As the health care debate begins to fizzle for the August recess, president Obama may want to take the time to rethink his media strategy. Currently he’s gone on a blitz promoting health care reform, but his last press conference was a dud, overshadowed by the two words “acted stupidly” and a media starving for, well change. It’s not that networks such as ABC don’t want to cover him, they do, but like a guest who’s overstayed his visit, Obama refuses to leave the camera’s spotlight.
Washington Post’s Howard Kurtz has written an interesting article on Obama’s relationship with media networks. In “The Prez, The Press, The Pressure” Kurtz explains why chief of staff Rahm Emanuel is calling the chief executive of Disney, the parent company of ABC. He’s making sure President Obama gets prime-time coverage. He’s also beginning to irk some network executives.
Obama’s media blitz for health care reform has begun to take a toll on the battlefield. Prime-time television must be moved to accommodate the president, a hit in viewers must be taken, and a loss in ad revenues must be mended.
Kurtz writes:
“The financial stakes are considerable. ABC, CBS and NBC have given up as much as $40 million in advertising revenue to carry this year’s East Room events. “We lose more than $3 million a show,” Moonves told Mediaweek. The Fox broadcast network has declined to carry the last two Obama sessions.”
And it isn’t just the networks that Obama should be concerned about, the viewers could be tuning out, too.
Obama has to tread a thin rope in order to successfully sell his health care plan. In order to get support, Obama has to explain the benefits of health care reform, which are easily debated. He also must keep in mind the short attention span of the media and viewers who’ve jumped from Palin, briefly to health care, to Michael Jackson, to Susan Boyle, and now back to Michael Jackson, all within a period of 30 days. So it’s no small order to maintain attention on issues such as health care, especially when it has to be dumbed down for consumption.
As William Bradley of the Huffington Post explains:
“In many respects, health care is inherently a MEGO issue. By which I mean, once one delves into the particulars of the policy, “my eyes glaze over.” Which doesn’t reduce the importance of the issue. But does detract from its drama.”
Keywords have to be established and repeated at every opportunity, which tends to make for dull coverage for a media looking for action. For example, Obama said Cambridge police “acted stupidly” in arresting Henry Louis Gates, during a press conference about health care, yet no one seems to remember that aspect. But hey, Obama needs stay the course at press conferences.
But Obama risks the same pitfalls Bush did when he promoted Social Security reform in 2005. Bush, like Obama, went on a media blitz across the country, selling the many benefits of reform. Most of all, he promoted the budget neutrality of the plan. Yet, people get wheezy around numbers, they’re easy to misrepresent and hard to connect with mainstream America, so the plan failed. Obama, however, seems to be ignoring the lessons of history. For that, he must pay the penalty of Susan Boyle ousting him on NBC’s prime-time television.
But is this a sign of the media starting to ignore the president? Not really, after all, he is the president, he makes news, he’s popular amongst viewers, and most of all the media loves him. So prime coverage is a certainty – however news is a business and must be concerned with the bottom line, and when the president is costing $3 million dollars for coverage and $40 million for advertising, then something needs to change. Especially when there’s little room for newsrooms to maneuver resources, as Kurtz explains:
“White House officials essentially dictated the timing when they decided to hold an evening session on the 100th day of Obama’s term and again on July 22. In that instance, network executives say, the White House announced the event on its Twitter feed less than an hour after informing them.”
And yet, Obama covers the same tired messages during his press conferences, losing a crucial opportunity to captivate the audience.
Liberal centers, like Media Matters, seem to believe that networks must make way for Obama, and they’re right – to a point. Obama is a newsmaker and must be covered, but networks are companies too, and they do need to be concerned with the bottom-line, and when something begins to threaten a major source of income, especially when profits are down in a recession, sometimes it’s best to cut free and run.
