CML Center for Media Literacy: Empowerment Through Education
Choose a Focus Page:    
   
CML Medialit Kit
Reading Room
Media & Values
Best Practices
Professional Development
Alliances
Resources
Consulting/Speaking
 
About CML
Newsletter
FAQ
Site Overview
Contact Us
 
Rights & Permissions
 
 

Media&Values

This article originally appeared in Issue #44 / Summer/Fall 1988


Topic / Subject Area:
Social Studies

Related Articles:
Reagan’s ‘Image-Makers’ Redefined the Presidency
Press Conferences: Linking People With Their President


The Selling of the President: 1984

During the 1984 campaign I decided to do a very long piece on President Reagan for the evening news. It ran almost five and a half minutes. It was a piece that was the toughest I had ever done on Reagan, maybe one of the toughest ever done on him up to that point.

The thrust of it was that he wasn't telling the truth, that he was trying to create amnesia about his budget cuts, and about policies that had become unpopular. We showed him in front of a nursing home, where he was cutting a ribbon, and what he doesn't tell you is that he tried to cut the budget for nursing homes.

The next day, a senior White House official called to thank me. I said, "Come on, it was a tough piece; what are you talking about?"

And he said, "You guys haven't figured it out yet, have you? When you run great looking pictures of Ronald Reagan, the public doesn't hear what you say. They just see the pictures. It was a five and one half minute campaign ad."

Another reporter, Marty Schramm, discovered that every photo take Reagan was planned in advance by his key campaign aide Michael Deaver and company. They'd choose a spot, backdrop, then select the best angle for the President. Virtually no picture of the President during the campaign was not planned by them. And my piece was plastered with these gorgeous pictures. In effect, every single picture you saw was designed by a Hollywood set designer.

— Leslie Stahl, CBS News, in The Journalist

Back to top



Home / CML MediaLit Kit™ / Rights & Permissions / Contact Us
© 2002-2007 Center for Media Literacy