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 Recent commentary from National Journal: Legal Affairs: Finding Racial Bias Where There Was None (June 13, 2001) There's not a shred of evidence that anyone deliberately disenfranchised a single eligible voter. By Stuart Taylor Jr. Political Pulse: The New Soccer Moms (June 13, 2001) High-Income Owners of Gas-Gulping SUVs Love Bush Energy Plan. By William Schneider. On Books: Combative, Facile, and Boggling (June 13, 2001) A review of Unfree Speech, a new book by Federal Election Commissioner Bradley A. Smith. By Eliza Newlin Carney. Social Studies: Cheer Up, Drug Warriors: Victory is Just Around the Corner (June 05, 2001) Report from 2003: How the government finally won the war on drugs. (And you thought it couldn't be done). By Jonathan Rauch. On Books: A Historian of War Ponders Peace (June 5, 2001) An appreciation of John Keegan's unusually perceptive books—including his latest—on the history of warfare. By Patrick B. Pexton. Legal Affairs: Casey Martin: Nice Guy Wins, Dumb Lawsuits to Follow (June 5, 2001) Judicial second-guessing of private decisions is sometimes necessary. But this wasn't such a case. By Stuart Taylor Jr. Political Pulse: Did Big Tents' Collapse Kill Deals? (June 5, 2001) Both parties have lost ideological and geographic diversity in recent decades. By William Schneider. More from National Journal. |
Media 
Rules of the TwinsSo, who are the wild ones? Pressies everywhere found the Bush Twins' story rife with cosmic significance, rich with historical parallels, and fraught with Freudian undertones. by William Powers ..... A Practical Guide to Covering Jenna and Barbara: 1. Begin Quietly. Anytime the Bush Twins are interrogated, arrested, the objects of a high-speed chase, etc., the first rule for news people is to remain calm. Stifle all outward signs of rapture. Appear reluctant and just a tad blasé. Choose a matter-of-fact wire story with an austere headline, and bury it inside. "Bush Twins Investigated for Alcohol," said an Associated Press story that moved early on the morning on May 31, hitting exactly the right note for those first exhilarating hours. The world must understand: You're no sensationalist. 2. Bow Once to Privacy. This gesture, which means a great deal to your audience, should take the form of a pained quote from a White House type. "Appeal for Privacy After Bush Twins Are Cited for Alcohol," reported The New York Times on Day 2, in an article quoting the White House's spokesman, Ari Fleischer: "'I would urge all of you to very carefully think through how much you want to pursue this,' Mr. Fleischer told reporters, as the atmosphere around his remarks turned slightly tense." Note the smoothness of this turn, the way it uses Fleischer's taunt to absolve the media of responsibility. We were all standing there listening earnestly to Mr. Fleischer's remarks, when the "atmosphere" just turned tense on us. (Caution: Moves like this are for only the most-skilled news artisans.) 3. Initiate Chin-Stroke. Suggest, as The Times did in the same story, that the media have entered "little-charted territory." Commentators everywhere will take their cue and begin to wonder publicly if something more isn't at stake here—some legal, moral, or ethical issue that might justify all the attention the story is suddenly getting. "If nothing else," said the Houston Chronicle, "the spotlight that is shining so hotly on the first daughters also is illuminating the issue of teen alcohol abuse, a problem that probably is more widespread and damaging than that of teen drug abuse." 4. "A Line Has Been Crossed." That's your message by Day 3, but be sure your reluctance lingers. "It's Getting Harder to Shrug Off Jenna Bush," admitted the editorialists of The News & Record of Greensboro, N.C. "They are not little girls as Chelsea was when she moved into the White House," reported Jackie Judd of ABC News, "and now there is the specter of a formal police proceeding." Cut to Tom Rosenstiel of the Project for Excellence in Journalism, who assured ABC viewers that, yes, the story had officially crossed over: "So this is a pretty easy one now. It wasn't so easy two days ago when the story first broke, because it was one of those squishy police-are-investigating stories." Alas, dear public, we have no choice. 5. Obey Your Political Leanings. Conservatives should find fault with underage drinking laws or with a culture that can't let a few fun-loving college gals have a drink. "Teenagers have been drinking in this republic since the beginning, for 200 years," opined Robert Novak. Liberal commentators should declare this an entirely fair, and really quite troubling, news story. Al Hunt, appearing on the same CNN show as Novak, listened and knew what he had to do: "It's a legitimate story because she is the President's daughter. I hope we don't pile on. And I do think it does make a mockery of George Bush's inane suggestion last year that he didn't level with us about his drunken-driving record because he didn't want his kids to know about it." 6. Go Broad. Try to discover the cosmic cultural meaning of Jenna and Barbara's latest shenanigans. USA Today did so in a story headlined: "College Drinking: The Next Great Debate; Bush Twins Spark a National Discussion." Elsewhere, the twins weren't just sparking discussion, they were "stirring" talk, putting the "spotlight" on issues, "reflecting" the debate on underage drinking. The Washington Post not only saw a whole debate reflected in a margarita, but uncovered a vast and previously unrecognized cultural divide: "Underage drinking is one of those parental fault lines: Either you are lenient, tolerating teen drinking within bounds, or restrictive, opposing it by every means at your disposal." Imagine, without the wild twins we might never know such epiphanies. 7. Trot Out Historians and Psychologists. The former will draw amusing parallels to untamed White House progeny of yore, especially the shameless Alice Roosevelt Longworth. The latter will put Jenna and Barbara on the couch, in absentia but at the lowest hourly fee, and tease out the most stunning post-Freudian insights. The New York Daily News called on Manhattan psychologist Judy Kuriansky, who said Jenna seems to be using her troubles as "a power play," and that she's trying "to send a message to her father that, 'I can embarrass you if you don't pay attention to me.'" 8. Look in the Mirror. This is the best part of the Jenna and Barbara story, which, it turns out, is never really about Jenna and Barbara at all. It's about us. This part must be handled with humility, so when you face the mirror, remember to ask a lot of questions. "Should the Bush Daughter Be in Headlines?" asked one recent installment of CNN's TalkBack Live. But it was Rena Pederson, the editorial page editor of the twins' home-state paper, The Dallas Morning News, who asked the best questions of all. "Is it news worth printing? Is it a national issue or a private issue? Are some aspects of the debate hypocritical?" Pederson tried to come up with real answers, a mistake none of us need repeat. Some questions are their own answers.
What do you think? Discuss this article in the Politics & Society conference of Post & Riposte. More from National Journal. More on politics and society in Atlantic Unbound and The Atlantic Monthly. William Powers is media columnist for National Journal. He recently spent three months in Japan as a Japan Society Fellow, studying the role of reading in Japanese life. This column appears every week in National Journal, a weekly magazine covering politics and government published in Washington, D.C. For information on National Journal Group publications, see NationalJournal.com. Copyright © 2001 by The Atlantic Monthly Group. All rights reserved. | [an error occurred while processing this directive] | ||
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