“This time, though, the battle between the President and the press is different. There is a third party involved-the Internet-and no one can control a story for long.”
This is in the second column on the first page about a third of the way down. And before this quote Ken Auletta talked about how Obama was negatively affected by the press during his speeches in health care, economic rescue plans, Afghanistan, and education.
So not only can Obama being negatively affected by the press now, but he also has the Internet with or against him depending on the news. When George W. Bush was in office he didn’t have twitter, facebook or YouTube so he couldn’t promote news that way, but Obama does. And because the internet is so large, it spreads a whole lot quicker and it is a whole lot hard to control what is being said.
Looking back I almost, and I mean almost, think it would have been better to stay in Bush’s time when there was on YouTube, facebook, or Twitter, because it has had some really negative things about it, but it has also help the President in promoting himself, so I think it is up to the individual.
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
“This White House, like others, does its best to manipulate press coverage. Obama’s communications staff, according to Kumar, has swelled to sixty-nine people, from fifty-two under Bush and forty seven under Clinton.”
This passage comes from a section starting with “The transformation in media technology has also altered government communications strategy”, and the passage I chose is a result of that. With the rapid growth of news in technology, they must be ready to answer questions that the American people have in a much more timely fashion, or problems could arise. One of the examples they give is comparing when Obama was on vacation with when Kennedy was on vacation. Obama was in Hawaii, and failed to respond to a terrorist attempt to blow up an American airliner. With his absence and him not answering, Janet Napolitano had to take his place claiming that “the system worked”, Janet and Obama both were criticized. Back in 1961 Kennedy was on vacation during the Berlin wall going up and no one even pressed him for six days. This shows the gimme generation in full swing, we want answers and we want them quick. We like things to come fast, and get bored a lot faster then the generation before us. Even the most extreme tragedy in America will eventually just kind of vanish. With Obama having the largest communication staff, this could mean that the white house has the largest role in the media that it has ever had before.
This passage comes from a section starting with “The transformation in media technology has also altered government communications strategy”, and the passage I chose is a result of that. With the rapid growth of news in technology, they must be ready to answer questions that the American people have in a much more timely fashion, or problems could arise. One of the examples they give is comparing when Obama was on vacation with when Kennedy was on vacation. Obama was in Hawaii, and failed to respond to a terrorist attempt to blow up an American airliner. With his absence and him not answering, Janet Napolitano had to take his place claiming that “the system worked”, Janet and Obama both were criticized. Back in 1961 Kennedy was on vacation during the Berlin wall going up and no one even pressed him for six days. This shows the gimme generation in full swing, we want answers and we want them quick. We like things to come fast, and get bored a lot faster then the generation before us. Even the most extreme tragedy in America will eventually just kind of vanish. With Obama having the largest communication staff, this could mean that the white house has the largest role in the media that it has ever had before.
"'What happened today?' isrepaced with 'who won today?;' The public debate cheapens."
This is at the end of the secound paragraph on the first page of this article. Obama is giving a speech about a famous news caster who had recently passed away. The president was explaing how the news caster had become a symbol of truth in America and he was a breed of journalist that is rare in our world today. The article goes on to explain how in realitly Cronkite (the news caster) just read from a telaprompter and had now actualy impact on the news or information he recited. The article goes on further claiming that even though Obama's speech was heartfelt it was also serving a purpose. Presedent Obama's chief speechwriter says "The President is on a mission to not just change politics in Washington but to change that culture of Washington, and the media is a part of it."
This is at the end of the secound paragraph on the first page of this article. Obama is giving a speech about a famous news caster who had recently passed away. The president was explaing how the news caster had become a symbol of truth in America and he was a breed of journalist that is rare in our world today. The article goes on to explain how in realitly Cronkite (the news caster) just read from a telaprompter and had now actualy impact on the news or information he recited. The article goes on further claiming that even though Obama's speech was heartfelt it was also serving a purpose. Presedent Obama's chief speechwriter says "The President is on a mission to not just change politics in Washington but to change that culture of Washington, and the media is a part of it."
Really?
“The transformation in media technology has also altered government communications strategy.”
This passage is shown on page 43 and is the first sentence in the second paragraph. The author, Ken Auletta, is stating this.
In my perspective, this means that having the internet and other forms of technology has caused the news to change vividly. By having everything be needed instantly, the government is having a hard time keeping up with stories and issues because the media has evolved to need news instantly. This relates to me personally because I recently had a friend die. The accident happened at 9:32 am on Saturday and I found out about her death at around 9:50 when I got on Facebook that morning. It shocked me because everyone was writing post about it and I just thought they had the wrong girl’s name. All I could think was, "Really?". It definitely didn’t seem accurate because Facebook is normally not a reliable source, but in this case it was true. This causes conflict because what if my friends on Facebook did get the wrong name. This would bring up at lot of trouble with my friend because she would be getting accused of getting in an accident she didn’t get in. I find this important because it is critical to get the correct information but with today’s desire for news the moment it happens makes it hard to be 100% accurate.
This passage is shown on page 43 and is the first sentence in the second paragraph. The author, Ken Auletta, is stating this.
In my perspective, this means that having the internet and other forms of technology has caused the news to change vividly. By having everything be needed instantly, the government is having a hard time keeping up with stories and issues because the media has evolved to need news instantly. This relates to me personally because I recently had a friend die. The accident happened at 9:32 am on Saturday and I found out about her death at around 9:50 when I got on Facebook that morning. It shocked me because everyone was writing post about it and I just thought they had the wrong girl’s name. All I could think was, "Really?". It definitely didn’t seem accurate because Facebook is normally not a reliable source, but in this case it was true. This causes conflict because what if my friends on Facebook did get the wrong name. This would bring up at lot of trouble with my friend because she would be getting accused of getting in an accident she didn’t get in. I find this important because it is critical to get the correct information but with today’s desire for news the moment it happens makes it hard to be 100% accurate.
Non-Stop News
~The Transformation in media technology has altered government communications strategy. “The biggest White House press frustration is that nothing can drive a news cycle anymore,” Mark McKinnon, the media adviser, said. “In the old days, you could say, ‘we’d like October to be about the environment’.” Today, a vicious news cycle swallows most White House strategies. When the Berlin Wall went up; in 1961, President Kennedy was on vacation. “For six says, no one pressed him hard for a reaction,” Beschloss said. “If that happened now, president Obama would have three seconds.”~
I thought this part was very interesting, it really shows that bad habit of instant gratification we want all the time, and for the president if he’s not ready to respond in seconds then he gets all the shame. I just feel that it really isn’t fair to the president, how much does he do in a day? More then, I’m sure anyone can imagine, he’s not running a classroom he’s running a country. Yet the media seem to forget this, it’s fun for them to build up hype about bad things the president is doing because it gets a reaction from their audience. It’s amazing how fast technology has grown, but when it comes to the media, it seems we haven’t quite got the hang of how to use it. The Media Advisor for Obama can’t even really help control what the press is saying. In the old days people used to love the presidents they were glamorous and respected and most of all they had control over what was said about them. Hoover is a great example of why you don’t want to cross the president, he killed many people with his own troops trying to run people off of a protest against him, these days it’s the media that is almost controlling the president. As the media gets stronger we are going to need stronger and stronger leaders that won’t let such awful media take over.
I thought this part was very interesting, it really shows that bad habit of instant gratification we want all the time, and for the president if he’s not ready to respond in seconds then he gets all the shame. I just feel that it really isn’t fair to the president, how much does he do in a day? More then, I’m sure anyone can imagine, he’s not running a classroom he’s running a country. Yet the media seem to forget this, it’s fun for them to build up hype about bad things the president is doing because it gets a reaction from their audience. It’s amazing how fast technology has grown, but when it comes to the media, it seems we haven’t quite got the hang of how to use it. The Media Advisor for Obama can’t even really help control what the press is saying. In the old days people used to love the presidents they were glamorous and respected and most of all they had control over what was said about them. Hoover is a great example of why you don’t want to cross the president, he killed many people with his own troops trying to run people off of a protest against him, these days it’s the media that is almost controlling the president. As the media gets stronger we are going to need stronger and stronger leaders that won’t let such awful media take over.
Manipulating Press Coverage
“The White House, like others, does its best to manipulate press coverage. Obama’s communications staff, according to Kumar, has swelled to sixty-nine people, from fifty-two under Bush and forty-seven under Clinton. The shop is led by Robert Gibbs, whose office has the most contact with reporters; Dan Pfeiffer, the communications director, who focuses on media strategy; and Jon Favreau, the chief speech writer, who heads a team of six writers.”-Ken Auletta, Non-Stop News
In the passage above, Auletta is explaining the expansion of Obama’s communications team and comparing it to previous presidential communications teams. By doing so, he is adding onto the idea that due to today’s internet communications and rushed media, the presidential campaign has been forced to change drastically, both in size and in the way it operates. I think this passage means that as the years continue, presidents will continue to have to change their campaigns and the way the White House communicates with the media in order to protect themselves and get their stories through to the press and public correctly. That the growing number of communications staff will only keep growing in order to attempt to control the media. By having to do so, to me, it takes away the commanding voice and regalness that presidents once had, which I think will affect presidency all together in a negative way.
This idea is important because the President is questioned, scrutinized, and praised, all in a matter of minutes, and if it’s filed so quickly, without consulting with the experts, who knows what’s truly accurate and what’s rumor? This is significant to the future and value of presidential press, and to Americans being able to trust what they read about the presidential campaign. How can we as Americans be expected to make an educated decision about who our president should be when the press and presidential media doesn't take the time to talk to the experts about which facts are true and which are false?
In the passage above, Auletta is explaining the expansion of Obama’s communications team and comparing it to previous presidential communications teams. By doing so, he is adding onto the idea that due to today’s internet communications and rushed media, the presidential campaign has been forced to change drastically, both in size and in the way it operates. I think this passage means that as the years continue, presidents will continue to have to change their campaigns and the way the White House communicates with the media in order to protect themselves and get their stories through to the press and public correctly. That the growing number of communications staff will only keep growing in order to attempt to control the media. By having to do so, to me, it takes away the commanding voice and regalness that presidents once had, which I think will affect presidency all together in a negative way.
This idea is important because the President is questioned, scrutinized, and praised, all in a matter of minutes, and if it’s filed so quickly, without consulting with the experts, who knows what’s truly accurate and what’s rumor? This is significant to the future and value of presidential press, and to Americans being able to trust what they read about the presidential campaign. How can we as Americans be expected to make an educated decision about who our president should be when the press and presidential media doesn't take the time to talk to the experts about which facts are true and which are false?
Non-Stop News
Most Relavant:
“Like other American workers, journalists these days are crunched, working harder with less support and holding tight to their jobs. Eight to sixteen times a day, Chuck Todd, of NBC, hustles from his cubicle in the White House basement to a patch of grass nicknamed Pebble Beach, where he conducts standup interviews for NBC and MSNBC. His day begins at dawn, when he scans the press and writes the opening page of NBC’s blog ‘First Read,’ then throws on a jacket to appear on the ‘today’ show or on ‘Morning Joe,’ on MSNBC. Before the day ends, he has also written eight to ten tweets or facebook postings and three to five blog entries.”
I feel like this portion is relevant to the paper because it talks about how a journalist does their work, I know not every person works like this but it’s not a focused effort when they do. Have you ever tried to write a paper while juggling 3 other things? In personal experiences I get distracted and will lose my train of thought then my paper becomes weaker. If journalists are working on evidence for multiple papers a day, then writing them at separate times, how often do they get side tracked? Obama says “The transformation of media has not only undermined the imperial institutions of mainstream media; it has undermined the imperial presidency” and this connects because we learn how journalism has changed in this paragraph. They used to focus on one topic, instead of the 50+ you see in our newspapers today. I think someone who is old enough to remember the old newspaper styles and was subjected to the real life side of the paper should go in and compare how accurate the journalists were compared to today.
“Like other American workers, journalists these days are crunched, working harder with less support and holding tight to their jobs. Eight to sixteen times a day, Chuck Todd, of NBC, hustles from his cubicle in the White House basement to a patch of grass nicknamed Pebble Beach, where he conducts standup interviews for NBC and MSNBC. His day begins at dawn, when he scans the press and writes the opening page of NBC’s blog ‘First Read,’ then throws on a jacket to appear on the ‘today’ show or on ‘Morning Joe,’ on MSNBC. Before the day ends, he has also written eight to ten tweets or facebook postings and three to five blog entries.”
I feel like this portion is relevant to the paper because it talks about how a journalist does their work, I know not every person works like this but it’s not a focused effort when they do. Have you ever tried to write a paper while juggling 3 other things? In personal experiences I get distracted and will lose my train of thought then my paper becomes weaker. If journalists are working on evidence for multiple papers a day, then writing them at separate times, how often do they get side tracked? Obama says “The transformation of media has not only undermined the imperial institutions of mainstream media; it has undermined the imperial presidency” and this connects because we learn how journalism has changed in this paragraph. They used to focus on one topic, instead of the 50+ you see in our newspapers today. I think someone who is old enough to remember the old newspaper styles and was subjected to the real life side of the paper should go in and compare how accurate the journalists were compared to today.
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