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cHAPter 3 external Factors The News Media and Public Opinion By the time he left the White House in January 1993, George H. W. Bush seemed happy to leave the national press behind as he embarked on his post-presidential years.Having followed the“Great Communicator”in the White House, and then having lost his reelection bid to the first president born in the television age, the public aspects of the Bush presidency had not left a positive lasting impression. Bush had believed that providing more informal access to the Washington press corps and talking policy specifics in a way that Reagan had not done would have earned him positive news coverage. However, a president who was more interested in substance than style combined with an increasingly competitive news media focusing on personalized and negative political coverage left Bush at a disadvantage to engage in a substantive dialogue on policy issues. Bush’s public style (or perhaps lack of interest in developing a public style and image) would have been better suited for the news media environment of an earlier time like the 1960s, when the national news cycle was still driven more by words than by images (through top newspapers, news magazines, and substantive network news shows on ABC, CBS, and NBC).By the time Bush became president in 1989,the 24-hour news cycle had clearly emerged, and the president’s relationship with the press had changed forever.Given that Bush was not a made-for-television president, it is not surprising that his view of the national press was less than laudatory when he left the White House. Nearly ten years later, while giving a talk at Austin College in Sherman, Texas, in 2002, Bush shared his views about the national press, continuing a regular theme articulated during his post-presidency public events: “I joined press-bashers anonymous, until the [2000] election recount. I gave a talk in St. Louis a while back and received a standing ovation from 14,000 people for railing against the national press—the people I used to have to say thank you to. . . . I make external Factors : 49 the distinction between the national and the local press. The one thing I don’t miss [as president] is national press conferences.”1 This chapter considers the external factors with which the Bush administration had to contend in regards to the public presidency,including vast changes within the news industry (shrinking budgets and resources, increased competition,and a shift to more entertainment-driven programming in news divisions) and how that shaped political news coverage, particularly from the White House, and ultimately Bush’s standing in public opinion polls. This is significant, since the Bush White House and the news media covering it never seemed to fully understand the wants and needs of the other, which by 1992 hurt the president’s chance for reelection and perhaps left the press and its viewers and readers looking for a more enticing and exciting story emanating from the White House (which they received, for better or worse, with Bill Clinton). This poses interesting questions as to how the news media as an industry contributes to the public opinion of political leaders, communication strategies employed by those same political leaders, and the tone found within public debate and how the electorate responds accordingly. The proliferation of “soft” news, talking heads, and instant analysis now dominates the 24-hour news cycle, and much of this current media environment got its start at the end of the 1980s, just as Bush came into office. As such, this chapter will assess the news media as an industry during the Bush years to provide a better insight into Bush’s legacy in the area of presidential-press relationships and consider how Bush’s public strategy was hindered by the circumstances within the news industry between 1989 and 1993.Also, Bush’s connection to public opinion will be examined, including the rise and fall of his approval numbers along with the use of internal polling by the White House as an attempt to lead public opinion on the president’s policy initiatives. the state of the news industry, 1989–93 By January 1989, when Bush first took office, major changes were underway within the news industry at large,as well as structural changes in how major news outlets were covering the White House. A general shift had begun in the presidential-press relationship in the late 1970s, as what had been known...

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