By Jonathan Arkin
Student Writer
USC Annenberg welcomed Bill Schneider, one of the country's leading political commentators and CNN's senior political analyst, to the Journalism Director’s Forum on Feb. 24.
Schneider, who discussed media bias, the state of the economy and the future of the Obama administration with faculty and students, is also a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C., and a contributing editor to the Los Angeles Times, National Journal and The Atlantic Monthly. He discussed geo-political demographics in America, noting that distinctions may often come from less studied sources.
“Now you find that people who vote together live in the same area,” said Schneider, who said that demographics would be better understood as results of lifestyle schemas, not politics. “But people don’t move somewhere because of their politics. They move there because of their lifestyle.”
Schneider also spoke about the challenges facing Barack Obama’s nascent presidency, naming three issues – the economy, health care and the conflict in Afghanistan – as paramount to the success of Obama’s term.
“There are several issues that are challenges where [Obama] can make a difference,” said Schneider, who added that several different presidents in the 20th century inherited similar recession statistics upon taking office and all were able to eventually work out those problems. “With politics, it’s the best of times, with the economy it’s the worst of times…when the economy is bad, it’s the economy that’s the issue. When the economy is good, something else is the issue. Health care will be his biggest opportunity…Millions of people stood by Ronald Reagan when he said, ‘Stay the course.’ I hope Obama gets a course to stay on…The democrats are known as the party of ‘big ideas.’ Obama needs a big idea.”
Schneider warned of the inadequacy of polls in measuring the volatility of issues such as gun control and health care in human, emotional terms, saying it is an ongoing business in Washington to create public sentiment and outrage, but that polling and reporting are not always accurate in capturing that.
“Intensity is something that is poorly measured in polls – they don’t measure that intensity of feeling very well,” said Schneider, who also said that politicians do pay heed and react to those messages from their constituents but that much has to do with the way issues are presented by an often unbalanced media. “You’ve got to have things that matter to Washington, and you’ve got to make it good visually.”
Geneva Overholser , director of the School of Journalism, added that such a focus is evolving but is emblematic of a deeper, more historical dilemma facing journalists.
“As all of you in journalism know, this debate has been going on forever,” Overholser said. “There has been a change in mood in reporting more than there has been a change of mood in Washington.”
Others agreed.
“The problem is this compulsion of the media – the real story is that there is a shift toward the center,” said journalism professor Marc Cooper on the tendency of some programs to still call attention to their own bias rather then to deflect it. “That’s OK during Anderson Cooper’s show, but not Lou Dobbs’ show. Not to pick on CNN…but why not?”
“Well, I’m here,” replied Schneider, to laughter. “There isn’t a market for news without a point of view. There’s a fine line between a populist and a demagogue. In a political debate, if you don’t represent both sides, you get screamed at. There is a kind of obsession with balance – even if that balance is unjustified.”
USC Annenberg Dean Ernest J. Wilson III found a quandary for newer journalists in such an issue.
“If fairness and balance has been their ‘theme song,’ what do we now tell our journalism students?” asked Wilson.
