January/February 2001

January/February 2001 | Contents

All the News That Fits The Myth

BY CHRISTOPHER HANSON

America's five-week post-election battle over who would be president of the United States was the ultimate "man bites dog" story. It defied just about every expectation -- including our national faith in electoral fairness. Naturally, it attracted enormous public attention and put the media center stage as the drama played out. After all, it isn't every four years that reporters must request ballots under freedom of information statutes in hopes of determining -- after the fact -- who really should have won the presidency.

But the coverage of Post-Election 2000 points up a paradox presented by "man bites dog" stories. While they are every young reporter's dream and the delight of many an editor and producer, big surprises also make the news media uneasy. In fact, journalists have a pronounced tropism toward the familiar, a tendency to describe the new in terms of the old.

When it comes to the closing phase of U.S. presidential elections, the recurring narrative for journalists is straightforward and designed to reaffirm our faith in The System: The victor is known at the close of election night, the loser concedes quickly to help bestow legitimacy on the winner, and the transition to a new administration starts the day after the election. During this quadrennial, post-election era of good feeling, the media set about turning a man who may have been an uninspiring figure on the campaign trail into presidential timber.

This narrative, designed to illustrate that "the system works," has such a strong grip on political journalists' collective imagination that some labored mightily to make Post-Election 2000 fit into the same old framework. They struggled to channel a jarring battle with no clear winner onto more familiar ground: a winner who seemed presidential -- Bush; a loser who needed to concede -- Gore; and a bustling GOP transition. And all this well before the Supreme Court handed Bush his ultimate victory.

Why would large elements of a press corps that supposedly leans to the left prematurely cast the candidate on the right as putative winner? The answer has less to do with ideology than with specific circumstances. News media place excessive store in what is official, especially in times of turbulence and confusion. Bush was "officially" ahead in Florida on November 8 and in subsequent recounts (if only by an eyelash), and was certified the winner by Florida's secretary of state. Gore never overtook Bush in any completed count of the votes. So even though his people made a persuasive case that a thorough manual recount would give him the edge, he found himself tagged the man in second place throughout Post-Election 2000. If the roles of the two men had been reversed, the media would presumably have been depicting Gore as the winner rather than Bush.

The tendency of some, but not all journalists to adopt a Bush Winner/ Gore Loser narrative led to a kind of journalistic schizophrenia, as reporters in the same newsroom covered what appeared to be two wildly different stories. (On the front page of the November 27 New York Times, for example, one article reported that Bush had achieved the status of "president-elect" while another told readers that Gore, vowing to fight on, was about to hit Bush with "what could be the most significant lawsuit of all the legal battles fought so far.") A Jekyll-and-Hyde approach to a story is hardly unique in the annals of journalism. In this spectacular post-election case, however, it seems to have impeded the media in their ultimate watchdog role: guardians of democracy and fair elections. As we'll see in a moment, the System Works narrative acted in several unfortunate ways:

Election night set the tone for the coverage that followed, creating a persistent, if unjustified and certainly premature, impression that Bush was the president-elect. The mischief started with Fox News, which relied on shaky data to call the pivotal state of Florida -- and hence the election -- for Bush.

But a mere few hours later, Bush's Florida lead had dropped to under 2,000 votes, at which point not only did Gore have to telephone Bush to retract his concession -- but the State of Florida was by law required to do a machine recount of the ballots cast.

Despite the uncertainty of the Florida vote, many news outlets portrayed Bush as a virtual winner whose victory party had been spoiled by a technicality. Consider Newsweek's November 20 cover story. It opens with an appealing photo, spread over two pages, showing Bush, his wife, Laura, and his parents beaming and hugging spontaneously, having just learned that Dubya had evidently won. The caption reads: "A Whiff of Victory . . .".

On the next page of the same issue of Newsweek appears a far less attractive shot of Gore and his operatives, huddling grim-faced in a back room. The caption reads: ". . . But Now It's War . . . Moments after taking back his concession, Gore meets with aides in the War Memorial basement to plot his next move." The article goes on to say that as Gore and his team were "plotting a new assault," Bush "adopted a grave, weight-of-the world demeanor" and looked "genuinely, presidentially haggard" as the unexpected, post-election power struggle "threatened to veer out of control." These words and images seem to convey the impression of Gore as a tough-minded pretender straight out of Shakespeare, plotting to overthrow the rightful order, puncturing a moment of well-earned joy for both Bush and the country, and even threatening the nation's stability by defying the traditional election night narrative of victory and concession.

Meanwhile, the Gore campaign came under fire from commentators. A lead editorial in the November 10 Washington Post warned against a legal challenge because "the courts in the end can't legitimize the results." The Post urged that no one try to drag out the election battle. There was an urgent need to get on with the concession, victory speech, and conciliation that election night should have provided.

Still, the System Works narrative was not the only one in play. In the days that followed, the media reported a lot of information about Election 2000 that was at odds with the caricatures of Bush as put-upon winner, Gore as trouble-making die-hard. The Fox News producer who initially called the election for Bush was revealed as none other than Dubya's own cousin, John Ellis. Even those who tuned in to the whole story late would have had trouble missing the fact that a member of Bush's family had put out the report that misled Gore into a premature concession.

More significantly, some news outlets began to explore the shortcomings of the Florida election system, unearthing evidence that cast doubt on whether Bush had actually received more votes than Gore in the Sunshine State. Gore's unofficial tally climbed to within a few hundred votes of Bush as several counties performed laborious hand counts. Meanwhile, the GOP maneuvered to stop them.

Under the circumstances, Gore could have been cast not as a trouble-making loser but as a still-viable, even wronged, contender. But the power of the System Works narrative helped undermine such an interpretation: a significant contingent of the press corps was reluctant to throw out the old script in light of new facts. Instead, there was a steady drumbeat from November 8 on for the idea that Gore should put an end to the squabbling by conceding, and thereby confer the mantle of legitimacy on Bush as president-elect.

Concession pressure mounted sharply after Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris officially "certified" Bush the winner in that state on November 26. Harris, Bush's Florida campaign co-chair and close ally of Florida Governor Jeb Bush, Dubya's brother, cut off the recount process before it could be completed. But Democratic party lawyers filed suit to keep the recount going and Gore remained very much in contention. Even so, many editorial boards clearly wished him gone. "It's time for the vice president to do the honorable thing: call off the lawyers and admit to himself and the country that Mr. Bush has been elected," declared the Las Vegas Review-Journal on November 27. The Chicago Tribune (November 27) said Gore "presents the increasingly unappealing portrait of a man who wants to be a winner at any cost" and should bow out. "We hope that leading Democrats can persuade Vice President Gore to concede," said The Providence Journal (November 28.) And so it went on at least a score of editorial pages.

In the news columns, meanwhile, reporters helped put pressure on Gore by quoting anonymous Democrats who whispered for concession. "Some party insiders in Washington warned that Gore risked looking like a sore loser, willing to wreak havoc to delay the inevitable -- if Bush was indeed inevitable," Newsweek reported (November 20). The New York Times quoted one Democrat complaining that Gore "doesn't have the ability . . . to leap ahead of today and to accept his loss." (November 29.) It is likely that many of these sources were using reporters as mailmen to deliver their messages to the Gore inner circle. According to David Maraniss of The Washington Post, Gore began to feel the pressure: "After reading one long piece about his post-election isolation written by Melinda Henneberger of The New York Times, he called a Washington friend and declared, 'We've lost Melinda.'" (December 17.)

In addition to a loser who concedes, the media's System Works narrative requires an official winner, and this is where Florida's ballot "certification" ceremony came in handy. At last, over the signature of a state office holder, the certification provided official "proof" of victory. The ceremony might in theory have drawn such headlines as harris rides roughshod over recount or bush ally rams through 'win.' But that approach would not have advanced the System Works narrative. Instead, many journalists chose to depict the event as genuinely legitimating winner Bush. Thus The New York Times declared in the lead of one front-page "certification" story: ". . . George W. Bush stepped out tonight for the first time as president-elect." (November 27.) Tim Russert said on MSNBC: "He has now been declared the official winner of the Florida election . . . and therefore is the forty-third president of the United States." (November 26) A Detroit News piece stated that certification "provides a decree of legitimacy to Bush's claim that he had won the election." And so on.

In fact, of course, there were many twists and turns ahead, including some big gyrations in Gore's favor after he contested the certification in court. "Certification" turned out not to be the end point by a long shot.

In addition to a clear winner, the System Works narrative requires a victory speech. Just after certification, Bush provided one -- live from Austin, brimming with confidence and optimism. Journalists used it to further affirm the passing of the mantle. Dan Rather explained on CBS that Bush had delivered what was "in effect his victory speech . . . outlining some of the things he intends to do after he is sworn in as president." Not "if" but "after." The New York Post declared: bush takes charge.

The System Works story line also demands palpable evidence that the transfer of power is going smoothly. Understanding this, the Bush p.r. team began tossing transition tidbits to the press, starting not long after Election Day. Transition activity bolstered the illusion that Bush was the clear winner. While some news outlets acknowledged Bush's p.r. motive, his show transition nonetheless got voluminous and often uncritical coverage. When the Bush team leaked names of possible cabinet choices, it got air and ink. Bush team "insiders" told their media conduits that military experts Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Armitage, and Sam Nunn were under consideration for Defense (Philadelphia Inquirer, November 28); and that Rep. Rick Lazio of New York might go to HUD (Washington Post, November 28). When the Bush team staged "presidential" events, like a photo-op walk around his ranch shortly after Election Day with possible Secretary of State Colin Powell, TV took the bait.

When he was not pseudo-transitioning, Bush could now also be depicted as presidential in repose. Time served as a conduit for Bush spin, reporting that his "strategists depicted their man as 'the very picture of rugged ease, reading the new Joe DiMaggio biography, jogging daily, clearing cedar from a path where he and Laura like to ramble -- much the way Ronald Reagan found peace chopping wood'" (Time, November 27). Not only does the system work -- it works well enough to give us a new Morning in America.

Why was the System Works narrative so persistent in coverage of Post-Election 2000? Part of the answer lies in how reporters and editors try to make sense of a confusing world. As the former New York Times reporter turned scholar Robert Darnton once suggested, journalists, perhaps to an even greater extent than other people, see the world through recurrent story lines. They use and reuse these story lines to encapsulate the complicated social and political conflicts of the day. And, although their business is to report the new, they take comfort in old formulas and tacitly understand that their audience does as well.

The appeal of the familiar is especially strong when news outlets face startling, unsettling facts, like a presidential election without a winner. To some journalists (and their audience), the situation seemed chaotic, on the verge of being out of control. Both Newsweek and U.S. News & World Report ran post-election covers with the bold headline chaos superimposed on -- or in Newsweek's case lurking behind a rip in -- the Constitution. Earlier, Newsweek declared: "The chaos ahead could make election night look placid . . . . We're talking the Blair Witch Project of politics here . . ." (November 17). NBC's Tim Russert warned that "we could have chaos and a constitutional crisis" (quoted in The Hotline, November 18).

On the surface, fear that the system could be torn asunder does not seem consistent with coverage that assures us that the system is actually working in recognizable ways.

In fact, however, fear of chaos is a strong inducement to package the facts in a familiar story line (there really is a winner, a loser, and a transition). Such a construction makes the situation more assuring. Thus when Bush assumed the part of Winner as in his pseudo-transition events, news outlets conveyed them with vigor. Here, at last, was something that evoked normal times. Here was at least a glimmer of determinacy and resolution. By tapping into this powerful story line, Bush improved the odds of his propaganda points' finding their way into supposedly neutral reportage.

As the power struggle dragged on, it did become harder to cast Bush as a winner beset by a spoilsport. After all, his legal team displayed at least as much naked aggression as Gore's, abandoning long-held Republican principles of local control and states' rights to fend off a Florida hand count of contested ballots. By Post-Election 2000's one-month mark, media were describing both candidates as fierce fighters in a struggle for power.

Such new realism did not drive the System Works narrative from the news columns, but the narrative did change form. In the new version, the dueling candidates might be flawed, but American institutions and the constitutional process would save the day. Time, for instance, ran a cover story entitled, "YES, we'll survive" assuring us that "the Constitution is not a delicate artifact" (December 18).

A New York Daily News editorial declared: "Isn't this a great nation? The answer, of course, is yes. There is method in the madness swirling about us. And as long as method prevails over madness, all is, and will be, well in the land" (November 29).

Such assurances bring to mind the media scholar Michael Schudson's observation that political journalism tends to focus on the flaws of individual politicians without fundamentally questioning the institutions that created them. In that sense, even the most critical reporting about our leaders tends to reinforce the underlying system.

Many citizens found it hard not to question the fairness of that system when the Supreme Court's conservative faction handed the White House to Bush on a 5-4 vote. True to form, however, many journalists responded to public anger by affirming, once again, that the System Works, even if imperfectly. Former Supreme Court reporter Fred Barbash argued in an op-ed piece that the system worked because the rule of law prevailed and no one acted extra-constitutionally. Thus, he concluded, "legitimacy lives" (Washington Post, December 17). Max Frankel argued that the outcome was "good" in that it showed Americans settle disputes in the courts rather than in the streets (New York Times, December 15). The Washington Post editorial page had this to say: "On a day when many Americans still were angry or depressed by the 37-day battle over the presidential election results, [Secretary of State-designate Colin] Powell usefully reminded us that the United States remains the center of, and inspiration for, a revolution for democracy in the world" (December 18).

Far more useful has been the distinct, if belated, awakening of a perspective that is now vigorously challenging System Works complacency. This one comes out of the Woodward and Bernstein tradition of exposing cover-ups. As the present article went to press, a group of news organizations had pooled resources to do its own recount and determine which candidate actually had received the most votes in Florida.

The media investigation clearly irked Governor Jeb Bush of Florida, who told reporters: "There's been a concession speech . . . . There's been a declared victor. We even got the United States Supreme Court to intervene . . . . So . . . go ahead and do it, but is that going to rewrite history? I don't think so. Should it rewrite history? No. We're a nation of laws, and the rule of laws prevails" (Orlando Sentinel.com, December 20).

Certainly, the rule of law should prevail. But at the same time, one must keep in mind that investigative reporting, when it is timely enough, can empower citizens to write history, rather than have the courts write it for them.