Bush Falls From the Spotlight in a Presidential Year

This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

The New York Sun

WASHINGTON — They want you, they need you, they lose interest, they leave you for someone else.

So goes the press’s approach toward the president. It is always a relationship destined to end.

President Bush — remember him? He has long ceased to be a hot story. Across all forms of mainstream media, news coverage of the president has fallen significantly this year.

The drop-off has big implications for Mr. Bush, whose ability to influence the public debate is weakened by less exposure, and for the country, which ends up with lighter scrutiny of the nation’s highest office.

And while the trend is not unusual for a lame-duck leader — President Clinton was plenty overshadowed in his final months — the declining attention still seems pronounced given the forces working against Mr. Bush.

The nation is tired, worn down by wars and a weak economy. Much of the country seems ready to move on, even though Mr. Bush remains relevant thanks mainly to his veto power and his command over the military.

News organizations, making an editorial judgment influenced by tighter budgets, see less point in covering an unpopular president with waning clout and diminishing news value. The presidential beat is expensive; the airfare alone for one of Mr. Bush’s foreign trips easily can run more than $20,000.

For the reporters still following Mr. Bush, the big stories still happen, but far less often. TV correspondents find it harder to get on the air, photographers doubt whether their pictures will get any play, and writers often see their work buried in the back of the newspaper.

On top of it all, Mr. Bush is not part of the story getting all the buzz: the race for his job.

Senators Obama and McCain make news every time they speak, a luxury of attention once afforded to Mr. Bush. He used it to his advantage as a candidate in 2000 and an incumbent in 2004.

Now he watches as Mr. Obama’s trip to the Middle East and Europe gets coverage that seems, well, presidential. Many of the people who long have covered Mr. Bush have abandoned the White House post for the presidential campaign. When it’s over, they may return, when the White House beat is deemed juicy again.

“The press follows power,” the director of the Center for Media and Public Affairs at George Mason University, Bob Lichter, said. “I’m sure this goes through the mind of network producers [about Bush] — he’s not popular, he’s not influential with Congress, he’s not very powerful. So why cover him?”

Over the first four months of the year, Mr. Bush got about half as much coverage on nightly network broadcasts as he did in 2007, according to an analysis by Mr. Lichter’s center. Mr. Bush’s coverage on major network news is running more than 60% below what he got during his first seven years in office.

More broadly, Mr. Bush has faded in the primary places people get their news: major newspapers, TV networks, cable TV news, radio, and online sites. The nonpartisan Project for Excellence in Journalism, which conducts an ongoing analysis of those media, found the presidential campaign is consistently dominating coverage.

Looked at another way, Mr. Obama was a lead newsmaker in 690 stories in June, the same research organization found. Mr. McCain was the dominant news figure in 263 stories. The tally for Bush? 113.

The White House professes no objection.

“It’s only natural that the campaign for the next president is getting the lion’s share of the press attention, but that’s as it should be,” the White House press secretary, Dana Perino, said. “It’s a good, robust debate about who the next president is going to be. We’re very comfortable with that.”

While Messrs. McCain and Obama run for president, Mr. Bush actually is president. He is still making or influencing decisions of enormous consequence.

His administration is aggressively trying to settle conflicts with Iran and North Korea. Largely on his terms, Mr. Bush got legislation to extend spying on suspected terrorists and to continue the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He will be in charge for almost six more months, media attention or not.

“What is the goal?” Ms. Perino said. “It is to achieve the president’s agenda, not just to get in the news.”

The White House points out that some of Mr. Bush’s events make a big splash in local press and broadcast outlets even if national reporters see no news in them.

The national media, though, is the prize to a White House keenly aware of public perception.


The New York Sun

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