News Release

Reporters, President Need To Re-Evaluate Relationship, Scholar Says

Book Announcement

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, News Bureau

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- Everyone from Matt Drudge to Joe Lunchbucket has weighed in on the recent behavior of President Clinton and the news media. Now a journalism professor has joined the debate.

In his new book, "The Press and the Modern Presidency: Myths and Mindsets From Kennedy to Clinton" (published by Praeger), Louis Liebovich appeals to the two parties to "re-evaluate their relationship." According to Liebovich, a professor of journalism at the University of Illinois, the deteriorating information flow between the press and president is a dangerous thing, potentially even catastrophic.

"In the event of an economic downturn or a world crisis ... there is a very real need for proper lines of communication between the White House and the nation with the assistance of a responsible, critical, and conscientious news media," Liebovich wrote. "How this process succeeds or fails in the 21st century can determine how the world will fare for the next generation."

For Liebovich, who traces the history of the press-president relationship over the past 40 years, fault lies in both camps. In a chapter on the news media's changing role at the White House, he recalls events such as the advent of "shock journalism," which began replacing traditional issue-oriented reporting; media-baiting; CNN and C-SPAN; the death of many dailies and the rise of USA Today; Rush Limbaugh; Connie Chung; cynicism; pack journalism. As for President Clinton, he played right into the hands of an increasingly cynical press corps, Liebovich said. In an interview, Liebovich said the president "lived down to the press's worst expectations." In the book, Liebovich wrote that the president and first lady supplied the wood, hammer, nails and ladder for their own crucifixions.

Clinton, a student of history, should have known when he was elected that he would be scrutinized and that the press was loaded for bear. "They were looking for lies, personal scandal, innuendo, because that's all they'd gotten in the last 20 years," Liebovich said.

Moreover, in the face of increasing criticism, Clinton further inflamed the press corps by cutting them off, rendering them "irrelevant" by turning to other formats: town-hall meetings, talk shows, local-press access. Clinton's acumen and political gamesmanship were considerably "underestimated."

"Bill Clinton will survive," Liebovich said, "but what is going to suffer is the presidency, because now everything has been confirmed -- this is the way presidents are."

Liebovich said the media should attend to issues in the national interest. "Put Monica Lewinsky on the 12th page, in the sixth story on the nightly news, and report what affects people's lives." Similarly, he counsels Clinton to "deal with the affairs of state rather than the affairs of the back room."

In the meantime, Liebovich speculates that White House reporters will have to turn to sources other than daily news briefings for their stories, "increasing the chances that the press corps and the chief executive will drift further apart. Computer technology [may make] Washington reporters' jobs even more insecure, while placing another wedge between them and the White House."

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