Chapter 19: The Media

The media have never been more important—or as divisive—on Capitol Hill than today. On the one hand, legislators vie for attention for their pet issues or bills in an increasingly diversified news and entertainment landscape. At the same time, senators and representatives must cope with constant and sometimes critical scrutiny by newspapers, magazines, and radio, television, and cable networks. Meanwhile, the Internet and emerging digital technologies have leveled the playing field and made it possible for everyone from lowly congressional staffers and citizen journalists to party machines and powerful senators to report on the activities of Congress.

A series of dramatic changes in the media landscape have provided the public with many more outlets for news from Capitol Hill today. The deregulation of the cable television industry in the 1980s brought about an explosion in news organizations, including CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, and the cable industry–financed Cable Satellite Public Affairs Network, known as C-SPAN, which operates channels featuring live coverage of the House of Representatives and Senate. The advent of the Internet in the late twentieth century led to the creation of Web sites for every existing news organization in addition to new online-only publications and a plethora of political-oriented blogs of all stripes, from Wonkette to the Huffington Post to http://RedState.org.

Digital technologies have changed the traditional news cycle and forced different types of media to compete now on some of the same platforms when covering Congress. News outlets—from traditional daily newspapers such as the New York Times and the Chicago Tribune to weekly journals focused on Congress, such as Congressional Quarterly and the National Journal—now update their Web sites frequently throughout the day and send out alerts and reports via e-mail.

Lawmakers and staff members are no longer passive participants just feeding information to reporters and waiting to see how events will be covered in the news. Some staffers and even members of Congress write blogs. Key staffers and lawmakers are now frequent guests on the numerous cable TV and Sunday morning talk shows. Campaign staffs submit camcorder clips—sometimes unflattering tapes of rivals—to video-oriented Web sites, such as http://YouTube.com. These clips, often e-mailed around the nation, are sometimes seen by more Americans than the nightly network newscasts.

Washington investigative reporting, largely born as a result of the Watergate scandal in the 1970s, has been criticized by some in recent years for not being as alert for official misconduct in Congress and the White House as it was in past years. During Bill Clinton’s tenure as president, the press gave great attention to alleged extramarital affairs and other aspects of officeholders’ and candidates’ private lives. But at the dawn of the twenty-first century, investigative reporting took on more substantive issues. Reporting on powerful Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff led to not only his conviction on fraud and corruption charges but also legal proceedings against Rep. Bob Ney, R-Ohio. In 2006 the Web site of ABC News reported that a former congressional page had received suggestive e-mails from Rep. Mark Foley, R-Fla. After other reports surfaced, Foley resigned.

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