Replay: Live Chat with Kathleen Hall Jamieson

The conventions are over, and both parties have had the opportunity to define their platforms during prime time. Some of the biggest stories to come out of Tampa and Charlotte dealt with the numerous deceptions and half-truths that littered the major speeches. To help distinguish rhetoric from reality, we hosted a live chat with political communications analyst Kathleen Hall Jamieson on Friday, Sept. 7. She answered viewers’ questions about the speeches, attack advertising, the value of fact checking and the differences in strategies between the two parties.

Jamieson, a frequent guest of Bill Moyers, is a nationally recognized authority on political communication, campaigns and political rhetoric. She is the director of the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg Public Policy Center, and helped create FactCheck.org and FlackCheck.org, nonpartisan websites that monitor deception and confusion in US politics.

Kathleen Hall Jamieson

(09/07/2012)

  

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10:03

Moyers & Company:  We'll be starting our chat with Kathleen Hall Jamieson at 1 PM ET, but please feel free to enter your questions and commments below. Friday September 7, 2012 10:03 Moyers & Company

10:22

Moyers & Company:  Kathleen Hall Jamieson, a frequent guest of Bill Moyers, is a nationally recognized authority on political communication, campaigns and political rhetoric. She is the director of the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg Public Policy Center, and helped create FactCheck.org and FlackCheck.org, nonpartisan websites that monitor deception and confusion in U.S. politics. Friday September 7, 2012 10:22 Moyers & Company

10:22

Moyers & Company:  She welcomes your questions and comments about the conventions, campaign ads and the upcoming debates. Friday September 7, 2012 10:22 Moyers & Company

12:56

Moyers & Company:  We're getting ready to start in five minutes. Post your questions now so that they get in the queue for Kathleen Hall Jamieson. Friday September 7, 2012 12:56 Moyers & Company

12:57

Moyers & Company:  Thanks so much for joining us for our live chat with Kathleen Hall Jamieson. Friday September 7, 2012 12:57 Moyers & Company

12:58

Moyers & Company:  Kathleen Hall Jamieson is a nationally recognized authority on political communication, campaigns, and political rhetoric. Friday September 7, 2012 12:58 Moyers & Company

12:58

Moyers & Company:  She is the Elizabeth Ware Packard Professor of Communication at the University of Pennsylvania, and also the Walter and Leonore Annenberg Director of the University’s Annenberg Public Policy Center. Friday September 7, 2012 12:58 Moyers & Company

12:59

Moyers & Company:  Jamieson has authored or co-authored 16 books, including Packaging the Presidency: A History and Criticism of Presidential Campaign Advertising, Presidents Creating the Presidency: Deeds Done in Words, Echo Chamber: Rush Limbaugh and the Conservative Media Establishment, and unSpun: Finding Facts in a World of Disinformation. Friday September 7, 2012 12:59 Moyers & Company

12:59

Moyers & Company:  Jamieson helped create FactCheck.org and FlackCheck.org, nonpartisan websites that monitor deception and confusion in U.S. politics. Friday September 7, 2012 12:59 Moyers & Company

1:00	Moyers & Company:  Welcome to BillMoyers.com, Kathleen. Thank you for joining us. Friday September 7, 2012 1:00 Moyers & Company

1:00	Kathleen Hall Jamieson:  Hi. Good to be with you! Friday September 7, 2012 1:00 Kathleen Hall Jamieson

1:01	Moyers & Company:  We've got lots of great questions in the queue already. Friday September 7, 2012 1:01 Moyers & Company

1:01	Moyers & Company:  Let's start with David's question. Friday September 7, 2012 1:01 Moyers & Company

1:01	[Comment From David David : ]  Kathleen, how was political messaging different at the conventions this year from four years ago? Friday September 7, 2012 1:01 David

1:02	Kathleen Hall Jamieson:  The political world changed dramatically shortly after the conclusion of the conventions in 2008. Friday September 7, 2012 1:02 Kathleen Hall Jamieson

1:04

Kathleen Hall Jamieson:  September 15 2008 shifted the focus of the campaign from concerns about oil prices, which had been a pre-occupation of the summer (and one of the reasons Sen McCain chose Gov Palin as his running mate) , to a focus on Wall Street and the banking crisis. The conventions this year are dealing with a reality very different from the one faced by the nominees at their conventions in 2004 as a result. Friday September 7, 2012 1:04 Kathleen Hall Jamieson

1:05	[Comment From Jim Jim : ]  Do you think that the shortened Republican National Convention negatively impacted the Republicans' message? Friday September 7, 2012 1:05 Jim

1:06	Kathleen Hall Jamieson:  Conventions are scripted to create a narrative arc. Friday September 7, 2012 1:06 Kathleen Hall Jamieson

1:08

Kathleen Hall Jamieson:  The drama of the approaching hurricane and the compressed schedule made it more difficult for the Republicans to set their basic themes in place before developing them. The challenger needs all of the time he can get to define himself and his vision and contrast it with that of the incumbent. Losing national attention at a time when one is trying to accomplish this complicated Gov Romney's task. Friday September 7, 2012 1:08 Kathleen Hall Jamieson

1:09

[Comment From Guest Guest : ]  Jack Compton via Facebook: If the conventions are basically giant pep rallies specifically and solely for the benefit of their respective parties, how and/or why are taxpayer dollars used to cover expenses such as security and ems services? What product and/or benefits do taxpayers receive for their investment? Friday September 7, 2012 1:09 Guest

1:11	Moyers & Company:  While Kathleen is typing, we'd love to hear from you about your thoughts on the conventions. What did you think? Friday September 7, 2012 1:11 Moyers & Company

1:12

Kathleen Hall Jamieson:  Because conventions impose high costs on host cities and provide the collective good of informing the country about the choice voters face, offsetting some of those costs with taxpayer funds makes sense. That assumes, of course, that conventions inform both committed partisans and those whoa re making up their minds. Friday September 7, 2012 1:12 Kathleen Hall Jamieson

1:13	Kathleen Hall Jamieson:  Whatever their limitations, conventions perform that function. We see the results when we ask questions in our surveys about candidates' stands on issues. Friday September 7, 2012 1:13 Kathleen Hall Jamieson

1:14	Moyers & Company:  So how well did they do in informing? Friday September 7, 2012 1:14 Moyers & Company

1:15	Kathleen Hall Jamieson:  I wish the nominees had spent more time explaining the tough choices either will face and the differences in the solutions they will offer. Friday September 7, 2012 1:15 Kathleen Hall Jamieson

1:17	Kathleen Hall Jamieson:  However, those who watched the conventions are probably now better aware of the accomplishments of each candidate and of the central lines of attack each offers against the opposing candidate. Friday September 7, 2012 1:17 Kathleen Hall Jamieson

1:18	Kathleen Hall Jamieson:  Viewers were able to learn a great deal more about Governor Romney's work within his faith community. Friday September 7, 2012 1:18 Kathleen Hall Jamieson

1:19	Kathleen Hall Jamieson:  Each convention provided its answer to the question "Are you Better Off Now Than You Were Four Years Ago?" Friday September 7, 2012 1:19 Kathleen Hall Jamieson

1:19	Kathleen Hall Jamieson:  The answers featured different data but each provided a clear answer to the question. Friday September 7, 2012 1:19 Kathleen Hall Jamieson

1:19	[Comment From Joanne Joanne : ]  I thought Clinton provided an exceptional review of the big picture -- refreshing people's memories and framing the issues. He has a rare ability to communicate complex messages. Friday September 7, 2012 1:19 Joanne

1:21

Kathleen Hall Jamieson:  President Clinton delivered the most substantive defense of the Obama presidency of any at the Dem convention. He provided answers to the "four years" question that the Obama campaign had otherwise failed to clearly offer. There isn't a comparable speech at the Republican convention. Friday September 7, 2012 1:21 Kathleen Hall Jamieson

1:22	[Comment From Lauren Lauren : ]  What do you think the use of Clint Eastwood meant? Friday September 7, 2012 1:22 Lauren

1:23	Kathleen Hall Jamieson:  The Republican convention had just delivered a compelling hour of content that included one of the more effective convention films in the history of modern campaigns.. Friday September 7, 2012 1:23 Kathleen Hall Jamieson

1:23	Kathleen Hall Jamieson:  The Eastwood interlude fractured the narrative arc being built by that earlier hour of content. Friday September 7, 2012 1:23 Kathleen Hall Jamieson

1:24	Kathleen Hall Jamieson:  And since it occurred in the single hour the national broadcast networks were devoting to the convention, it framed the content that followed. Friday September 7, 2012 1:24 Kathleen Hall Jamieson

1:25	Kathleen Hall Jamieson:  Had the film immediately preceded the Romney speech, we would remember the speech differently. Friday September 7, 2012 1:25 Kathleen Hall Jamieson

1:25	[Comment From Susan Susan : ]  Hi, I'm sure you'll cover this, but I'm so interested in Kathleen Jamieson's accuracy assessments of the RNC and DNC convention speeches. Thank you!! Friday September 7, 2012 1:25 Susan

1:26	Kathleen Hall Jamieson:  The staff at FactCheck.org is exhausted because it had so much work to do across the two conventions. Friday September 7, 2012 1:26 Kathleen Hall Jamieson

1:26	Kathleen Hall Jamieson:  For its specific assessments, I urge you to go to that site (and take a look at the video content we have posted on the Patterns of Deception page of FlackCheck.org). Friday September 7, 2012 1:26 Kathleen Hall Jamieson

1:28	Kathleen Hall Jamieson:  Perhaps someday we will end the convention period with a well rested staff celebrating the fact that the conventions have been deception free. But not this year. Friday September 7, 2012 1:28 Kathleen Hall Jamieson

1:28	Kathleen Hall Jamieson:  That said, there is a great deal of accurate information in the major speeches and many of their sins are sins of omission. Friday September 7, 2012 1:28 Kathleen Hall Jamieson

1:29	[Comment From Declan Rockwell Declan Rockwell : ]  Do you think there is a difference between how the two campaigns / conventions are twisting the truth? Clearly both are doing it on different issues... Friday September 7, 2012 1:29 Declan Rockwell

1:31	Kathleen Hall Jamieson:  Incumbents tend to exaggerate the effect of their efforts. So, for example, President Obama places US autoworkers "back on top of the world" when GM has slipped to second perhaps en route to third. Friday September 7, 2012 1:31 Kathleen Hall Jamieson

1:33	Kathleen Hall Jamieson:  Challengers exaggerate the consequences of incumbent actions. So for example, Gov Romney says family income has fallen $4000 under Obama. But that figure is measuring the drop from Dec 2007. Friday September 7, 2012 1:33 Kathleen Hall Jamieson

1:34	Kathleen Hall Jamieson:  The attacks of each play on the assumptions we already grant about the respective parties,. Friday September 7, 2012 1:34 Kathleen Hall Jamieson

1:36	Kathleen Hall Jamieson:  So the Dems argue that the Reps will destroy Medicare and the Reps argue that Pres Obama has gutted the work requirement in welfare reform. Friday September 7, 2012 1:36 Kathleen Hall Jamieson

1:36	[Comment From Steven Steven : ]  You helped found factcheck.org. Do you feel that one party is using more misinformation -- or lies -- than the other? Friday September 7, 2012 1:36 Steven

1:36	Kathleen Hall Jamieson:  I am asked that question every election season. Friday September 7, 2012 1:36 Kathleen Hall Jamieson

1:38

Kathleen Hall Jamieson:  It's a VERY difficult question to answer because not all deceptions are created equal. When dealing with ads, how does one assess a campaign when one side airs very few ads at high volume and the other many more ads? How does one assess the third party groups? Friday September 7, 2012 1:38 Kathleen Hall Jamieson

1:40

Kathleen Hall Jamieson:  The Patterns of Deception page at FlackCheck.org is our attempt to identify the patterns under the deceptions to make it easier to recognize deception when it occurs. What you 'll see there is that many of the deceptions are visual not verbal or created by insinuation not explicit statement. Friday September 7, 2012 1:40 Kathleen Hall Jamieson

1:40	Kathleen Hall Jamieson:  Very difficult to compare deception by insinuation to explicit verbal deception. Friday September 7, 2012 1:40 Kathleen Hall Jamieson

1:41	Kathleen Hall Jamieson:  So my best answer is: As a scholar, I can't in most campaigns answer the question with a level of methodological rigor that would make me comfortable with the conclusion. Friday September 7, 2012 1:41 Kathleen Hall Jamieson

1:43

[Comment From Marc Schmittroth Marc Schmittroth : ]  Jon Stewart asked Tom Brokaw about the mass media having outsourced their fact checking to websites like yours. Do you feel the mass media is relying on you or do you see efforts to try and keep up and maybe innovate on their own? Friday September 7, 2012 1:43 Marc Schmittroth

1:43	Kathleen Hall Jamieson:  I haven't content analyzed the media coverage this year so this is a top of the head response. Friday September 7, 2012 1:43 Kathleen Hall Jamieson

1:44	Kathleen Hall Jamieson:  Brooks Jackson and I founded FactCheck.org in 2003 because it seemed to us that mainstream journalism had abandoned its function as custodian of fact. Friday September 7, 2012 1:44 Kathleen Hall Jamieson

1:45	Kathleen Hall Jamieson:  There are now four major groups devoted to political fact checking. Friday September 7, 2012 1:45 Kathleen Hall Jamieson

1:46	Kathleen Hall Jamieson:  And there has been (I think) an increase in news pieces that provide corrective contexts within stories. The LA Times is among those doing this. Friday September 7, 2012 1:46 Kathleen Hall Jamieson

1:47	Kathleen Hall Jamieson:  That is ideally where this function occurs. Friday September 7, 2012 1:47 Kathleen Hall Jamieson

1:47	Kathleen Hall Jamieson:  The Sunday shows have also done an excellent job holding those on their programs accountable for "the knowable". Friday September 7, 2012 1:47 Kathleen Hall Jamieson

1:49	[Comment From Tim Tim : ]  I've read that the attack ads are expected to get particularly nasty and aggressive in the next few months. Is that correct? Do you expect they'll be worse than in past years? Friday September 7, 2012 1:49 Tim

1:49

[Comment From Shelley Shelley : ]  The hyperbole, half-truths and outright deception seems to be so much worse than ever before this year. Do you think a lot of this is driven by the third-party ads from super PAC and others pushing the campaigns to get more and more outrageous? Friday September 7, 2012 1:49 Shelley

1:51

Kathleen Hall Jamieson:  The level of attack in ads is high this year is part because third party groups are spending much more than in years past and their ads are making up a higher proportion of the total than in the past. Historically, third party ads have been both more attack driven and more deceptive. Friday September 7, 2012 1:51 Kathleen Hall Jamieson

1:52	Kathleen Hall Jamieson:  Take a look at the data we update monthly on the FlackCheck.org website on deception in third party groups. Friday September 7, 2012 1:52 Kathleen Hall Jamieson

1:52	Kathleen Hall Jamieson:  On that site we have a deception log. Friday September 7, 2012 1:52 Kathleen Hall Jamieson

1:53	Kathleen Hall Jamieson:  It summarizes the fact checking on the deceptions in the third party ads. Friday September 7, 2012 1:53 Kathleen Hall Jamieson

1:53	Kathleen Hall Jamieson:  Stations have no obligation to air third party ads and can insist on the accuracy of those they air. Friday September 7, 2012 1:53 Kathleen Hall Jamieson

1:53	Kathleen Hall Jamieson:  The deception log is our attempt to alert them to deception on their stations. Friday September 7, 2012 1:53 Kathleen Hall Jamieson

1:54	Kathleen Hall Jamieson:  You can urge them to insist on the accuracy of the third party ads they are offered by emailing them from FlackCheck.org. It takes about a minute. Friday September 7, 2012 1:54 Kathleen Hall Jamieson

1:55	Moyers & Company:  Has that ever happened? Friday September 7, 2012 1:55 Moyers & Company

1:56	Kathleen Hall Jamieson:  In Ohio last Fall stations rejected a very deceptive ad. We have video showing what was deceptive about it on the Stand By Your Ad page of FlackCheck.org. Friday September 7, 2012 1:56 Kathleen Hall Jamieson

1:56	Kathleen Hall Jamieson:  We do know of cases in which a station has rejected an ad this cycle. Friday September 7, 2012 1:56 Kathleen Hall Jamieson

1:57	Kathleen Hall Jamieson:  But the stations (that we would love to praise publicly) don't want to make their decision public. Friday September 7, 2012 1:57 Kathleen Hall Jamieson

1:57	Kathleen Hall Jamieson:  Stations are making a windfall on third party ads this year. Friday September 7, 2012 1:57 Kathleen Hall Jamieson

1:58

[Comment From Timothy Timothy : ]  Always enjoy your appearances on the show - I'm curious how you measure the impact of your work, in the broad sense or on any given "fact." As an example, the checking of Mr. Ryan's speech received wide coverage - but what was the ultimate effect of that, if anything? Does it simply matter that "facts" are kept factual, regardless of whether there is a distinct impact or not? Friday September 7, 2012 1:58 Timothy

1:58	Kathleen Hall Jamieson:  We can't ever say with confidence that a specific instance of fact checking produced a result. Friday September 7, 2012 1:58 Kathleen Hall Jamieson

1:59	Kathleen Hall Jamieson:  What we can say is that candidate messages have occasionally changed after being critiqued by good journalism including that of the fact checking groups. Friday September 7, 2012 1:59 Kathleen Hall Jamieson

2:00	Kathleen Hall Jamieson:  The Dems shifted their claim that Romney had outsourced while at Bain to one saying that his firms had outsourced. Gov Romney qualified his claim to net net have created 100,000 jobs while at Bain. Friday September 7, 2012 2:00 Kathleen Hall Jamieson

2:03

Kathleen Hall Jamieson:  In the case of the '716 billion dollar raiding of Medicare' claim, the journalistic process (and what ever other forces were at play) led Gov Romney to in effect concede that the Ryan plan assumed the same 'savings' when he pledged to put the money back. Friday September 7, 2012 2:03 Kathleen Hall Jamieson

2:03	Moyers & Company:  Looking forward to the debates, what should we be paying attention to? Friday September 7, 2012 2:03 Moyers & Company

2:04	Kathleen Hall Jamieson:  I hope that C-PSAN will cover a Sept 26 press event APPC is holding at the National Press Club. At it, the four major fact checking groups will forecast the likely deceptions in the upcoming debates. Friday September 7, 2012 2:04 Kathleen Hall Jamieson

2:04	Moyers & Company:  We'll definitely be looking forward to that. Friday September 7, 2012 2:04 Moyers & Company

2:06	Kathleen Hall Jamieson:  Would be good news if after the debates we were to find that some of those forecast deceptions didn't make it onto the debate stage. Friday September 7, 2012 2:06 Kathleen Hall Jamieson

2:06	Moyers & Company:  APPC is the Annenberg Public Policy Center, btw. Friday September 7, 2012 2:06 Moyers & Company

2:06	Moyers & Company:  Thanks so much to all of you who joined us for our live chat with Kathleen Hall Jamieson this afternoon. Friday September 7, 2012 2:06 Moyers & Company

2:06	Kathleen Hall Jamieson:  of the University of Pennsylvania!!! Friday September 7, 2012 2:06 Kathleen Hall Jamieson

2:06	Moyers & Company:  I'm sorry that we can't get to all of your questions. Friday September 7, 2012 2:06 Moyers & Company

2:06	Moyers & Company:  Thanks Kathleen. Friday September 7, 2012 2:06 Moyers & Company

2:07	Kathleen Hall Jamieson:  My pleasure. Thanks everyone! Friday September 7, 2012 2:07 Kathleen Hall Jamieson

2:07	Moyers & Company:  Thanks again for joining us. It's always great to speak with you. Friday September 7, 2012 2:07 Moyers & Company

2:10	Moyers & Company:  I hope we can do this again. Friday September 7, 2012 2:10 Moyers & Company