Substantive Policy Issues Research Articles

Comparing News and Editorial Coverage of the 1996 Presidential Nominating Campaign

Most studies on media coverage of presidential campaigns build on Thomas Patterson's argument that the schema guides the selection and interpretation of campaign events.(1) Journalists view candidates as players in a game who are principally concerned with winning. The focus is on who is ahead, who is behind, and how the game is being played. Candidates' actions and statements, including their policy positions, are seen as calculated behaviors intended to improve their chances of winning. These observations, however, are based on analyses of news coverage. Scholars have neglected commentary coverage of politics, even though commentaries are a significant part of print media coverage. There are good reasons to expect differences between news and commentary coverage of campaigns. Keeping opinions out of the news has been a central component of objective journalism since the early twentieth century.(2) Unconstrained by norms of objectivity, editorial staff and columnists are free to choose sides, present one-sided arguments, and let ideological considerations guide their writing. On the other hand, the differences between news and commentary coverage of politics may be fading since news coverage has become more interpretive and critical of the candidates and their actions.(3) Just how different are news and commentary coverage of presidential campaigns? Comparing the quality and quantity of candidate coverage in news and commentary items should give us a fuller picture of the information available to voters. The media play a powerful role as intermediaries between political leaders and the public.(4) The media's role is especially important in the nominating campaign. Because most people are poorly informed about the candidates, what the media say and write about candidates has considerable potential to influence voters' judgments about the candidates.(5) By portraying candidates more or less favorably and as more or less likely to win the nomination, the media influence at least some primary voters' decisions to support certain candidates rather than others by altering their strategic calculations and attitudes toward the candidates.(6) How the media act as intermediaries and how they affect presidential nominations are questions worth studying. Patterns of Campaign Coverage The limits of space and time make bias inevitable in media coverage. The form of the media's bias can be found in the themes or frames used by journalists to select and interpret events. The predominant frame in campaign coverage is the game schema where journalists view politics as a strategic game in which politicians compete for strategic advantage.(7) Viewing the campaign as a game, journalists pay more attention to the horse race and to campaign strategy than to substantive policy issues or candidate qualifications.(8) The amount of coverage given to candidates reflects journalists' expectations of candidates' chances of winning the race.(9) The tone of candidate coverage also follows a candidate's fortunes in and at the polls, although with greater variation as a result of attention given to scandals, blunders, and other conflicts.(10) Four major story lines pervade the game schema. The first is the front-runner story line. Front-runners receive the most coverage, but the coverage tends to be critical as reporters focus on the candidates' efforts to stay on top.(11) The second story line is that of the likely losers--candidates judged by the media to be unlikely to win the nomination.(12) Unless or until they exceed expectations in or at the polls, likely losers receive little attention from the media.(13) Likely loser coverage tends to be critical as reporters focus on the candidates' personal or programmatic flaws and problems with the candidates' strategies.(14) Journalists treat candidates who fall in between the extremes as plausibles who might break through to win the nomination.(15) Coverage of the candidates shifts with perceived changes in their chances of winning. …

A. Medical manpower planning: Dynamics without direction

One tempting conclusion to draw from the comparative history of medical manpower planning is that Don Quixote was a hard-headed realist in comparison to those who have undertaken this reckless enterprise. The manic-depressive cycle of shortages followed by surpluses, and so da cqo, seems to be the one common factor that emerges from the various national studies in this volume. Moreover, the concepts themselves are themselves socially and politically determined: different countries, at different times, have defined ‘shortages’ and ‘surpluses’ at different levels. So, for example, the British medical profession is currently worried about the prospect of a surplus, even though Britain’s doctor-patient ratio would suggest that the country is still desperately short of physicians when compared to, say, the F.R.G. or Sweden. Perceptions seem to be shaped both by past history and the structure of medical care, organisational and financial, within which doctors work. The notion that we can find some rational model of medical manpower planning with universal application, if only we search with enough determination, does not stand up to scrutiny. Hence, of course, the importance of looking at manpower planning as a political process: politics are not an exogenous factor, distorting rationality, but are endogenous to the process itself. Since it is likely that governments everywhere will go on attempting to plan medical manpower given the financial implications improving our understanding of the politics of planning is at least as important as developing the technologies of planning. In what follows, I therefore briefly examine three sets of issues that emerge from the various country-specific chapters in this volume, concentrating in particular on the problems and opportunities presented by comparative studies of this kind. Specifically, I will review first the methodological issues involved in such comparisons, then the explanatory issues in making sense of any patterns revealed and, finally, the substantive policy issues that emerge from or are illustrated by international comparisons.

The Supreme Court, the First Amendment, and Freedom of Information

Americans live in a nation which depends for many purposes upon a constitutional system of free expression, with a number of constitutional and statutory elements. ' In addition to the First Amendment, the state of the union requirement, the congressional journal mandate, the audits and accounts clause, and other constitutional provisions, the United States has a collection of fair information practices laws including among others the Freedom of Information Act, the Privacy Act, the Government in the Sunshine Act, the Federal Advisory Committee Act, the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, the Right to Financial Privacy Act, the Fair Credit Reporting Act, and parallel legislation in many states. fair assessment of information policy must contemplate both the constitutional and statutory dimensions of the subject. These elements of the system are interrelated and overlap.2 Madison captured the fundamental role played by the system in making information available when he observed: A popular Government, without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy; or, perhaps both. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance: And a people who mean to be their own Governors, must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.' The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) is appropriately viewed as an adjunct to the constitutional elements of the system envisioned by Madison. The Supreme Court has observed that [t]he basic purpose of FOIA is to ensure an informed citizenry, vital to the functioning of a democratic society, needed to check against corruption and to hold the governors accountable to the governed.4 Both constitutional and statutory provisions are concerned with assuring the capacity of the citizenry to address specific substantive policy issues and with the maintenance of important structural features of the governing framework such as elections and the arrangement of checks and balances.5 In addition to their other essential interrelationships, FOIA and the First Amendment are frequently brought together in litigation involving both constitutional and statutory issues. The Supreme Court plays a vital role in fair information practices because it possesses tremendous discretion in the interpretation of the nature, boundaries, and functions of the system. Consequently, anyone attempting to assess the state of information policy must consider the directions in which the Court is moving in this field. In performing that analysis, one finds. a development which reached full flower in the * The First Amendment and the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) are interrelated elements of the system offree expression. The Supreme Court's power to interpret both the constitutional provisions and the statutes plays a central role in shaping information policy. This article argues that while the Court has moved from a rights-based theory of free expression to a more expansive free-flow approach, it has simultaneously demonstrated deference to government claims for control over information in its interpretation of FOIA and created exemptions to the general free-flow concept in its constitutional rulings. The Court's recent decisions are inconsistent with its own demands that government should protect the free-flow of information needed by the citizenry for self-governance.

A Case Study in Policy Analysis : The Controversy over Tax Exemptions for Private Schools

Debates persist about the use of case studies as a research methodology, but regardless of how that issue is resolved, the judicious use of case studies as a teaching instrument can be very effective. The controversy over tax exemptions for private schools which discriminate on the basis of race serves as one example. Questions about theory, political institutions, and substantive policy issues abound, and the timeliness and sensitivity of the issue make for a stimulating study of American government and public policy.On January 8, 1982, the Reagan Administration announced that private schools which discriminate on the basis of race would no longer be denied tax-exempt status. The Administration defended this policy change as an effort to prevent bureaucrats from making policy in the absence of specific guidance from Congress.

Rela Tionships between Governing Boards and Professional Staff

This paper examines two critical aspects of the relationship between part-time policy boards andfull-time professional staff: (1) the views of each group toward the proper role of staff and (2) the respective influence of commissioners and staff. The results from a study offour land-use regulatory agencies suggest that the amount of congruence between the two groups on substantive policy issues is the dominant factor affecting their relationship and that commissioners are quite able to establish the general policy orientation of their institutions.

CMC, Heller, Hunt, FIA, FRA, and FINE: The Neglected Aspect of Financial Reform

My assigned topic in these discussion papers is a comparison of the FINE report and the proposed Financial Reform Act with earlier reform proposals. This is not difficult. From CMC, through the Heller report, through the Hunt Commission report, the Senate-passed Financial Institutions Act, the Financial Reform Act pressed by the House Banking and Currency Committee, and the FINE report, there has been virtual unanimity that the thrift institutions be granted broader asset powers, that the thrifts be permitted to engage in third-party payments services, that the prohibition of interest payments on transactions balances be eliminated, that Regulation Q be phased out, that branching laws be changed to enhance intraand inter-industry competition and that regulatory reform at the federal level was necessary. The several reform proposals concerning the regulatory agencies are not in such agreement. But the salient point is that the homeostatic characteristics of the existing agencies and divisions between and among members of the House and the Senate have not only made organizational reform impossible to achieve; the same characteristics and divisions have prevented action on substantive policy issues that are of much greater consequence than organizational reform itself. Unhappily, the characteristics and divisions have also caused what might be called benign neglect to a fundamental technological change that is certain to alter both the private sectors of financial institutions and their regulators in the coming decade. The neglect, of course, is the lack of attention to the impact of computers and the evolution of electronic funds transfers. It is possible to say that those who worked on the reports of the Commission on Money and Credit and the Heller report should be forgiven for this oversight. While some were fretting about the burden of paper funds transfers and planning for magnetically encoded checks at the time, EFT would have to be regarded as something

Health Services Research and Health Policy Formulation: An Empirical Analysis and a Structural Solution

This article examines the history of the National Center for Health Services Research (NCHSR) from 1970 to 1976 in terms of the research projects funded, the structural relationships of NCHSR to policy formulation, and the make-up of advisory committees. The analysis of support for research on substantive policy issues indicates that there are no major trends; the variations that do occur can be traced to publicly articulated concerns of Congress or the Executive. On the other hand, there have been major shifts in research strategies. from an early emphasis on large-scale development and demonstration to support for short-term, targeted analytical research. This shift has occurred without a thorough examination of the effectiveness of either strategy for policy-making. The analysis of the structural relationships of the Center do not provide any evidence of a stable, systematic linkage of research and policy-making functions. Nor does the analysis of the various advisory groups show that policy-makers have had a significant involvement in guiding the National Center program. As a result of these analyses, it is our conclusion that measures need to be taken to provide a systematic, formal linkage of the National Center to health policymakers in the administrative and legislative arms of government. We propose that a National Council for Health Services Research and Policy be instituted for the National Center for Health Services Research to assure accountability in choice of priorities and research strategies, and to provide for policy-maker participation in the program of the agency. The objective of the Council would be to provide timely and comprehensive research information and policy alternatives to appropriate national policy-makers, health care providers and consumers.

Perspectives on Government Policy in the Health Sector

Health expenditures and prices have accelerated markedly in recent years, both in absolute and relative terms. The pressures for some form of governmental intervention have generated widespread debate about national health policy. Determinants of health are complex, and policy development must follow the identification of issues and review of theoretical policy analysis. Formation of a theoretical basis will have a significant impact on substantive policy outcomes. Unfortunately, past and current proposals and policies have given insufficient attention to the traditional public finance criteria for government intervention; as a result, the importance of market forces has frequently been overlooked. Before wholesale rejection of the market as a means of promoting rationality, government should examine alternatives that foster increased efectiveness of the market mechanism. Even within this context, however, some forms of regulation will be necessary; also, traditional public finance norms would allow certain kinds of expanded government intervention. Market-perfecting policy instruments would result in different kinds of government programs, and much of future policy will be shaped by political decisions about substantive health policy issues.

The Burden of Freedom

It is the continuing concern of worldview and its sponsoring organization, The Council on Religion and International Affairs, to probe the relationship among religion, ethics and foreign policy. Most of this concern seems to be directed toward analysis and evaluation of substantive policy issues, which are, of course, vitally important. But it may be equally important to investigate the process of religion-ethics- policy interaction, This essay examines one aspect of that process: how ethical consciousness can pervade the decision-making process. This problem will be approached by looking at three interrelated questions: a) what are the political responsibilities which flow to the individual in the free society? b) what is the character of those responsibilities? c) how can we best fulfill those responsibilities?We are inclined to define the free society as one which provides a free condition for individuals and social groups.