Discussion Questions for 10/22

1. During the study group last night, Mary Walsh mentioned repeatedly that one of the most important things to keep in mind when composing a news segment was “distilling information”. I find this very interesting in light of both Luntz’s Words that Work book and Heath and Heath’s Made to Stick book, which both emphasize the simplicity of the message being a key component of, well, making it stick, I suppose. So, all this rambling leads me to the question: Do we distill information too much in the media by parsing everything down into 500 words or 1.5 minutes? And can news organizations cover political news in all its variety when they are distilling news down from messages already simplified by candidates (assuming that they are following the Luntz model, which he says we all should).

2. Also, as was mentioned last night in the study group, the subject of media bias has come up (again). McCain supporters have (again) accused the “liberal media” of attacking him unnecessarily. But Mr. Strother has mentioned repeatedly his assertion that the media is unbiased and Ms. Walsh backed him up on that account. But, as Luntz points out, there are some messages that seem to transcend the campaigns themselves, such as, to use an old example, “I like Ike”. Given how well Obama’s message of change seems to have worked in comparison to McCain’s rather fluctuating message, can the media avoid being biased when they cover the two campaigns? If Obama’s message is so pervasive and McCain’s so changeable, how can the media avoid covering Obama’s message more thoroughly, especially given the succinctness that a good message gives to a news story, which, as I mentioned in the last question, needs to be parsed down into 1.5 minutes. So, can the media really be unbiased given the messages being released by the campaigns?

3. I also found the discussion about news segments using a ‘surrogate’ for the viewer to be an interesting one. This goes back to some of the earlier articles where politicians use a surrogate to spread their message and also ties in to, for instance, Sarah Palin being used as a surrogate for John McCain or Hilary Clinton being used as a surrogate for Barak Obama. To an extent, and again relating to media bias, can the media be unbiased, given that they are, even outside of stories about airplanes, acting as surrogates for the viewers to an extent? The viewer may wish to ask a particular candidate a question, but, outside of town hall meetings, never have that chance. The media can, however. So, given this, should the media simply report the facts or should there be some analysis of the facts, given that they are presenting this information to the viewers as a surrogate who has been in an area where the viewer cannot go?