Television and Politics:
Covering the Candidates

Top Political Public Relations Expert in 1959

Politicians and their advisors attempt to shape their images and manipulate the media into presenting a positive view of them and their activities. The reporters are supposed to be discovering as much of the truth as possible and reporting it to their public.

Subscribers: Here are selected resources on the relationship between the reporters and the men and women who have sought and won power in the public arena.

Coverage Decisions: What If  Some Viewers Claim They Don't Want To Know?
		Gary Hart might well have been elected President of the United States in 1988. Answering questions about his judgment and ethics, he had denied that he had been disloyal to his wife.  His campaign crashed after the Miami Herald found another woman at his Washington townhouse.

The Rundown  reports to television executives on local television news, programming, and community service projects.

The top managers and newspeople have shared their insights and explained lessons learned. This material now fills a massive archive of 7,000 pages --- easily the largest record of hometown television's activities.

The Rundown (ISSN:0035-9912) has been published weekly (50 times a year) since 1981.

Here's information you need to subscribe to The Rundown
and also contact us via electronic mail.

TV and Politics
Subscribers, raise your political and campaign coverage to a level beyond the usual.  Here are many projects that were produced successfully. 

The 30 Second Candidate
PBS has documented the selling of candidates in television commercials.

1988 Dukakis for President
The commercial attacking the Democratic candidate for opposing military spending was prepared by Stevens Reed Curcio and Potholm, a leading Republican media firm.

How To Achieve
Winning Political Coverage
by Randy Covington
Former TV news director Randy Covington is now on the faculty of the University of South Carolina School of Journalism. As a top broadcast executive, he led coverage of many, many campaigns and conventions for WBZ-TV, Boston; WIS-TV, Columbia; and, KYW-TV, Philadelphia.

The People Speak:
Giving Viewers A Voice
The 1992 election showed just how widespread dissatisfaction was with elected officials, and how deeply the voters' anger ran.  The managers at WIXT-TV, Syracuse, developed a project to tap into that sense of disenfranchisement.

See  in past issues of  The Rundown:

Election Eve Scandal:
How Much Do You Report? - Page 1992 - 161
Four days before the West Virginia primary, WCHS-TV, Charleston aired two women's accusations of sexual harassment against a candidate for Attorney General.

Hart Scandal:
Media Ethics, Candidate's Character - Page 1987 - 141
The Herald's Bombshell. Polls Provide Exclusive Hard News. Pack Journalism Invades. Media's Role.

Sex and Politics:
The Candidate and the Girls- Page 1990 - 343
Nude swimming. The allegations. Wild rumors. A battle for scoops. Specials, live cut-ins. The resignation.

Here is information on the views and attitudes of the viewing public --- excerpts of significant polling projects. It may help you clarify which subjects people are most interested in and what the top stories really are.

You can quickly locate information anywhere throughout the public portion of our site using a full-text search engine.