Candidates make the campaign, not press, CBS' Schieffer says

By Wadee Deeprawat
freedomforum.org

07.13.01

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Bob Schieffer, center, with Freedom Forum's Susan Bennett and Claude Porsella, president of Le Club Tocqueville.

ARLINGTON, Va. — News coverage wasn't the cause of voter ambivalence in the recent presidential election, according to Bob Schieffer, CBS News chief Washington correspondent and anchor of the CBS News Sunday public affairs broadcast, "Face the Nation."

"I have always been one of those who feel that it is the candidates who make the campaign," Schieffer said on July 11. "I think our job (as reporters) is to watch and reflect what's going on."

Schieffer spoke and answered audience questions at a program sponsored by The Freedom Forum and Le Club Tocqueville, the French-speaking correspondents association. The program was co-moderated by Susan Bennett of The Freedom Forum international division and Claude Porsella, president of Le Club Tocqueville.

With more than 30 years' experience as a Washington correspondent for CBS News and having covered every presidential campaign since 1972, Schieffer said the recent presidential campaign and election was the "most unusual" he had encountered.

"Neither candidate lit up the night sky," he said. "The bottom line to all this is that the United States is very evenly divided … the … election (occurred) in good times (and) nobody got all that excited or energized about it at the end."

Providing historical context for the way presidents have dealt with the national news media, Schieffer discussed President Nixon's strategy toward the end of the Vietnam War. Nixon tried to mobilize the press to influence public opinion against North Vietnam, Schieffer said, to turn the press into "a propaganda arm of the government." Schieffer said that effort failed because there was little public support for U.S. involvement in Vietnam at the time.

Schieffer also said President George W. Bush's administration may be "falling into [the same] trap" as previous administrations by isolating itself from the news media behind closed gates of the White House. Schieffer said it may be that the new administration is still becoming familiar with the "complexity" of the federal government.

"When they cut themselves from the press, they divorce themselves from reality and simply don't get good advice," Schieffer said. Nevertheless, he said Bush had "done fairly well" so far.

Responding to a question about U.S. news coverage of foreign news, Schieffer called it "inadequate." Since the breakup of the Soviet Union, the American people have "turned inward" and paid less attention to events far from home, he said.

"Once there is no great threat out there that people perceive, they just seem to turn more towards themselves," Schieffer said. "People tend to be less serious when things are going pretty well."

Schieffer also said it was his job as a journalist to "reflect what's going on" and get the other side of the story rather than rebut a candidate's position from a journalist's perspective.

"[My responsibility is] to make sure the issues are fairly presented. I try to elicit information where I can and illuminate rather than try to influence," he said.

Wadee Deeprawat is an intern in The Freedom Forum International Division.