A quarter-century after the first publication of his book, “Feeding Frenzy: How Attack Journalism Has Transformed American Politics,” Larry Sabato is witnessing a frenzy like never before.
- Feeding Frenzy Larry Sabato 2
- Presidential Betting Markets
- Feeding Frenzy Larry Sabato
- Feeding Frenzy Larry Sabato Jr
In the book, the University of Virginia politics professor and director of the Center for Politics described a growing media trend in which a critical mass of journalists cover an embarrassing or scandalous event with the intensity and abandon of piranhas attacking cornered prey. He argued that the consequences of this phenomenon could be dire for the electorate and the political system at large.
Despite his warning, the frequency of feeding frenzies seems only to have increased.
All the feeding frenzies listed by Larry Sabato from 1952 until 1990 involved presidents or presidential candidates. True or false? Larry Sabato reminds young readers that Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman played the roles of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein in the classic Watergate movie, All the President’s Men. True or false?. Feeding Frenzy How Attack Journalism Has Transformed American Politics. Sabato New York: The Free Press, 306 pages, $22.95 Reviewed by Jeff Jacoby.
UVA Today sat down with Sabato to talk about the impact of this trend over the last 25 years. On Aug. 12, he also joined UVA via Facebook Live to discuss how it pertains to 2016 specifically.
Q. What are some of the top feeding frenzies of 2016 so far?
A. I’d have to write a whole new volume just to cover Donald Trump’s frenzies. You don’t have enough space for a complete list, but his harsh comments on Mexicans, John McCain’s non-hero status because he got captured in Vietnam and Trump’s universal ban on Muslims coming into the U.S. are three good examples. If someone could have confiscated his iPhone, he would have been better off.
Watergate gave birth to the 'character issue,' and broadly defined, character can cover everything. The press has had a permanently adversarial relationship with every president since Nixon.' -- Larry Sabato, director of UVA's Center for Politics
As for Clinton, she’s had a mega-frenzy over her State Department emails. The dressing down by the FBI director was unprecedented, and it cost her big-time. And no one will ever be able to account for Bill Clinton’s lack of judgment in appearing uninvited on the attorney general’s plane; that impropriety was also very damaging to Hillary.
Q. How did Watergate fuel the rise of the modern feeding frenzy?
A. Until Watergate, the White House benefitted from an “imperial Presidency” that protected our chief executives in many ways. For one thing, they were given the benefit of the doubt in ways unheard-of today, not least the conduct of their private lives.
Watergate gave birth to the “character issue,” and broadly defined, character can cover everything. The press has had a permanently adversarial relationship with every president since Nixon. The media didn’t mention Franklin Roosevelt’s wheelchair or John F. Kennedy’s girlfriends. Even minor gaffes are headlines today.
Q. How is the modern feeding frenzy different from the type of gossip and scandal coverage that has interested the press since the earliest days of journalism?
A. Among many differences is the social media phenomenon. Nothing is off-limits; the news cycle never ends and rumors mentioned online legitimize blanket coverage.
In the old days, a relative handful of journalists and editors could decide whether something became public or not. In the age of Twitter and blogs, millions of people are their own news organizations. Very few things stay secret for long, even in the national security arena.
Q. Since you wrote the book in 1991, how has the changing media landscape helped intensify the feeding frenzy phenomenon?
A. The establishment media organizations don’t drive the news anymore; they are driven by the ever-changing trends on Twitter, Facebook and the like. Frenzies end only when the public is sated, especially partisans. CBS, NBC, ABC, FOX and CNN can say ‘enough!’ all they want – no one cares.
Q. What is the impact of this trend on the political system?
A. When you know everything there is to know about someone in the public sphere, you are likely to be more critical. It’s just human nature to focus more on the vices than the virtues. The same applies to political and governmental institutions. If you believe the coverage, they can do nothing right. Cynicism is corrosive, and we have more of it than ever before.
Q. What are the consequences to voters?
A. The “best people” don’t run for public office anymore. Maybe they never have, but ask any party leader: It is extremely difficult today to convince the most successful individuals to become candidates for anything.
Who loses when the highly talented turn away from public service and leave it to the mediocre? We do. Our system does.
Feeding Frenzy Larry Sabato 2
Q. Is there a way to break the cycle?
A. With the strong support of the University, I’ve dedicated the last years of my career to trying to improve civic education, from kindergarten all the way up to senior citizens. Education and citizen participation are the twin pillars that support good government. We take seriously our responsibility of teaching and helping to build the next generation of strong, ethical leaders, and to encourage their active participation in politics and government as early as possible.
Ours is not a perfect system, but politics is the civic glue that holds together an incredibly diverse and often conflicted nation. It is the engine of our democracy. Like any other engine, when the driver looks away or disengages, it can run off track. In that sense, the mission of the Center for Politics is to offer the best driver-education program possible to as many people as possible.
Media Contact
University News AssociateOffice of University Communications
[email protected]434-297-6784
Presidential Betting Markets
Article Information
August 10, 2016
https://news.virginia.edu/content/sabato-discusses-25-years-political-feeding-frenzies
Now that the hub-hub about Dick Cheney’s shooting accident has died down, the Crystal Ball can add a bit of perspective. Quail-Gate was a classic media feeding frenzy, and your author wrote the book on the phenomenon entitled, well, Feeding Frenzy.
Amazingly little has changed since the first edition was published in 1991. In the Kabuki Theater of American politics, everyone plays a well practiced role:
- The public official in the eye of the storm makes a mistake or commits a gaffe [The Shooting]. Instead of coming clean quickly and answering all the relevant questions, in order to limit the damage, he delays, obfuscates, or shifts blame [Long delay in releasing the news, the leak to the Corpus Christi paper only, an appearance of blaming the victim–Harry Whittington].
- The public official’s assistants and superiors fail to make a strong case to him for a different handling of the problem, or fail to convince the official that he is headed for trouble [The Bush communications team seems to have understood what Cheney’s didn’t].
- The incident plays into the “subtext” that has long existed for the public official [Cheney is secretive]. Where bad relations already exist between the media and the official, the table is further set [Mutual distrust between Cheney and the press has long been present].
- Reporters’ suspicions are aroused and their adrenaline begins to pump. The news media become convinced of a cover-up or worse, and they press hard for answers to uncomfortable questions [Those White House grillings of Scott McClellan reminded everyone of Clinton-land]. Excesses inevitably occur in the questioning or news coverage [Reporters show anger and argue with officials, or show up on TV wearing blaze orange].
- At this point, the partisans jump in. Members of the attacked official’s party accuse the press of bias and bad behavior, while members of the other party rail against the press for not asking “the tough questions”[Too numerous to mention].
- Unsubstantiated rumors swirl that the known facts are just the tip of a nasty iceberg, and the innuendo is fed by both the mainstream media and the internet [Cheney was drunk; no, he was dead drunk; and the accident couldn’t have happened the way they are claiming: there must have been a second shooter on the grassy knoll].
- The late-night comedians and others cash in, turning a frenzy into a farce–and generating water cooler conversation and spin-off jokes across the nation [At least Jon Stewart looked to the heavens and gave thanks for his bounty].
- As he moves from one lost pint of blood to two, the beleaguered public official decides at last to stop both the bleeding and the swirling sharks. He does this by doing what he should have done on Day One: making himself available to tell the truth, warts and all [Cheney agrees to be interviewed by Brit Hume, and the Veep is clearly remorseful for the accident and takes responsibility, however tardy].
- With the demand for information having been at least partly satisfied, the waters calm a bit, and the press and public hit the mute button–unless additional damning information is revealed or until the next feeding frenzy [Whittington exonerates the Vice President, and Cheney owes him “big time”–but there’s always Scooter Libby around the corner].
- The image and credibility of the man or woman in the eye of the storm are damaged, perhaps permanently so, and a new paragraph is added to the obituary file of the official in question [Cheney can ask his Republican predecessor Dan Quayle].
- The press takes its lumps, too. The partisans are pleased by this, since in the modern polarized era they are in the business of delivering lumps to the media, as well as one another.
Feeding Frenzy Larry Sabato
Unlike the mega-frenzies (Watergate, Iran-Contra, Clinton’s impeachment), Dick Cheney’s Quail-Gate has no earth-shattering revelations that redefine the political landscape. And since Cheney is definitely not running for President in 2008, there is no campaign damage to repair, as there has been for many dozens of other national candidates in recent decades. Still, the jokes survive–and despite the laughs, a sour taste lingers all around. No one looks good. Most of the players will want to put this episode to bed quickly. That has often been true in the sordid history of the feeding frenzy.
Feeding Frenzy Larry Sabato Jr
One tiny footnote: My book’s first title, before the publisher and I settled on Feeding Frenzy, was Open Season. Little did we know how appropriate that alternate label would one day be!