Out of Order: An incisive and boldly original critique of the news media's domination of America's political process

(Paperback)

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Why are our politicians almost universally perceived as liars What made candidate Bill Clinton's draft record more newsworthy than his policy statements How did George Bush's masculinity, Ronald Reagan's theatrics with a microphone, and Walter Mondale's appropriation of a Wendy's hamburger ad make or break their presidential campaigns Ever since Watergate, says Thomas E. Patterson, the road to the presidency has led through the newsrooms, which in turn impose their own values on American politics. The results are campaigns that resemble inquisitions or contests in which the candidates' game plans are considered more important than their goals. Lucid and aphoristic, historically informed and as timely as a satellite feed, Out of Order mounts a devastating inquest into the press's hijacking of the campaign process -- and shows what citizens and legislators can do to win it back.

Reviews

"Out of Order pulls no punches. It is a serious, challenging, controversial critique of the press as an 800-pound gorilla, an increasingly arrogant player in presidential campaigning." -- Marvin Kalb, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University

Author Bio

Thomas E. Patterson is the Bradlee Professor of Government and the Press at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government. For many years he taught at Syracuse University. He is the author of severalbooks on politics and the media, includingOut of Order,which won the American Political Science Association's 2002 Doris Graber Award for the best book in the field of political communication, andThe Unseeing Eye,which was named one of the fifty most influential books of the past half century in the field of public opinion by the American Association for Public Opinion Research. He lives in Brookline, Massachusetts.