On Wednesday April 25th
2012, Reince Priebus, the Republic National Committee Chairman, formally charged
that President Obama has been committing fraud in a letter to the Government
Accountability Office (GAO), demanding that office pursue an investigation into
the President’s accounting. The
letter suggested that the Obama administration has repeatedly misrepresented campaign
trips as official travel to minimize campaign costs for the benefit of Obama
for America, the President’s reelection campaign. They accused the campaign of not properly reimbursing the
U.S. government, and by extension taxpayers, for campaign expenses incurred
while purportedly traveling on official Presidential business. The Obama administration’s response has
been that this attack is unfounded by the detailed accounting evidence and
simply a revival of an old chestnut motivated by partisanship in an election
year.
On the 25th and 26th, this story received significant media coverage throughout the major newsoutlets, often with more than one story providing coverage, as news sources scrambled to provide coverage of the RNC’s dramatic charges against the President, and often, though less frequently, the Obama administration’s denials of wrongdoing. This coverage is deeply disturbing as the attention this story has received is emblematic of an increased level of party polarization, and of the dominance of context-poor, scandal-rich news coverage in the wake of the loss of established gatekeepers such as editors, curators and contextualizers in the media. First, the formal filing of this letter is clear evidence of party polarization, as the Republican National Committee is seeking to condemn the Obama administration over an age-old controversy in which both parties have been implicated and neither party has moved to definitively resolve. Second, though a minority of the stories covering this event mention some minimal history of this controversy under other presidents, the significant majority of the stories principally highlight the scandalous, celebrity-driven nature of the event. The media trivializes serious issues by focusing on scandal, infamy and celebrity-driven items. When no one is editing the news to provide context for stories like this, all the average reader ever sees is coverage of the scandal, rather than the substance that this controversy has raised for forty-plus years.
On the 25th and 26th, this story received significant media coverage throughout the major newsoutlets, often with more than one story providing coverage, as news sources scrambled to provide coverage of the RNC’s dramatic charges against the President, and often, though less frequently, the Obama administration’s denials of wrongdoing. This coverage is deeply disturbing as the attention this story has received is emblematic of an increased level of party polarization, and of the dominance of context-poor, scandal-rich news coverage in the wake of the loss of established gatekeepers such as editors, curators and contextualizers in the media. First, the formal filing of this letter is clear evidence of party polarization, as the Republican National Committee is seeking to condemn the Obama administration over an age-old controversy in which both parties have been implicated and neither party has moved to definitively resolve. Second, though a minority of the stories covering this event mention some minimal history of this controversy under other presidents, the significant majority of the stories principally highlight the scandalous, celebrity-driven nature of the event. The media trivializes serious issues by focusing on scandal, infamy and celebrity-driven items. When no one is editing the news to provide context for stories like this, all the average reader ever sees is coverage of the scandal, rather than the substance that this controversy has raised for forty-plus years.
Finally, this story’s dominance in the media almost obscured any other stories about campaign finance this week, rehashing an old controversy and adding little to the average citizen’s understanding about the issues of campaign financing.Why don’t reporters provide the context for their readers and listeners, for example giving this story in the historical and analytical information of the Brookings Institute’s report on presidential travel during election years and to swing states? Not a single major media outlet provided this historical background.
This coverage does not serve the cause of improved public understanding of campaign finance when stories are sensationalized according to a narrative of entertainment and combat, instead of education and information.
{[['
']]}
']]}