| This dissertation examines the impact of the spectrum of debate in Washington on the spectrum of debate in the news in cases of American military intervention in the post-Vietnam era. If there is conflict in Washington, critical viewpoints are easy to find in the news. If there is a bipartisan consensus in Washington, critical analysis of the execution of American policy is reported, but critical viewpoints on the policy itself that have been expressed outside of Washington appear only at the margins of the news. The evidence shows that journalists could have found ample critical viewpoints to report in the Washington consensus cases, if they had consulted foreign policy experts operating outside of Washington, and citizens in some way mobilized to influence foreign policy. If a Washington consensus is interpreted as a political phenomenon, one that could be only tenuously tied to public preferences and assessments of the public interest, then journalists should not assume that if there are grounds for a critique of American policy, the opposition party in Washington will articulate the critique. In reporting the news inside the terms and boundaries of debate in Washington, the media enable a Washington consensus to dominate foreign policy debate in the public sphere, instead of reporting the news from a vantage point independent of government as the First Amendment ideal holds. The effect of this is to encourage presidents to "play politics" in the conduct of foreign policy, and to discourage efforts to move foreign policy beyond the logic of immediate political calculations. The cases examined are U.S. intervention in Grenada, Libya, Panama, the Persian Gulf, Somalia, and Haiti. The news media examined are the New York Times, ABC World News Tonight, and the MacNeil/Lehrer News Hour. |
