Out of Order
An incisive and boldly original critique of the news media's domination of Ameri
Published on 12. January 2011
336 pages
978-0-307-76149-1 (ISBN)
Description
Why are our politicians almost universally perceived as liars? What made candidate Bill Clinton's draft record more newsworthy than his policy statements? How did George Bush's masculinity, Ronald Reagan's theatrics with a microphone, and Walter Mondale's appropriation of a Wendy's hamburger ad make or break their presidential campaigns?
Ever since Watergate, says Thomas E. Patterson, the road to the presidency has led through the newsrooms, which in turn impose their own values on American politics. The results are campaigns that resemble inquisitions or contests in which the candidates' game plans are considered more important than their goals. Lucid and aphoristic, historically informed and as timely as a satellite feed, Out of Order mounts a devastating inquest into the press's hijacking of the campaign process -- and shows what citizens and legislators can do to win it back.
Ever since Watergate, says Thomas E. Patterson, the road to the presidency has led through the newsrooms, which in turn impose their own values on American politics. The results are campaigns that resemble inquisitions or contests in which the candidates' game plans are considered more important than their goals. Lucid and aphoristic, historically informed and as timely as a satellite feed, Out of Order mounts a devastating inquest into the press's hijacking of the campaign process -- and shows what citizens and legislators can do to win it back.
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Other editions
Additional editions
Thomas E. Patterson
Out of Order
An incisive and boldly original critique of the news media's domination of America's political process
Book
08/1994
Vintage Books
€23.60
Article exhausted; check different version
Thomas E. Patterson
Out of Order
Book
10/1993
Alfred A. Knopf
€41.16
Article exhausted; check different version
Person
Thomas E. Patterson is the Bradlee Professor of Government and the Press at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government. For many years he taught at Syracuse University. He is the author of several books on politics and the media, including Out of Order, which won the American Political Science Association's 2002 Doris Graber Award for the best book in the field of political communication, and The Unseeing Eye, which was named one of the fifty most influential books of the past half century in the field of public opinion by the American Association for Public Opinion Research. He lives in Brookline, Massachusetts.
Content
- Intro
- About the Author
- Other Books by This Author
- Title Page
- Copyright
- Dedication
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Prologue: Truth and Falsehood on the Campaign Trail
- Chapter 1: The Miscast Institution
- Chapter 2: Of Schemas-Game and Governing
- Chapter 3: Images of the Game They Play
- Chapter 4: Reporters' Issues versus Candidates' Issues
- Chapter 5: News, Truth, and That State of Nature We Call Election Coverage
- Chapter 6: How to Fix the Campaign: Shorten It
- Postscript to the Vintage Edition: Truth and Falsehood on the White House Beat: The First Year of the Clinton Presidency
- Notes
- Bibliography
