The New Media and the Decline in Presidential NewsCohen Chapter 3

Here’s the Game• There will be three teams.• The first slide will have a question. You will have

2 minutes to raise your hand with an answer for that question.

• Once you have raised your hand, you will have 10 seconds to reasonably start your answer. So, there should be no hand raising without knowing the answer.

• The next slide will have the answer. If your answer is reasonably close (as determined by Professor Duff) to the answer on the slide you will receive 1 point for your team.

• The team with the most points at the end of the game wins an awesome prize.

Question 1

Compared to the broadcasting (or golden) age of presidential news, the amount of presidential news in the new media age

has….

Answer 1

Declined

Question 2

According to the text, there are two reasons why the amount of presidential

news matters. What are they?

Answer 2

1. The amount of news on the president affects the public’s ability to hold the president accountable.

2. The quantity of presidential news affects the president’s ability to lead.

Question 3

According to the text, news organizations are often pulled into two different

directions. What are these directions?

Answer 3

1. They want to fulfill their public service mission.

2. They are businesses that need to turn a profit.

Question 4

According to Cohen, what is the “news beat?”

Answer 4

The standard organizational routines a news organization goes through to

produce the news on a regular basis.

Question 5

What topics generally make up the national news agenda?

Answer 5

1. Activities of the national government2. Issues that affect the entire nation3. Foreign events4. News about the president

Question 6

What does Cohen mean when he discusses the “national news system?”

Answer 6

The development, since at least the 1920s where the major national news networks began to produce similar content across organizations, to the point where some scholars have labeled the national news

media as a single institution.

Question 7

By the late nineteenth century presidents had begun to seriously engage the

national news media. What 3 initial steps did they take to do this?

Answer 71. They increasingly committed White House

resources, such as staff, to aid journalists in covering the president.

2. They provided journalists with services and support, such as production facilities, technical support, and press releases, that eased the task of reporting on the president.

3. They began to engage in a variety of public activities, many designed so that reporters would have something about the president to report on.

Question 8

What two factors played the most important roles in increasing the size of

the audience for presidential news?

Answer 8

1. Radio and television created a national audience and also personalized the president for the public.

2. Federal regulatory policies, which greatly restricted access to entry into broadcasting, limiting the public’s viewing options to the major networks.

Question 9

According to Cohen, there are five major factors that affect presidential news

coverage today. What are they?

Answer 9

1. Cable Television2. Government Growth3. Economic Distress4. Wars5. New Presidents

Question 10

Describe the study conducted by The Project for Excellence in Journalism.

Answer 10

•They content analyzed the news of seven major media outlets—ABC, CBS, NBC, Time, Newsweek, New York Times, Los Angeles Times.

•They coded the amount of traditional or hard news across all these providers.

•Basically, they show a dramatic decrease in the amount of hard news across all these outlets, other than the NY Times.