How Mass Media Use Crisis Communications for Political Gain

This paper was submitted to the American Political Science Association 2006  Annual Meeting.

It’s a common observation that crises such as wars, recessions, stock market meltdowns, ethics scandals, and natural catastrophes often drive the public policymaking process. A crisis reveals a problem and then a public consensus emerges that policymakers must do something about it. The policy debate then centers on the best means to solve the problem.

Interest groups well understand the political logic of such crisis moments. Accordingly, they reframe their own self-interested agendas to be in accord with the new crisis induced agendas. Although these reframed agendas may help solve the stated problem, they are likely to do so relatively inefficiently and ineffectively, and, when mere rationalizations, may aggravate the problem. Nevertheless, when backed by powerful interest groups and concerning relatively technical issues where the links between means and ends are not widely understood, their reframed agendas may be highly persuasive or at least provide political cover for actions that would otherwise be discredited as special interest politics.

In this paper, I explore how local TV broadcasters framed the communications crisis revealed by 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina for their own political gain.

Broadcasters’ Public Service Claims

Local TV broadcasters use tens of billions of dollars worth of government assets, mostly in the form of spectrum (popularly known as the “public airwaves”), but do not pay monetary compensation to the government for their use. Instead, broadcasters claim to “pay” with various kinds of public service. For example, every two years since 1998 local TV broadcasters have tallied their annual public service contributions in a report that is widely used in their lobbying campaigns, especially in Congress and at the FCC. For 2005, the claimed figure for the combined public service of local TV and radio broadcasters was $10.3 billion,1 which comes to a present value of $129 billion, using an 8% discount rate. Some would consider that a fairly close approximation for the market value of the spectrum the broadcasters occupy. Broadcasters also claim to provide a “free” information service, which they argue is of inestimable value for poor people and the preservation of American democracy.2

In addition to free use of government owned assets, broadcasters ask the government to regulate and restrict potential competitors, lest the competitors kill the golden goose providing the public with so much service. Recent examples of such regulation include preventing satellite radio broadcasters from providing either local or free (“ad-supported”) programming;3 and requiring cable, satellite, and telephone companies to carry local TV broadcasting stations free of charge.4 At the moment, there are more than a half dozen major rulemakings at the FCC where the broadcasters are asking for special treatment at least in part because of their public service contributions.

One of the most important and frequent public service claims broadcasters make is that they provide exceptional service to the American public in times of local crises. Here’s a typical formulation of the broadcasters’ public service contributions from the President of the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB), Eddie Fritts, in the aftermath of 9/11:

"Is the American public better served by television now than it was forty years ago?" The answer, resoundingly, is "Yes." … Every day and in every community, local broadcasters serve the public interest in a variety of ways.…

Several years ago, the National Association of Broadcasters undertook a program to systematically document the amount of public service generated by over-the-air radio and television stations. In our last census, we discovered that in one year alone, broadcasters generated $ 9.9 billion in public service in the form of donated airtime for PSAs–money raised for charity and disaster relief.

Broadcast public service also encompasses the coverage of emergency weather alerts that can mean the difference between life and death for viewers in the path of a tornado or hurricane….

Broadcasters also chronicled the events of September 11, 2001, with a degree of commitment and professionalism that drew universal praise. In the midst of the worst media recession in fifty years, stations all over America provided viewers with round-the-clock, advertising-free coverage of the horrific attack for nearly a week.

In the aftermath of September 11, stations rallied the American spirit with PSAs, charity fundraising appeals, blood drives, and pleas for tolerance for our immigrant neighbors. I could not have been more proud to be associated with the broadcasting community at that time. Indeed, it was broadcasting's finest hour.5

The 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina (“Katrina”) cases are the two most prominent recent examples of the broadcasters’ use of crisis communications in their lobbying efforts. Broadcasters used those cases to make three controversial public service claims, what I call: 1) The Charity Claim, 2) The Emergency Information Claim, and 3) The Spectrum Use Claim. These public service claims were then incorporated into their overall lobbying strategy for preserving and expanding their current government granted privileges.

Generally, these crises revealed broadcasters’ diminished role in communicating crisis information and sent a striking message that America’s traditional reliance on broadcasters for emergency information was based on obsolete technology and an outdated vision of the threats facing America. The broadcasters’ PR task was to turn these perceived deficits—while never quite admitting that they were deficits—to its own political advantage. Of their three claims, they emphasized the charity claim the most, perhaps because they recognized it was least susceptible to attack. The spectrum use claim was the only one of the three to come under vigorous, direct, public attack.

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1 National Report on Broadcasters’ Community Service (National Association of Broadcasters: Washington, D.C., June 2006).
2 See J.
3 Woolley, Scott, “Broadcast Bullies,” Forbes, September 6, 2004, p. 134.
4 J.H. Snider, “Should DTV Must-Carry be Expanded, Sunset, or Preserved As-Is?” Spectrum Series Working Paper # 12 (Washington, D.C.: New America Foundation); Testimony of David L. Donovan, President, Association for Maximum Service Television, before the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee, September 8, 2004; and Comments of Eddie Fritts, President of the National Association of Broadcasters, at the hearing on the Digital Television Transition before the Senate Commerce Committee, U.S. Senate, July 12, 2005.
5 Edward O. Fritts, “TV: A Vast Oasis of Public Interest Programming,” Federal Communications Law Journal, No. 3, Vol. 55; May 1, 2003, Pg. 511.H. Snider, “The Myth of Free TV,” Spectrum Series Working Paper #5 (Washington, D.C.: New America Foundation, June 2002).