Message Control: How News Is Made on the Presidential Campaign Trail

As someone who has traveled the media buses during countless presidential campaigns, I give a big ‘thumbs up’ to Elizabeth Skewes’s richly detailed account and analysis of journalists’ practices (the good and the not so good) as they cover presidential hopefuls every four years. A fine ‘sequel’ to the stories of the old ‘boys’ on the ‘buses….’

Despite the consensus that reporters are important, the public knows surprisingly little about how journalists go about their jobs or how they negotiate with politicians to produce news. Much of what is known is drawn from Tim Crouse’s seminal 1973 work, The Boys on the Bus. In this book, Skewes updates and expands Crouse’s book with an academic’s analytical eye and a former journalist’s experience and effortless prose. The result is an informative, much needed book about how journalists and politicians make news on the presidential campaign trail. Based on dozens of interviews with key reporters, this book is well researched yet remarkably easy to read. Some of Skewes’ observations about the role of voters could be enhanced through a more thorough review of the political science literature on voter decision making, but the book succeeds in uncovering the daily machinations of news making on the campaign trail. It should be required reading for anyone interested in the relationship between politicians and the media. Highly recommended.

The 2000 and 2004 presidential campaigns were bitterly fought and closely run affairs. What the general public didn’t see was the equally tough struggle between journalists and campaign professionals to control the message and image of the candidates. Message Control is a fascinating behind-the-scenes look at this conflict, telling the struggle through interviews with participants and concluding with some prescriptions for better press coverage. Anyone interested in press and the politics and how we choose our leaders will want to read this book.