Media professors say Cheney shooting handled poorly

Posted Thursday, February 16 2006 01:50:59 am

By Riki Parikh
Managing Editor

GW professors are among the growing number of media scholars and political elite that are criticizing the Bush administration for their handling of Vice President Dick Cheney’s weekend hunting accident, which they say violated every rule of good political communication.

While placing the blame on the White House’s media team, professors also say that the press is overreacting and making this a bigger story than it needs to be.

Stephen Hess, distinguished research professor of media and public affairs and a presidential scholar at the Brookings Institution, said the White House is handling the situation “dismally.”

“They broke every rule of the game and for no purpose whatsoever,” he said. “What you want is to respond fast and complete. The longer you wait, the more people assume there are dark corners that you’re hiding.”

Hess, who has served four presidents and has since been researching the relationship between politicians and the press, said that the entire incident was “irresponsible” and that the vice president should have come forward as soon as the incident occurred on Saturday.

Other professors seem surprised that the White House did not seem to think that the story would have legs.

“In all definitions of news, the vice president having this accident is a huge news story,” said Albert May, a journalism professor.

Regardless of how big or small the incident was, since the veep was involved, “it’s news,” said political communication professor Jarol Manheim.

Hess said that by not realizing the potential enormity of the story, the vice president’s team took what should have been a small story and turned it into a “big negative.”

“They took an event possibly should have been in the Style section [and] late night comedy… and turned it into a front page story,” he said.

The story broke on Sunday, nearly 24 hours after the incident, when the owner of the ranch where the accident occurred contacted a local newspaper.

Manheim said that that decision was probably due to a “local source to a local medium” strategy.

“If the vice president… calls a little paper in Texas, it’s automatically going to run the radar way up high,” he said. “If some local land owner does it then maybe it keeps it lower key.”

But most professors of political communication would say that it would have been better to get the story out right away.

“It’s media strategy 101 that you’d get the story out as soon as you could,” said May. That way, the White House could have controlled the story instead of fueling it.

“Get the bad news, all the bad news out as quickly as you can and limit the damage, and move on,” added journalism professor Michael Shanahan.

The better strategy would have been for Cheney to call his press secretary with all the details and then let the vice president and ranch owner Kathryn Armstrong talk to reporters directly, said Shanahan. Then, a press conference should have been scheduled for the following day with Cheney answering questions.

As for the coverage it has received since then, all the professors agree that it has become an excessive “feeding frenzy.”

“There was a certain amount of overreaction by the White House press corps,” said May. “I’m not sure the American people are up to that [level of] outrage.”

Both May and Manheim suggested that the reaction by the media is pent up anger after five years under the notoriously tight-lipped Bush administration.

The professors, however, did not let Cheney off the hook. They said he should have realized that even though the incident may be quite common for hunters, he is still the vice president of the United States and he is not entitled to that much privacy.

“The more authority you have, the more responsibility you ask for or seek as a public official [and] the less privacy you have,” said Hess. “That’s how it should be in a democracy.”

“He is accountable for all his actions,” added Shanhan, “something Cheney doesn’t seem to think goes with his job description.”