6 - Presidential Leadership of News Coverage

Summary

Chapter 6 examines the relationship between presidential remarks on Supreme Court cases and news coverage of those remarks. We argue that presidents make concerted efforts to influence media coverage of their perspectives to mold how the public thinks about the constitutional issues involved in the Court’s cases. We examine the ability of presidents to shape the volume of news attention to the Court’s cases, as well as the tone of newspaper coverage of the president’s remarks (using Lexicoder text analysis software) for all New York Times coverage of presidential speeches on Supreme Court decisions from 1953 to 2017. We find that presidents are capable of influencing the volume of news coverage of their discussions of Court cases, with coverage associated with the length and type of the presidential statement, the tone presidents use to describe the cases, and the timing and location of the speech, among other factors. However, presidents are generally incapable of affecting the tone of media coverage of their remarks.