Topic: The Power of Campaign Pictures:
In her oft-cited 1984 news segment, Lesley Stahl got it wrong
Source:
Stephanie Larson, associate professor of Political Science,
Dickinson College, Carlisle, PA 17013, 717/245-1759
Contact:
Lorna Shurkin, director of Media Relations at Dickinson College, 717/245-1180
Marilynne Herbert/Sara Mortimer, Halstead Communications
212/734-2190
At the height of the 1984 presidential campaign, correspondent Lesley Stahl produced a 5-minute story for the CBS Evening News criticizing Reagan for deceptive image-making. This segment has become a legend among TV journalists, media critics, and scholars as portraying the power of pictures over words.
Lesley Stahl not only misinterpreted the significance of the segment -- there's scant evidence that its visuals outweighs its audio -- but Stahl's own narrative fails to articulate what she later claimed she did. What she thought was a hard-hitting analysis of manipulative practices was actually, on close examination, remarkably congruent with the positive images that illustrated the segment.
That's the conclusion of a recently published article Debunking A Myth: Lesley Stahl's legendary 1984 campaign news segment that appeared in the most recent edition of Media Studies Journal (attached). Author Stephanie Larson is a political scientist who specializes in the media's role in elections and public response to media.
Concludes Larson: "After closely watching and listening to this news segment, it seemed to me that the piece, overall, complemented President Reagan with words, sounds and pictures. The story was about how effectively Reagan presented himself, using positive pictures as illustrations."
No matter that Ms. Stahl's piece and its subsequent canonization are based on inaccurate assessment, media critics and TV journalists accept it as holy grail-so much so that CBS included it as a important news story of the 1980s in the network's four-part series celebrating the CBS evening news at 50.
Of more consequence is the fact that, current TV journalists, responding to Ms. Stahl's erroneous assertion, tend toward excessive negativism in their reporting to try and combat what they see as the politicians having the upper-hand. This, Prof. Larson believes, is a disservice to the electorate because it provides a distorted view of the positions and personalities of the candidates.
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