New data reveals how top political reporters are framing the midterm results in recent questions and press conferences.
Ari MelberElections have a way of setting agendas. While the candidates elected last week will not actually wield power until January, the political world is already adopting the language of the midterms. That’s especially true for political reporters, who frame the questions thrown at the White House’s freshly shellacked podium. To get a snapshot of the new language, The Nation counted up the most frequent words that reporters used in their questions during three major post-election sessions. We used the day-after press conference with President Obama, a similar outing with press secretary Robert Gibbs, and a trio of Sunday talk shows—Meet The Press, State of the Union and Fox News Sunday. Below is a snapshot of the New Change created through the website Wordle. A few trends jump out here: Down with GOP: Despite all the media coverage of the tea party, these reporters overwhelmingly frame the results as a partisan victory for Republicans, not a special triump for tea party Republicans. (It’s hard to even find "tea" in this mix—on the lower left.)
There is no focus on a single Republican leader. The GOP ran the election as a "referendum on Obama" and the economy, and these press questions suggest that line is sticking. There is no close-up for a top Republican, be it Boehner (a dot under the "Republicans" line), McConnell (tucked under "tea" and "question,") or Pawlenty (in the lower right corner between "big" and "next"). In media coverage about the midterms, of course, individual GOP candidates drew lots of attention. After Obama, four of the five top newsmakers in the campaign’s homestretch were Republicans, according to data from the Pew Research Center. The initial reaction among Washington reporters, however, is not focused on GOP leaders. That could shift quickly as Boehner and Obama clash, or meet up for slurpee summits.
Shut it Down. Finally, on policy, these journalists clearly see the election results as catalyzing a challenge to Obama’s domestic spending priorities. The recurring battle words are spending, healthcare and cuts. Notably, however, "jobs" and "Social Security" barely register.
— With research by Devon Bancroft.
Ari MelberTwitterAri Melber is The Nation's Net movement correspondent, covering politics, law, public policy and new media, and a regular contributor to the magazine's blog. He received a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor and a J.D. from Cornell Law School, where he was an editor of the Cornell Journal of Law and Public Policy. Contact Ari: on Facebook, on Twitter, and at amelber@hotmail.com. Melber is also an attorney, a columnist for Politico and a contributing editor at techPresident, a nonpartisan website covering technology’s impact on democracy. During the 2008 general election, he traveled with the Obama Campaign on special assignment for The Washington Independent. He previously served as a Legislative Aide in the US Senate and as a national staff member of the 2004 John Kerry Presidential Campaign. As a commentator on public affairs, Melber frequently speaks on national television and radio, including including appearances on NBC, CNBC, CNN, CNN Headline News, C-SPAN, MSNBC, Bloomberg News, FOX News, and NPR, on programs such as “The Today Show,” “American Morning,” “Washington Journal,” “Power Lunch,” "The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell," "The Joy Behar Show," “The Dylan Ratigan Show,” and “The Daily Rundown,” among others. Melber has also been a featured speaker at Harvard, Oxford, Yale, Columbia, NYU, The Center for American Progress and many other institutions. He has contributed chapters or essays to the books “America Now,” (St. Martins, 2009), “At Issue: Affirmative Action,” (Cengage, 2009), and “MoveOn’s 50 Ways to Love Your Country,” (Inner Ocean Publishing, 2004). His reporting has been cited by a wide range of news organizations, academic journals and nonfiction books, including the The Washington Post, The New York Times, ABC News, NBC News, CNN, FOX News, National Review Online, The New England Journal of Medicine and Boston University Law Review. He is a member of the American Constitution Society, he serves on the advisory board of the Roosevelt Institute and lives in Manhattan.