While Dangers Gather: Congressional Checks on Presidential War Powers by William G. Howell & Jon C. Pevehouse

Author:William G. Howell & Jon C. Pevehouse [Howell, William G. & Pevehouse, Jon C.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780691134628
Goodreads: 813465
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Published: 2007-08-26T00:00:00+00:00

LOCAL NEWS

To date, every empirical test of the indexing hypothesis has focused on national print and television news.30 Scholars usually justify this exclusive focus on national news by pointing to one of two conflicting arguments. Some claim that local media follow national media, especially in foreign policy, and hence empirical tests of local news are redundant. For instance, Jonathan Mermin and Doris Graber contend that elite media—by which they mean network news and the New York Times—remain the most important sources of information for the middle of the political spectrum, particularly in foreign affairs.31 If Mermin and Graber are correct, then all of the evidence in national news supporting the indexing hypothesis should carry over to local news. Other scholars who support excluding local news from empirical tests of the indexing hypothesis argue that local news outlets are influenced by local factors. According to Bennett, “The [indexing] hypothesis is an attempt to explain the behavior of ‘leading’ press organizations (i.e., the prestige national newspapers, wire services, television networks, and the ‘big three’ news magazines) that set professional press standards and influence the daily news agenda. It stands to reason that small-audience news outlets in the sway of ideological missions or local tastes would deviate from this norm.”32 While national media may index coverage of international policies to official Washington debate, Bennett suggests, local news outlets probably do not. On the whole, then, the existing scholarship is divided as to whether local media parrot or are independent of national media sources.

Whether local media index foreign policy coverage to Congress is not merely an academic question. Americans depend on local television broadcasts more than any other outlet for their domestic and foreign policy news. As political communication scholars Frank Gilliam and Shanto Iyengar note, “Local news is America’s principal window on the world.”33 According to a 2004 survey conducted by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, 59 percent of Americans regularly watch local television news, as compared to 38 percent who watch cable news, 34 percent nightly network news, 22 percent network television magazines, and 22 percent morning news; as for other sources, 42 percent read newspapers, 25 percent read magazines, 40 percent listen to the radio, and 29 percent go online for their news.34 Local news also remains a primary source of information for America’s most educated citizens. Among college graduates, 54 percent of Americans regularly watch local television news, as compared to 38 percent who watch cable news, 35 percent who watch nightly network news, 43 percent network television magazines, and 21 percent morning news. According to the poll, 56 percent read newspapers, 33 percent read magazines, 51 percent listen to the radio, and 29 percent go online for their news.

The news that indexing hypothesis scholars have examined is not the news that the modal citizen actually views. When evaluating the merits of a planned military venture in Bosnia, Somalia, or Iraq, most Americans do not read the New York Times or watch PBS. At the end of their workdays, they turn to local news.

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