Former United States Congressman Shays was invited by the Political Science Organization and the Legal Society to speak to University of New Haven students in a seminar called “The Future of American Politics: How Media Portrays Politicians.”
Students interested in political science and media relations gathered in the German Club Ballroom on Tuesday, Nov. 12, to hear about Shays’ experiences with media throughout his term in Congress.
“You can’t bulls**t young people,” started Shays. He prepared talking points for his speech, but elected to put them aside and begin with an open and honest discussion about his personal views on media.
Shays discussed his views on the Press as the 4th Estate. “They are as much a story as the politics they cover…they impact what we read and think,” said Shays. “You have to be careful [as a public figure] they could make you look foolish and destroy your whole career.”
He talked about the way media was designed to run. Elected officials are chosen to represent in a way that is intelligent; they educate themselves, learn, and study the constitution. The press is there to tell a story and describe events, not shape or determine outcomes. That job would be for the public to respond to what is happening.
During his campaigns and elections, Shays found the media never focused on what he was going to do to improve deficits, education and the environment, but focused in an accusing tone about what he was supposed to fix. “Everyone knows something more about an issue than you know,” reminded Shays. We only know information that we read or hear, and there are always those people who will find something wrong or a topic to expand upon.
The conversation moved away from politics and more toward the ways students receive their news. Popular media outlets were the NYTimes app, online sources, NPR, social media, Reddit, and CNN and ABC. Discussion centered on the pros and cons of the way young adults receive their information and if it has an effect on what they know. “I don’t watch TV [for news] because there are too many extra opinions,” said UNH student Jackie Botchman.
Today the media decides what they want, write it down and publish it. The main goal of the press is to get on the front page at any cost. If that means to extort public figures, many of the press are willing to risk it.
In a talk with a USA Today publisher, Shays discovered facts about the paper’s choice in covering stories. With politics on the front page sales go down unless that politician was involved in a scandal. The media has become so bad in Shays eyes that he is happy he’s out of politics now.
Shays related media scrutiny to the deterioration of Congress, “There is a disincentive to have anything the press can criticize so Congress makes it not that good or not that bad.”
In the end he summed up the role of the media today. Print is moving online requiring less reporters and less research. TV media is fitting its readership and the revenue is less. Press is now customized; you pick your station, or outlet, and it tells you what want to hear.
The discussion on media and politics was eye-opening for students interested in those fields. Media sees everything that happens and serves as watchdogs of America. The question is: is what they’re seeing and sharing unbiased, and does it allow the public to form their own opinions as residents of the United States? Shays no longer feels so.
