About 400 Iowa State students used the latest in technology to attend a seminar Monday and Tuesday night.

The students gathered in the Sun Room of the Memorial Union and hooked up to interactive television live via satellite with 60 other universities.

“On the Campaign Trail,” part of a university satellite seminar series organized by the Museum of Television and Radio in New York City, focused on the role of television in the presidential campaigns.

Sponsored by the departments of Journalism and Mass Communication and Political Science, KCCI-Channel 8, and the Committees on Lectures — the forum boasted nationally-known experts in media and politics. Panelists included Michael Beschloss, a historian on the presidency and international relations; Gerald Boyd, assistant managing editor of the New York Times; Michael Deaver, a public relations expert and political science analyst; Tabitha Soren, MTV anchor and news reporter; and Dan Rather, anchor and managing editor of the CBS Evening News.

In their opening remarks Monday, the panelists stressed the importance of television to presidential campaigns. Each agreed that not only television, but also newspapers, are vital in the campaigns.

Deaver noted the importance of television, but said that television’s role has changed since its genesis.

Before the advent of television, Deaver said, print media and political parties supplied the public with information about candidates. However, since the 1960s, television has become the prime vehicle for campaigns.

Perhaps the two most intriguing results of the combination of television and the presidency are the need for political reporters and the use of television as a vehicle for candidates to promote themselves, Deaver said.

“I think it’s likely that television will become more important than less,” he said.

From pictures to words

Rather said that in the 1960s, television concentrated on pictures, that television officials “forgot the speaker.” Rather said although one picture is worth 1,000 words, “one word is worth 1,000 pictures.”

Candidates have also tried to manipulate television coverage by crafting sound bites, brief comments made to catch the audience’s attention in newscasts.

“Candidates are becoming very good at sound bites. It’s interesting, but it’s not newsworthy,” Boyd said. Instead of making sound bites, he said, the candidates should try to address the points of the campaign. “I am a proponent of our figuring out how to get beyond sound bites,” he said.

Deaver disagreed, saying that sound bites are not created by candidates, but by television.

Although television is vital to the coverage of political campaigns, newspapers serve as another channel for both the candidates and the public.

“Increasingly, it is television that tells the public. They do it faster and at times they do it better. It’s up to [newspapers] to tell people why,” Boyd said. “I think [newspapers] face real challenges.”

Rather said the best newspapers still set a great deal of the agenda because of the depth they provide to readers.

“We depend on the best of the newspapers to provide that depth — the background, context and analysis,” he said.

Ignoring some?

The media and the political candidates may be ignoring some Americans even with the expansive coverage.

“Both television and the candidates were ignoring a segment of the population — the young people,” Soren said of the 1992 presidential campaign. Soren added that because 17 million voters ages 18-29 voted in the last election, candidates cannot afford to block out these Americans.

“The biggest problem is having young people associate with what was going on in Washington, D.C.” Soren said. She also stressed the importance of MTV and other nontraditional news media in sculpting news toward a particular demographic.

Rather said he supports this “new media.”

A disappointment

Steffen Schmidt, an ISU political science professor, said the satellite seminar did not live up to his expectations.

The seminar was supposed to be a via-satellite interactive forum for the panelists as well as the universities. Schmidt said this was not the case.

“All you have of them was five talking heads,” he said.

He added that the panelists never addressed the university audiences by looking into the camera. “They were talking to each other. They were inept.”

Schmidt said the lack of an opposing viewpoint, that of someone outside the media, was also a downfall of the seminar.

“They are all inside media people with media culture and perspective,” he said.

Schmidt was also disappointed with the production of the seminar, which lacked graphics and other attention appeals.

“They were in a time warp,” he said. “Their opinions were old and stale. There was nothing exciting and fresh.”