Page 154 - Historical Dictionary of Political Communication in the United States

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INITIAL HANDLING
TELEVISION'S
Pentagon";
row; David Sarnoff; ''Selling of OF POLITICS Bernard Shaw; 60 Minutes;
the
Television's Initial Handling of Politics.
TELEVISION'S INITIAL HANDLING OF POLITICS. From the start of
regular network telecasts in 1947, television largely defined itself as an enter-
tainment medium. Coverage of current events, including politics, absorbed rel-
atively little of the daily schedule. The national networks had only 15-minute,
early evening newscasts and relegated other news programs to less popular time
slots. NBC and CBS waited until 1963 to expand their evening news programs
to 30 minutes. ABC did not do so until 1967.
One exception was the national party convention. Beginning in 1948, the
networks telecast most of the convention proceedings. Altruism did not explain
the networks' behavior. Advertiser demand for time was soft in the summer,
when audiences were relatively small. Furthermore, televising the conventions
spared the networks the cost of airing entertainment programming.
Television's early coverage of politics had two important characteristics. First,
it was relatively unmediated. That is, more of a politician's speech was actually
aired, uninterrupted and uncommented upon. Network news personnel were
strikingly uncritical of those they covered. Two factors explain television news'
deference to political leaders. One was a fear of the Federal Communications
Commission (FCC), which oversaw the broadcast industry. Although the FCC
rarely involved itself in the networks' operations, individual members of Con-
gress or the executive branch could pressure the commission to do so. Then,
too, television's first generation of newscasters prized "objective" news pre-
sentations as the ultimate measure of journalistic professionalism. Many had
worked for newspapers and wire services with traditions of neutral presentation.
Moreover, critical reports invited comparisons to the more partisan newspapers
or strident radio commentators of the 1930s.
Over time, television news adopted a more detached stance toward politics.
Correspondents began assessing politicians' remarks, often in a cutting final
remark at the end of a report. Relatedly, the networks increased their mediation
of political news, greatly curtailing their coverage of national party conventions
and reducing the length of sound bites or direct quotes from individual speeches.
Comparing network coverage of presidential campaigns, Kiku Adatto found that
the average sound bite from a candidate dropped from 42.3 seconds in 1968 to
9.8 seconds 20 years later.
The shift from unmediated, deferential coverage had several explanations.
One was technological. The introduction of videotape and high-speed editing
equipment allowed television news personnel to edit and greatly increase the
tempo of individual sequences. Faster pacing, producers argued, appealed to
viewers. Then, too, the failure of America's intervention in Vietnam and the
Nixon administration scandals seemed to justify skeptical reportage; most jour-
nalists had come to regard strictly objective coverage as serving the needs of
those in power. The emergence of campaign efforts to manipulate television