as he came in a dismal 4th place with a mere 10.6% of the electorate (numbers courtesy of http://www.gopusa.com/) spelling a quick and lackluster end to his presidential bid.
With the benefit of 20/20 hindsight in considering the reasons for his failure, one can speculate on the possibility that the media may have noted his lack of diversity in base support and campaign mobility and subsequently paid less attention to his campaign on the grounds that it was not legitimately competitive. If this hypothesis were to be true, it would imply the presence of a politically active media acting as a filter between the message of the politician and the citizen. For the health of a democratic society, one would hope that the media would not slant their reporting so as to ‘decide’ who acceptable representation for the supposedly sovereign citizenry is.
However, Rep. Gephardt did have one media moment in the sun, albeit after his campaign had already reached its conclusion. On the date of the President’s State of the Union address, Gephardt received massive amounts of health care related coverage on the day following the address, probably in part due to his years as Democratic leader of the House, and his years of not only pursuing health care reform on the House floor, but also in providing the Democratic Parties rebuttal following the President’s address.
More situational correlations exist between candidate’s attempts at drawing coverage at subsequent coverage by the media. Senator John Edwards of North Carolina put in an unexpectedly strong campaign from start to finish, ending as the only remaining challenger to the John Kerry powerhouse on Super Tuesday (3/3/04), long after such purported heavyweights such as Howard Dean and Wesley Clark had been bounced from the race. Much of his relative success can be traced to his ability to hone his campaign message, by clarifying it and generally improving it through practice and an increased grasp on the issues as the campaign proceeded onwards. His improvement was especially evident in domestic issues (such as health care), where he was increasingly able to highlight key differences between himself and the front running Mr. Kerry, and these differences more often than not reflected extremely well on the upstart Senator from North Carolina.
And as the competition dwindled, the national media began to take notice of Edwards, especially in the realm of health care. Throughout the course of the six month range, Edwards averaged .58 news stories daily concerning his plans for health care reform. But as Gephardt, then Clark, then Dean withdrew themselves from contention, Edwards’ press coverage on the issue of health care rose from a base of .29 stories a day (accounting for the rather feeble campaign of Senator Joseph Lieberman) to .79, to 1.29, to 1.79, then finally to 2.29 health care related stories a day. These numbers reflect the media (and by extension the nation) taking the policies of Edwards much more seriously, as well as an acknowledgment that he was in fact a worthy choice for the Democratic nomination, if only slightly less so than the victorious Kerry.
By the same token, Senator Kerry enjoyed similar coverage ‘spoils’ due to the continuing successes of his previously downtrodden campaign. In the early stages of the campaign, when Dean was in the driver’s seat, Kerry averaged a mere .9 stories on a given day in regards to health care. Much like Senator Edwards, Kerry saw an incremental rise in health care coverage as his challengers bowed out one by one. His .9 average rose to 2.21, then 3.51, 4.81, and finally peaking out at 6.11 at the juncture of his two man race with Edwards. While this conclusion (of increased concentration of coverage for fewer candidates) may seem to be inherent, it speaks to the remarkable, almost tidal wave like ability of the media to turn their attention to the political success stories, which in turn (with the notable exception of Dean’s faltering performance under the front runner spotlight) will usually spark the candidate to use his or her larger podium to reach more constituents and further entrench their support amongst the citizenry.
We now turn to the question of media coverage within the context of the specific primaries themselves. As a primary approaches (meaning the number of days remaining until such a primary are decreasing) it naturally follows that coverage for a specific candidate would increase, as the voters and media alike become more interested in fleshing out the differences between them so that they may make an educated and accurate choice on election day. Our statistical analysis proves this hypothesis to be the case. Four of the five candidates (John Edwards being the exception) saw significant statistical movement in their health care coverage in the days preceding and following the first three primaries.
Of the five major candidates, Howard Dean saw the strongest correlation between his health care coverage and the onset of Primary Day. Dean was the only one of the five major candidates to see increased press coverage of his health care reform in the days leading up to the New Hampshire and the South Carolina primaries, as well as the Iowa Caucuses. Media coverage for the good Doctor increased at a 1.2% clip as the Iowa Caucuses neared, and increases of 1.1% and 1% for New Hampshire and South Carolina, respectively. This is a noteworthy trend, as his coverage diminished slightly in between his Iowa loss and pre-New Hampshire, and saw a further diminishment from his New Hampshire loss to his campaigning in South Carolina. But after his third straight defeat, in South Carolina, Governor Dean suffered a catastrophic 18% drop in coverage in the days immediately following the primary. The drop in press coverage is in line with this paper’s previous assertion that the media is very quick on to the bandwagon of political success stories, and just as quick to jump off the sinking ships. In the case of Dr. Dean, coming up empty-handed in his third straight primary test after spending so many weeks at the top of the political heap was an ominous sign indeed and his campaign was in fact written off for good (and rightly so) a short time later.
What is rather interesting about the primary correlation for the rest of the candidates is that none saw such a strong connection between their own political fortunes and media coverage of their domestic (in this case health care) policy. For example, Dick Gephardt saw a very slight rise in coverage as the Iowa Caucuses approached (.3%), but less than a quarter of Howard Dean’s 1.2%. Was it because he was not as viable a candidate? Perhaps, but he was expected to contend for the state, was certainly expected to perform better than his miserable 10.6%, 4th place finish (especially considering the resources he used and the onus he placed on winning there) and was by no means considered to be an also-ran. So was his health care platform simply inferior to that of Dr. Dean? This theory is also a possibility, especially considering that he did release only 10 statements to the press on the subject of health care, none after the 2nd of January (Dean on the other hand had released 14 and had held a full fledged press conference on the issue). In any case, whether it be a failure to pursue media coverage through effective channels, a lack of focus upon the health care platform, or media preference toward the reform policy of Governor Dean, Gephardt was much less successful at drumming up interest in the media than his counterpart.
Media coverage for John Kerry’s health care initiatives followed a similarly logical model to that of Dr. Dean, one based on his successes and failures. In the lead up to the Iowa Caucuses, Kerry received a .6% increase in coverage, less than half of Dean. However, his victory in Iowa led to a comparative improvement over the previously front-running Dean in the New Hampshire lead up, as Kerry’s coverage increased by .7% to Dean’s 1.1%. So the gap narrowed slightly, and after his New Hampshire victory (his second straight) Kerry began to grab the media’s attention proper as the true front runner. But Senator Kerry suffered his first defeat in the third test, the South Carolina primary. His loss to John Edwards caused a similarly precipitous drop in health care coverage, this time at a rate of 17.2%, a figure only slightly less than that of Howard Dean. From these two figures, we can see quite simply that a single loss in primary season can have a devastating impact on media interest in a candidate’s policies. The only difference between the two is that Kerry was able to right the ship, and Dean was not.
The final candidate who saw significant increases in health care coverage as a primary approached was General Wesley Clark, who enjoyed by far the largest rise in coverage as the New Hampshire primary approached, a gaudy 5.6% increase. However, much like Dick Gephardt in Iowa, General Clark’s campaign utilized the ‘all our eggs in one basket’ strategy by eschewing the Iowa Caucuses in favor of thorough and lengthy campaigning throughout New Hampshire. While from a political standpoint his efforts were not successful (he finished behind Kerry and Dean, tied for third with Edwards at a measly 12%) {http://www.primarymonitor.com/}, he did succeed in drawing a far larger increase in health care coverage than any of his competitors. From this trend, one can surmise that lengthy and repeated campaigning in one region may more effectively present the media with one’s policy platform, with the downside being that a loss in a region where heavy campaigning took place can often be a fatal blow to a presidential campaign.
Turning now to a broader trend in candidate-media interactions within the context of health care reform, four of the five major candidates in this case study (Dean, Gephardt, Edwards and Kerry) enjoyed significantly enhanced coverage in the Tuesday morning print editions of the New York Times and the Washington Post, meaning that the level of media interest in health care reform on Mondays was significantly higher than the average output of stories on this issue. However, due to the nearly universal nature of the increase in coverage, we can hypothesize two primary reasons why this trend is evident. One would be that most candidates issued their health care press releases on Mondays, leading the media outlets to cover the releases in the next day’s edition. But the fact that, for the most part there was no direct and significant correlation between press releases and media coverage in the context of health care (with the notable exception of Howard Dean) one can all but dismiss that hypothesis as a reason for the increase in coverage.
A more likely explanation would rest in the media outlets themselves. Tuesday is the day when Congressmen and Women have returned from campaigning or otherwise tending to business in their home districts and domestic policy issues such as health care return once again to the national agenda, both politicians and media included. However one may also understand this trend in the context of simple media operations within the basic news cycle. In other words, the rise in media attention toward a certain issue may be attributed simply to a proclivity on the part of the outlets in question to raise particular issues on certain days of the week. While this hypothesis may seem dubious and indicative of a less than proactive media, it is certainly worth considering, primarily because there is little indication that this trend is created by any factor other than a decision by the Times and Post to raise a particular policy issue on one day of the week more often than others.
INTERPRETATION AND WRAP UP
So what conclusions can we reach from these trends? The first question to consider is how the tendencies of coverage shown by the Times and Post reflect the media’s general role in the political landscape. It is not overtly apparent through this case study that stronger media coverage in the realm of domestic policy necessarily leads to political success (Howard Dean enjoyed the most responsive and thorough coverage of his health care initiatives by the Times and Post, yet fell well short of victory in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina). Indeed, it is a healthy democratic sign that the public did not simply select the candidate who was able to regularly elicit positive coverage from the most powerful print media outlets in the country through his campaign efforts.
The second primary conclusion that can be drawn from this case study is that the media is a sovereign institution that wields considerable resources and influence in the political realm, but that they are ultimately a mechanism for connecting the politicians with the people. In the fall of 2003 and winter 2004, they often publicized the policy initiatives of the front-running Howard Dean, more directly connecting his message with the voting public than his rivals. However, due to a number of factors, the voters eventually rejected Dean for a candidate (Kerry) who had less initial success getting his message on health care reform directly to the voting public. It is important to note that Dean’s success in disseminating his health care policy directly to the public does not necessarily equate to media favoritism on his part. To be sure, the media (even the Times and Post) consistently made news of his questionable comments and his meltdown after the Iowa loss was played and discussed ad nauseum by media types around the country. However we can see a clear example of his message on health care being relayed rather cleanly by the media to the public, and the public not responding to this message.
So what should be made of all this? What is the appropriate manner in which this three way give and take (consisting of the campaigning politicians, the voting public, and the reporting media) should take place? Perhaps this question is too broad to be posed within the confines of this paper. However one can safely say that a balanced interaction involving real solutions to our problems from the leadership, careful and thoughtful decision making from the voting electorate, and fair and dispassionate coverage from the media, will lead to more successful policies and a stronger government...
WORKS CITED
Collins, Sara R. Davis, Karen. And Lambrew, Jeanne M. Health Care Reform Returns to the National Agenda : The 2004 Presidential Candidates Proposals. The Commonwealth Fund; 2/6/04
Doherty, Robert B. What Role will Health Care Play in the 2004 Elections? American College of Physicians. http://www.acponline.org 2003
PBS 2004 Democratic Primaries, Biography: Richard Gephardt. http://www.pbs.org/newshour/vote2004/primaries/gephardt_bio.html
Toner, Robin. Health Care Limps up Political Ladder. http://www.nytimes.com 5/1/2003
Burgess, Matt. Bipartisan Poll: Health Care a Major Decision-Making Factor for New Hampshire Independent Voters. http://www.nhforhealthcare.com
Martin, Chris. Health Care as an Issue. New Hampshire Public Radio 10/18/03. http://www.nhpr.org/blogs/penpals2004/archives/000034.php