Content-Type: text/html
STUDENT PAPER
Ventriloquist or Dummy?
A model of how sources set the investigative agenda
By Mark Feldstein
414 Lyons Rd.
Chapel Hill, N.C. 27514
(919) 928-1150
[log in to unmask]
Submitted to the Communication Theory & Methodology Division
AEJMC Convention, Aug. 2001
(AV needs: machine to display transparencies)
(If possible, would prefer research panel instead of scholar-to-scholar session)
When journalists gather after-hours-whether in elite drawing rooms of Georgetown or seedy smoke-filled bars near their local newsroom-they dissect the stories of the day.
Reporters know that what they actually write for publication or broadcast is only part of the day's story, that indeed the more interesting tale is the one they will swap privately with their colleagues and friends-the story behind the story. This story is not just about what facts editors choose to publish or how producers manipulate their videotaped images; it is also about how stories originated in the first place-who leaked to whom, and why.
Indeed, it has become almost axiomatic among journalistic practitioners that behind most news stories is some kind of deliberate agenda. Often, the source and motive for this agenda are obvious, clearly identified to the audience. But sometimes they are not. To label this dilemma-if not to solve it-journalists have developed a sort of linguistic shorthand. Who "planted" the story? Was the source merely "floating a trial balloon"? How is the other side "spinning" it?
Especially in sensitive investigative projects-when secret and even classified information is divulged-sources demand anonymity, and reporters are by necessity constrained from publicly revealing the important but hidden motives that are setting the public's agenda. The journalism that results ends up being a kind of partial truth-accurate, but intentionally incomplete.
For investigative reporters, these issues are particularly sensitive; for they are ostensibly the newsroom's most independent operators, the ones with the time and resources to dig up original information-to develop their own agenda and not simply act as a megaphone for someone else's.
But as this paper will try to argue, much national investigative reporting is derivative rather than original, initiated not through outside digging by an enterprising reporter but by inside, orchestrated leaks from vested interests whose cloak of anonymity conceals their hidden agenda. Indeed, it is the author's belief that much of what is called investigative reporting is in fact reporting on conflicts between competing news actors-individuals or institutions-that use investigative reporters to try to gain advantage in their subterranean bureaucratic or ideological wars.[1]
What's wrong with this? Maybe nothing, if the information passed on by the mass media is accurate. Reporters always have the option of investigating a source's information and rejecting it if it is found wanting. Besides, even stories deliberately orchestrated by sources can lead to important public service journalism. After all, investigative reporters cannot operate in a vacuum and need to gather information wherever they can, from whomever they can.
But when investigative reporters become primarily instruments of their source's agenda; when their reporting conceals the motives of the agenda-setter and deliberately withholds the full story; and when the public wrongly believes it is being protected by a watchdog media that is in fact operating as a lapdog for a particular powerful actor; then the consequences have disturbing implications.
This paper attempts to investigate the investigator-or more specifically, how the investigator-journalist's agenda is set. By examining three theoretical models, it tries to shed light on who really shapes the message for these modern-day muckrakers.
Are investigative reporters genuine catalysts for change, independently setting the agenda? Are they like a ventriloquist, secretly whispering words to elite policymakers
to manipulate results? Or are they like a ventriloquist's dummy, a passive puppet acting as a mouthpiece for their sources?
THEORETICAL MODELS
Much has been written about the power of the media to set or build the agenda for the public.[2] But if journalists set the public's agenda, who sets the agenda for journalists? According to one scholarly work, this important question was "ignored" in communications research for years.[3] Early theoretical models in communications did not examine how the media affected the public agenda, let alone scrutinize who set the agenda for the media itself. Lasswell's early model, for example, listed only three actors-the communicator, the message, and the audience.[4]
Early Media Model
Figure 1
Communicator ((((( Message (((((( Audience .
In this model, it is the communicator who is listed first-the initiator who sets the agenda for the message that will be delivered to the public.
Subsequent theories expanded and refined Lasswell's theoretical model.[5] Cobb and Elder argued that while the media rarely initiate issue agenda-setting, they often reinforce or alter the agenda once it has already been established.[6] Funkhouser and Zucker found that the news media do not just respond to simple news events-so-called "breaking news" like hurricanes and fires-and that unusual or staged events often receive exaggerated coverage while other legitimate issues are ignored entirely.[7] Danielian and Reese found that elite media, like the New York Times, may set the agenda for other media as well as the public, and Shoemaker and Reese explored how journalists are influenced by their own personal backgrounds, news routines, the goals of their employer, interest groups, and ideology.[8] Goldenberg noted the particular agenda-setting difficulties of those in society without power or money,[9] and Gans offered a sociologist's analysis of the relationship between so
urces and journalists, which he compared to a dance: "Although it takes two to tango, either sources or journalists can lead, but more often than not, sources do the leading. . . . [S]ources have somewhat more power in the relationship than reporters, since they can punish reporters by witholding information, thereby putting them at a disadvantage with peers from competing news media."[10] Gans, however, focused on beat reporters and their "small number of regular sources who have been available and suitable in the past. . . . Beat reporters must frequently calculate the costs and benefits of displeasing their sources with a story, deciding whether to report it or pass it up so as to maintain the relationship for another day, when a much bigger story may come their way that will justify the disruption of the rapport."[11]
MUCKRAKING MODELS
But what about investigative reporters, who do not have specific beats and thus are not held captive to the same official sources every day? Of all media actors, investigative reporters are the ones most positioned to set their own agendas. In fact, in many respects that is their explicit mission-to investigate beneath the surface and uncover what public officials want to be kept secret. "[I]nvestigative reporting is often viewed as journalistically distinctive," Protess wrote, "-a media specialty that involves time-consuming methods and potentially high impact results." Unlike reactive beat reporters on their daily deadlines, investigative reporters are proactive, given the time and autonomy to pursue stories in depth. As Protess pointed out, the work of investigative reporters "is validated when citizens respond by demanding change from their leaders.
. . . By bringing problems to public attention, the journalists of outrage attempt to alter societal agendas. . .to trigger agenda-building processes in order to produce 'reformist' outcomes.[12]
I. Catalyst Model
In an idealized democratic archetype, investigative reporting acts as a catalyst to mobilize the public to demand reform.[13] In this linear paradigm, mass media expos‚s lead directly to changes in public opinion-to an angry and mobilized populace-which in turn lead directly to reform:
Catalyst Model
Figure 2
Media ((((((((((( Changes in(((((((((((Public Policy
Investigations Public Opinion Reforms
As an example of this catalyst model, Protess cited early 20th century muckraking about unhealthy meat-packing plants and patent medicine that led to enactment of the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906. This ideal of a watchdog media, Protess wrote, is not only popular with the public, but also with the media itself, appealing "to both the professional values of organizational sovereignty and social responsibility. In this paradigm, journalists remain independent of the governing process while still influencing it for the public good."[14]
II. Ventriloquist Model
But Protess said his data did not really support this catalyst model; his findings implied that it may really be a muckraking myth. Protess examined six case studies in Chicago, using a "pre-test/post-test experimental design_to assess audience effects" of both newspaper and television investigative projects. While these investigative reports altered public opinion in some cases, the study also discovered others that did not. Yet, contrary to the direct catalyst model, Protess found that policy making changes occurred anyway, "regardless of the public's reaction to the investigative reporting." How could that happen? Protess concluded that "policy-making proposals may be triggered by prepublication [or pre-broadcast] transactions between journalists and policy makers." [15] In other words, reform was created not by an aroused public, but by media elites in collaboration with policy making elites even before any stories were made public. Although Protess did not do s
o, such an explanation might be represented as follows:
Ventriloquist Model
Figure 3
_______________________________________________________________
( (
Media Changes in Public Policy
Investigations Public Opinion Reforms
In this linear model, public opinion was essentially bypassed on the road to reform.[16] The real actors were the media and policy makers-ostensible adversaries who worked instead as partners.
Protess did not name this effect, but it could be called the ventriloquist model, since the media here spoke for a public that (for whatever reasons) remained silent. Like a ventriloquist, the journalist effectively supplied the voice that otherwise would belong to the public. Contrary to the catalyst model, in Protess' paradigm investigative reporting didn't stimulate public opinion, it simulated it. This was not to say that the ventriloquist media was necessarily being deceptive or deliberately manipulative. Nevertheless, in this model the public was indeed a passive dummy, standing by silently while the media instead used its own voice to set the agenda.
Protess' work was important, even ground-breaking. Yet his Chicago sample could be considered atypical because of the role of the activist Better Government Association, which participated with some of these media outlets in conducting their investigations.[17] Because the B.G.A. was by its own definition an advocacy group with an agenda, its role in the investigative reports that Protess studied may have produced more pre-publication contact-or lobbying of policymakers-than was customary for most media outlets, which traditionally adhered to more "objective" norms.
Even without this sampling question, however, Protess' ventriloquist model still suggested that it was the mass media that originated the message. Protess did not explore the important issue of who set the media's agenda in the first place. For this, a different model might be in order-one that links media sources with media effects in a circular, rather than linear, way.
III. Dummy Model
It could be argued that investigative reporters usually are neither heroic catalysts nor manipulative ventriloquists; rather, they often act more like the ventriloquist's dummy. Indeed, it seems fair to state that in most news stories-for investigative reporters as well as beat reporters-the agenda is set not by the communicator but by the source who supplies the reporter with information in the first place. In this case, the journalist's role can be compared to a ventriloquist's dummy-not in the sense of being stupid, but in terms of being a silent vessel for another voice, that of the source. Such a model might be represented as follows:
Dummy Model
Figure 4
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
( (
Source ((( Reporter ((( Message ( ( ( Public ((((( "Reform"
(_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __ _ _ _ _ _ _ _(
Solid lines ((() = definite relationship Dashed lines ((((() = possible relationship
In this model, the process is initiated not by the much-heralded journalist, but by the behind-the-scenes source; for it is the source, not the reporter, who is the real catalyst for change.
Equally important, the source may play a pivotal role both at the very beginning of the process--by planting the story--and also at the very end of the process, when "reform" or other actions are taken. Indeed, the source may well have leaked the story in the first place as way to manipulate events, to bring about his or her desired result. Unlike the catalyst and ventriloquist models-which are strictly linear-this dummy model often (but not always) involves a circle or loop, in which the source uses the media to set the source's agenda.[18]
These catalyst-sources can range from government officials or political activists to corporate executives or jealous former spouses; they may operate as lone individuals or as part of an orchestrated group campaign. The agenda-setting sources have various (sometimes overlapping) motives, but they might reasonably be grouped into six primary categories:[19]
ù Idealism-This is also a classic democratic archetype, when an idealistic whistleblower risks reprisal to warn the public, through the media, of some unambiguous harm, such as an unsafe automobile design. Here, the motive is selfless and heroic, the stuff of Hollywood films like "The Insider," in which a disillusioned former tobacco industry scientist comes forward to reveal wrongdoing. In reality, however, most sources are not so pure of purpose, even if the ultimate results they achieve benefit the public.
ù Ideology-Here the source is motivated by advancing a particular ideological agenda, which he or she may view as idealism but which is really a matter of differing-- usually political--viewpoints. For example, Daniel Ellsberg's leak of the Pentagon Papers (1971),[20] while laudatory from the standpoint of the public's right to know, stemmed from an ideological opposition to the Vietnam War. Animal rights advocates, environmentalists, and other activist groups with an ideological bent now specialize in conducting their own undercover investigations-complete with dramatic hidden camera film footage-to service the visual appetites of television networks.
ù Bureaucratic Turf-This may be the most common of motives, especially in Washington, D.C. and state capitals. Most commonly here, a government agency leaks information it believes will help advance its bureaucratic agenda. For example, police might reveal confidential files showing increased drug smuggling as a way to increase its crime-fighting budget. Releasing the information through an exclusive leak to an investigative reporter may jazz up an ordinary story enough to get special play.[21]
ù C.Y.A.-This is closely related to its cousin bureaucratic turf, but is defensive rather than offensive in nature. Here, sources will leak information to cover their hind quarters during controversy, frequently to blame someone else. For example, in the aftermath of the disastrous federal raid on the Branch Davidian sect in Waco, Texas, sources within the Federal Bureau of Investigation (F.B.I.) leaked confidential information to place the blame on a rival federal law enforcement agency, Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (A.T.F.). Other times, bad news will be leaked on a weekend to minimize attention in the news cycle.
ù Revenge-From disgruntled employees to jilted lovers, sources have gotten even with their antagonists by leaking dirt to the media. For example, the estranged mistress of Rep. Wayne Hayes retaliated against her former paramour by telling a reporter about her no-show job on the congressman's taxpayer-funded payroll.
ù Ego-Some sources simply enjoy the thrill of leaking for its own sake. Reporters are adroit at flattering the egos of sources, who may relish the feeling of power engendered by their agenda-setting. Sources often want to be seen as influential, insiders who are in-the-know. Some sources leak even when it is not in their immediate self-interest as a way to cultivate a reporter for future use. And while most investigative sources prefer anonymity, others-like politicians or plaintiff's lawyers-relish publicity.[22]
Whatever a source's specific motivation-and it is often one involving a healthy dose of self-interest-the central, crucial fact is this: they, not the journalist, are the catalyst; they are the ones setting the agenda. The individual reporter is in most cases merely the conduit, a nearly interchangeable vessel selected by the source-catalyst over other communicators as the best vehicle for setting the source's agenda.
The concept of reporters becoming captured by their sources has been studied before.
Sigal criticized beat reporters for their "reluctance to offend news sources in the stories they write, considerable willingness to print whatever their sources tell them, and little or no insistence that officials take responsibility for the information they pass along."
He found that the sources for fully 78 percent of the articles in the New York Times and Washington Post were public officials themselves.[23] More recently, Paletz and Entman have noted, "[c]orporate sins are usually brought to, rather than uncovered by, reporters. Congressional hearings, regulatory agencies' investigations, even presidential attacks, are reporters' sources of information."[24]
Yet investigative reporting is supposed to be different. Journalistic organizations dedicated to muckraking, like Investigative Reporters & Editors (I.R.E.), list originality -defined as "one's own work product and initiative. . . not a report of an investigation made by someone else"-as one of the key components of investigative reporting.[25] Still, admits former New York Times editor Bill Kovach, "most of what we call investigative journalism these days is really reporting on investigations" by other government agencies.[26] Another leading practitioner calls it the difference between "your investigation and their investigation"-or, put another way, the difference between the media setting the agenda, and the source setting the agenda.[27]
In an unscientific survey, one journalist counted up approximately 800 by-lined articles from investigative reporters at the nation's three leading national newspapers written during a three year period and concluded that "nearly 85 percent of them have been follow-ups or advances of leaked or published government reports." Why did this happen? Because, the journalist admitted, most investigative reporters
take the easier path, becoming increasingly dependent on the inmates' notion of what's wrong with the asylum. . . .[T]hey're particularly vulnerable to manipulation-to being 'spun' to report whatever the aggressive insider itches to present. . . Hitching ourselves to government investigators' bandwagons does more than make us lazy; it leaves us-and the rest of America-thinking falsely that we are looking where government isn't. . . .When we in the media rely on others to tell us where to probe, when to look, and even how to look, we entrust to the very people we should be scrutinizing the media's most precious heirloom: the right to set the investigative agenda.[28]
CONCLUSION
Contrary to early communications theory, agenda-setting is performed not just by journalists but also for them, by sources with a range of different but largely self-interested motives. Although investigative reporters are among journalism's most independent actors, they are often still dependent on establishment sources and vulnerable to manipulation by them. Notwithstanding idealized versions of investigative reporters as catalysts for social change, the public may be too passive to become mobilized by what muckrakers have unearthed. Indeed, it is possible that public opinion may be bypassed altogether, with investigative reporters operating like ventriloquists, speaking for the public directly to policy makers. More disquieting, investigative reporters may even resemble the ventriloquist's dummy-manipulated by sources who are the real agenda setters.
To test this model, further research is necessary. Quantitative studies could be designed to try to analyze the sourcing of investigative stories-perhaps by using Nexis
searches for by-lined articles by known investigative reporters, or by choosing as a sample those stories submitted for investigative awards like the Pulitzer Prizes or I.R.E. medallion. Comparisons between local and national reporting, and between print and broadcast stories, could be revealing; so might analysis over time that could track the evolution of trends.
Such research could be important in analyzing how well the media functions as an independent check on wrongdoing. After all, if investigative reporters can really be turned into something akin to ventriloquist dummies, how independent can other journalists really be? And if media watchdogs act more like lapdogs, who will be there to bark when the public needs protection?
WORKS CITED
Bennett, W. Lance, News: The Politics of Illusion (NY: Longman, 1988).
Brill, Steven, "Pressgate," Brill's Content (Aug. 1998).
Cobb, Roger W. and Elder, Charles D., Participation in American Politics: The Dynamics of Agenda-Building (Boston: Allyn & Bacon: 1972).
Cuniberti, Betty, "The Fine Art of the D.C. News Leak," Los Angeles Times (Aug. 9, 1987).
Funkhouser, G. Ray, "The Issues of the Sixties: An Exploratory Study in the Dynamics of Public Opinion," Public Opinion Quarterly 37 (1973).
_____, "Trends in Media Coverage of the Issues of the '60s," Journalism Quarterly 50 (Fall 1973).
Gandy, Oscar H., Beyond Agenda Setting: Information Subsidies and Public Policy (Norwood, NJ: Ablex Publishing Co., 1982).
Gans, Herbert J., Deciding What's News: A Study of CBS Evening News, NBC Nightly News, Newsweek and Time (NY: Vintage Books, 1980).
Georges, Christopher, "Confessions of an Investigative Reporter," Washington Monthly (March 1992).
Goldenberg, Eric N., Making the Papers: The Access of Resource-Poor Groups to the Metropolitan Press (Lexington, Massachusetts: Lexington Books, 1975).
Hess, Stephen, The Government/ Press Connection: Press Officers and Their Offices (Washington: Brookings Institution, 1984).
I.R.E., The Reporter's Handbook (NY: St. Martin's Press, 1983).
Lasswell, Harold D., "The Structure and Function of Communication in Society," L. Bryson, ed., The Communication of Ideas (NY: Harper & Bros., 1948).
Linsky, Martin, Impact: How the Press Affects Federal Policymaking (NY: W.W. Norton, 1986).
Paletz, David L. and Entman, Robert M., Media, Power, Politics (NY: Free Press, 1981).
Protess, David L., et al, The Journalism of Outrage: Investigative Reporting and Agenda Building in America (NY: Guilford Press, 1991).
_____ and McCombs, Max, eds., Agenda Setting: Readings on Media, Public Opinion & Policymaking (Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1991).
Severin, Walter J. and Tankard, James W., Communication Theories: Origins, Methods, and Uses in the Mass Media, 3rd ed. (NY: Longman, 1992).
Shannon, Claude E. and Weaver, Warren, The Mathematical Theory of Communication (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1949).
Shaw, Donald Shaw and McCombs, Max. "The Agenda-Setting Function of Mass Media," Public Opinion Quarterly 36 (1972).
Shoemaker, P.J. and Reese, S.D., Mediating the Message: Theories of Influences on Mass Media Content (NY: Longman, 1991).
Sigal, Leon V., Reporters and Officials (Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath, 1973).
Ungar, Sanford J., The Papers and the Papers (NY: Dutton, 1972).
Westley, B.H., "Setting the Political Agenda: What Makes It Change?" Journal of Communication 26, no. 2 (Spring 1976).
ABSTRACT
This conceptual paper proposes a new model of how sources set the investigative agenda. While the relationship between sources and beat reporters has been studied before, little work has been done about investigative reporters, who are ostensibly independent agenda-setters. However, the author's "Dummy Model" posits that muckrakers are in fact often captives of their sources, deliberately concealing their hidden agendas from the public. This model suggests that investigative reporters may not really be an independent check on societal wrongdoing.
[1] It should be noted at the outset that this paper is conceptual, not data-based; while it proposes a theoretical model that could be the beginning for future study, this model was drawn from the author's observations as a practitioner, not on any new research data.
[2] Donald Shaw & Maxwell McCombs, "The Agenda-Setting Function of Mass Media," Public Opinion Quarterly 36 (1972), pp. 176-85; see also later refinements of this theory in Protess & McCombs, eds., Agenda Setting: Readings on Media, Public Opinion & Policymaking (Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1991).
[3] Walter J. Severin & James W. Tankard, Jr., Communication Theories: Origins, Methods, and Uses in the Mass Media, 3rd ed. (NY: Longman, 1992), p. 223.
[4] Harold D. Lasswell, "The Structure and Function of Communication in Society," L. Bryson, ed., The Communication of Ideas (NY: Harper & Bros, 1948), pp. 37-51.
[5] Claude E. Shannon & Warren Weaver, The Mathematical Theory of Communication (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1959); B.H. Westley, "Setting the Political Agenda: What Makes It Change?" Journal of Communication 26, no. 2. (Spring 1976), pp. 43-47.
[6] Roger W. Cobb and Charles D. Elder, Participation in American Politics: The Dynamics of Agenda-Building (Boston: Allyn & Bacon: 1972), chp. 9. See also David Weaver and Swanzy Nimley Elliott, "Who Sets the Agenda for the Media? A Study of Local Agenda-Building," Journalism Quarterly 62 (1985), pp. 87-94.
[7] G. Ray Funkhouser, "The Issues of the Sixties: An Exploratory Study in the Dynamics of Public Opinion," Public Opinion Quarterly 37 (1973), p. 73; and Funkhouser, "Trends in Media Coverage of the Issues of the '60s," Journalism Quarterly 50 (Fall, 1973), pp. 533-38.
[8] P.J. Shoemaker & S.D. Reese, Mediating the Message: Theories of Influences on Mass Media Content (NY: Longman, 1991).
[9] Edie N. Goldenberg, Making the Papers: The Access of Resource-Poor Groups to the Metropolitan Press (Lexington, Massachusetts: Lexington Books, 1975).
[10] Herbert J. Gans, Deciding What's News: A Study of CBS Evening News, NBC Nightly News, Newsweek and Time (NY: Vintage Books, 1980), pp. 116, 134.
[11] Ibid., p. 134. Gandy, in fact, suggested the relationship between journalists and sources resembles an economic one, with costs and benefits to both parties. Oscar H. Gandy, Beyond Agenda Setting: Information Subsidies and Public Policy (Norwood, NJ: Ablex Publishing Co., 1982).
[12] Italics in original. David L. Protess et al, The Journalism of Outrage: Investigative Reporting and Agenda Building in America (NY: Guilford Press, 1991), pp. 5-6.
[13] According to Protess, scholars have variously named this the "mobilization model," "muckraking model," "popular mobilization" and "public advocacy." For purposes of clarity, I am labeling it here as the "catalyst model." Protess, p. 27.
[14] Ibid., p. 15.
[15] Italics in original. Ibid., p. 19.
[16] Although, arguably, public opinion perhaps played a kind of invisible role, inasmuch as policy makers may have decided to push for reform knowing the story would ultimately reach the public and could eventually arouse that sleepy giant, public opinion.
[17] Protess was research director of the B.G.A. years before he conducted this study. Protess, p. vii.
[18] As indicated in the model by the dashed lines, the original catalyst source is not always directly involved in the final outcome of any action or reforms that take place. Indeed, as other dashed lines indicate, reforms may not take place at all, just as the public may not be mobilized into action. These are all variables depending on the circumstance of the particular story.
[19] The author has formulated these six categories based on personal experience as an investigative reporter and on studies of the relationship between beat reporters and their sources. Besides these six categories, two other have been omitted: accidental leaks-when an official inadvertently blurts out too much information-and "trial balloon" leaks for gauging reaction to a prospective move. Neither seem applicable to a discussion of investigative agenda-setting. In the author's experience, accidental leaks to investigative reporters are rare and virtually never contain enough information to sustain an investigative expos‚. Trial balloons are typically leaked to beat reporters covering daily stories on an on-going basis, not investigative reporters. See Stephen Hess, The Government/ Press Connection: Press Officers and Their Offices (Washington: Brookings Institution, 1984), chp. 7; Martin Linsky, Impact: How the Press Affects Federal Policymaking (NY: W.W. Norton, 19
86), chp. 7; Shoemaker and Reese, pp. 128-130; and Betty Cuniberti, "The Fine Art of the D.C. News Leak," Los Angeles Times (Aug. 9, 1987), Part VI, p. 1.
[20] See, for example, Sanford J. Ungar, The Papers and the Papers (NY: Dutton, 1972).
[21] W. Lance Bennett, News: The Politics of Illusion (NY: Longman, 1988), pp. 86-7. Stephen Hess has noted how particularly adroit political players may occasionally engage in "the daring reverse leak." In this Machiavellian maneuver, the source releases information under the guise of serving one agenda when the real purpose is to serve (and disguise) a separate agenda altogether. But such stratagems are rather dangerous to play, especially with skeptical investigative reporters. Hess, Government/ Press Connection, chp. 7.
[22] Ibid.
[23] Nearly 3000 domestic and foreign articles were analyzed over a three-year period. Leon V. Sigal, Reporters and Officials (Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath, 1973), pp. 54, 124, table 6-5.
[24] David L. Paletz and Robert M. Entman, Media, Power, Politics (NY: Free Press, 1981), p. 134.
[25] The other two are importance and secrecy. I.R.E., The Reporter's Handbook (NY: St. Martin's Press, 1983), pp. vii-viii.
[26] Christopher Georges, "Confessions of an Investigative Reporter," Washington Monthly (March 1992), p. 38.
[27] CNN senior producer James Polk to author. In some cases, like the Monica Lewinsky affair-where many investigative reporters simply parroted the leaks provided by independent counsel Kenneth Starr's office-the Dummy Model seems particularly apt. Steven Brill, "Pressgate," Brill's Content (Aug. 1998), pp. 122-151.
[28] Georges, pp. 38-40.