"Soft News Goes to War"

Paper Summary:

This paper presents a critical review of Matthew Baum's critical media analysis, "Soft News Goes to War." It discusses the definition of soft news and describes how this related to President Clinton's approval of a series of long-range missile strikes against suspected terrorist facilities in Afghanistan and Sudan in the midst of the Monica Lewinsky scandal.

From the Paper:

"In this light, the Wag the Dog situation, which Baum analyzed in terms of purported quality differences between hard and soft news, can be viewed as a commercially-based, rather than ideologically-based, situation. To return to the critique earlier in this review of Baum's methodology in distinguishing hard from soft news, one might recall that, though a much higher percentage of soft news pieces commented on parallels between the military situation and Wag the Dog, a full 16% of "hard" news pieces commented on this parallel as well, even though, from a critical standpoint, the connection is virtually meaningless. Additionally, while Baum notes that 95% of soft news sources use potentially misleading narrative arcs, a solid majority of "hard" news stories also employ this tactic. Thus, viewing both hard and soft news through the same commercial lens, as results of the same profit-oriented processes, may be more useful than examining their ideological differences if one is to understand the circumstances of their existence or their implications for American democracy. The trend toward inadequate news coverage will likely continue unchecked as long as profit-oriented media policies encourage hard news to become soft, and soft news to become softer."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Baum, Matthew. Soft News Goes to War. New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2003.
• McChesney, Robert W. The Problem of the Media. New York: Monthly Review Press, 2004.

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