Source Material: Out of Office and in the News: Early Projections of the Clinton Legacy

The news media play a significant role in communicating relevant information about a president's tenure, not only to the public, but also to those directly involved in creating a president's legacy (particularly scholars and elite journalists). A recent study on press coverage of former presidents Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, and George H.W. Bush found that the amount of post-White House coverage decreases after the first year out of office (Asante 2002). Once the media are satisfied that they know how the former president is adjusting to his new responsibilities, they no longer view him as especially newsworthy. Therefore, news coverage during the first year after a president leaves office may be the last opportunity to influence perceptions of the president's tenure. This article examines Bill Clinton's lingering media presence during 2001. We content analyzed news stories on Clinton in the New York Times and on the nightly newscasts on ABC, CBS, and NBC from January 21, 2001 through December 31, 2001. For comparison, we also content analyzed the same news media sources for Reagan from January 21, 1989 through December 31, 1989, and for Bush from January 21, 1993 through December 31, 1993. We selected the New York Times as an appropriate representative of print coverage because it is widely recognized as the nation's "newspaper of record" and a trendsetter in coverage that other news outlets often follow (Emery and Emery 1996; Alger 1996). We also include television coverage for comparative analysis because of the substantial role that television news has played in presidential politics for the past several decades. Clinton as News Although there are no guidelines for how former presidents should spend their time, most gracefully step back from the national spotlight of the presidency while Americans, and especially the news media, focus on the new occupant of the White House. Having promised to "work until the last hour of the last day" (Clinton 2001), Bill Clinton delivered the last of his 416 weekly radio addresses and granted 140 presidential pardons (including the controversial pardon to fugitive financier Marc Rich) during his last hours in the Oval Office on January 20, 2001. Shortly after witnessing George W. Bush take the oath of office later that day, Clinton promised a crowd of supporters gathered at the airport for his departure from Washington that "I'm not going anywhere." During the first weeks of the new Bush administration, Clinton's promise turned out to be accurate as he rivaled the new president as the nation's top political newsmaker. Stories in the national news media about Clinton's ongoing problems kept the former president in full public view for months after he left the White House. Much of this coverage presented a critical and negative tone about the end-of-administration scandals and how his legacy would be adversely affected. (1) Other studies have documented the prevalent coverage of Clinton once he left office. According to a study by the Center for Media and Public Affairs (CMPA) published in March 2001, during the time period of January 21, 2001 through February 28, 2001, a total of 101 stories about Clinton were broadcast on the nightly network news shows, compared to only 14 stories that had been aired on former president George H.W. Bush during the same time span in 1993 (Center for Media and Public Affairs 2001a). A second study by the CMPA published in May 2001 found that during the first 100 days of the new Bush administration in 2001, stories related to the Rich pardon ranked sixth in a study of top ten news stories on the nightly network news shows (in number of minutes). If late-night television is any indication of news prominence on the national level, Clinton also beat out Bush during the first 100 days in the number of jokes; Jay Leno, David Letterman, Conan O'Brien, and Bill Maher "barely seemed to notice the presidential transition" as Clinton garnered 293 jokes compared to Bush's 200, according to the same study (Center for Media and Public Affairs 2001b). …