Mass Media And Politics

5 Pages 1287 Words

media in politics

Media
The media play an important role in American politics. It is the job of the media to keep citizens informed and to help shape their opinion’s on issues of the day. Reporters, however, look at reporting in different ways. Reporters like Michael Lewis report on what interest them. In “Trail Fever”, he finds himself attached to Senator John McCain of Arizona as he follows him on his 1996 Presidential campaign. In “A Time of Change”, New York Times editor Harrison Salisbury looks back on two heavily publicized political events of the 1960’s, the Kennedy assassination and the1968 Democratic National Convention. Salisbury’s tenure as editor “qualifies him to critique” the coverage of great events. Paul Glastris, on the other hand, discusses why certain political events, like Al Gore’s National Performance Review (NPR), do not get much media attention. All three articles show how the media is affected by what transpires in American politics, and in some instances how it affects those who report on them.
In “Trail Fever,” Michael Lewis follows the Presidential election of 1996. He was uninspired by the two favorites, Senator Bob Dole from Kansas and President Bill Clinton. Lewis along the way ran into Senator John McCain from Arizona who was seeking the Republican Presidential nomination. Lewis was impressed by McCain’s strait forwardness. Lewis find McCain to be an honest man among many people who are not always telling the truth. Lewis questioned himself, “I know well enough how to interview someone who shades the truth . . . But I don’t know how to interview an honest man who occupies high political office (512). Lewis not only questions himself on who to do his job, but McCain gets in him enough that Lewis actually questions his own political affiliation. “The loner I hang around McCain the harder it is to fight the feeling that just maybe I’m Republican” (514).
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