It is no secret that the media is opinionated, and like to voice their opinions on TV, radio, and social networks, just ask our President. Many topics have taken center stage in national discussions, especially during the election season. Initially, Charter Schools weren’t one of these topics. Not because of the importance of the topic, but due to the number of critical topics in this country. It came to the forefront when Betsy DeVos was nominated as Secretary of Education, despite some comments that went viral on the web. When these comments hit the web, celebrities took to TV shows and especially social media to voice their opinion. While doing this, their thoughts about charter schools emerged. Many celebrities, like John Oliver and the women on The View, discussed their views on Charter Schools through the knowledge they learned through “reliable sources” in the media. Through media priming, and the frames of the stories that are written, thoughts about Betsy DeVos and the Charter School vs. Public School are becoming increasingly more prevalent.
To start, it is important to understand the current event that brought the charter school discussion to a higher talking point. This, of course is the nomination of Betsy DeVos by President Trump. There have been many “controversial” remarks and actions by the freshman President, with one of them being this nomination. DeVos is a Michigan philanthropist, who has a strong history in supporting charter schools (Deruy, 2016). She doesn’t just support it though, she runs the pro-charter and pro-school voucher nonprofit American Federation for Children, and supports pro-choice in schools. Essentially, DeVos supports privatizing education, and moving it into the private sector (Barkan, 2017). Her strong stance has stirred this nomination in the public’s eye. In her previous work, DeVos worked on Michigan’s generous school choice policy, which has yielded mixed results (Wilkerson, 2016). Although giving students to pick where they want to school gives them more freedom, it has taken a considerable hit on the local schools in Michigan where DeVos implemented it. Holland Public Schools in Michigan has seen enrollment plummet since the move to school choice. “Holland’s white enrollment has plummeted 60%, with 2,100 fewer white students. Today, whites comprise 49% of school-age children living in the district, but only 38% the school population (Hispanics make up 47% of Holland schools).” This fall in enrollment has led to the demolition of multiple schools in the district, and has drawn speculation behind DeVos national plan.
Also, on top of her policies, her comments at the confirmation hearing drew national buzz when she said, “guns might have a place in schools due to the threat from grizzly bears” (Jamieson, 2017). To be fair, DeVos was talking about Wyoming, where a school recently put up a fence to protect against wildlife, but it still made for a wild headline. When anything in the social media era catches fire, it goes viral. When this story hit the news waves, people from all over the globe weighed in. From simple tweets, political satire shows, or real journalism, the topic of Betsy DeVos and charter schools were discussed.
With every good story, there’s typically a journalist behind it that broke the story, or explained the story to the viewing public. In this case, since it is a national story, all the major outlets had studies about the new Secretary of Education and her policies and previous works. The journalistic work of these writers and outlets are setting the talking points for conversations. In the business, this is called priming. Specifically, priming is when the “media provide a context for public discussion of an issue, setting the stage for audience understanding” (Smith, 2011). One example of this priming is the journalistic pieces about charter schools, which are setting the stage for American’s to talk more about the debate between charter and public schools. This discussion has taken place because of the nomination of DeVos and her policies.
On top of priming, hard journalism typically has a frame. It isn’t supposed to, but in the digital age with so many news sources, each outlet typically leans one way or another. The way that these news sources portray certain topics, is what framing is. In a study by the American Enterprise Institute, they found that the media coverage of the K-12 school reform is biased (Hess, 2016). In fact, in their findings they found that “Charter coverage was broadly mixed and generally neutral, although there was also a sizeable amount of negative coverage. More specifically, while 49 percent of the articles were neutral or balanced in tone, the other half trended negative by a ratio of more than 2:1.” This bias influences the viewing public, who then are primed differently then they might be compared to having all partisan sources. Additionally, in this study, it stresses that across outlets, the voice varies. In the New York Times, they found that there was an equal amount of positive and negative articles, compared to Slate and the Washington Post who ran mainly negative framed articles. In personal experience, researching this topic led to many opinionated and editorial style articles, and less fact filled informational articles. As for Betsy DeVos articles, it is still too early for studies to show the results of web sources.
These works are considered “hard journalism” or “hard news,” meaning it is investigated and researched information from a credible source (Smith, 2011). Conversely, there is soft journalism. This is the satirical news or talk shows that discuss current events, but may not be primary source when it comes to news. Shows like The View, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, or The Late Show with Stephen Colbert are just a couple examples of this. These shows discuss findings from the hard news, and give their opinions. These are relevant because often viewers become fans, and take the word of the personality as truth, or it can shift someone’s opinion about a certain topic.
Priming and framing are quite relevant topics that are often talked about in soft journalism. For priming, this is a little different than the hard journalism. For a nightly show, when the hosts of the show talk about a certain topic the whole week, the audience is then primed to think that it is the most important topic of discussion. On the date of the video submitted online by “The View” on ABC, that gave the audience reason to believe that this was an important subject (The View, 2017). Additionally, the information that the women of The View are giving, could be false facts or opinions, but since there is a trust with the audience, the information given on the show is often believed by the viewer. For example, “Cookie” on the show is very against the appointment of Betsy DeVos. For people that like Cookie, or trust her opinion, they are now more likely to not like President Trump’s new appointment. In a recent study, media has increased its conversation of public vs. private schools over the past several years, which could have to do with the increasing debates on the soft news shows (Hess 2016).
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Late-night talk shows are where the framing effect comes more into play. At the beginning of every show in late night cable television, there is a monologue. In this performance to the live audience, the host says the current events of the day, which often are told with a punchline or joke attached to it. The host will only pick topics that a joke can be made of, which is typically things the host disagrees with. Then, the news is delivered with the negative spin. For example, when Jimmy Fallon delivers his remarks about the news on his show, he says: “the vote came down to a 51-50 solution, which to Donald Trump is a landslide” (Washington Post, 2017). Although funny, the news comes across in a negative way to Donald Trump and his administration. If someone were to only get their news from The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, they’d see a trend of framed news and jokes at Donald Trump. Many would see this frame of opinion in Fallon’s tone, but some would not.
Through the outlets of hard and soft journalism, with the techniques of framing and priming, the charter school vs. public school debate is beginning to gain more and more national attention. President Trump’s nomination of Betsy DeVos for U.S. Education Secretary has sparked the debate to new heights with her strong views on one side of the issue. Moving forward, it should be interesting to see what techniques the media uses to talk about DeVos and charter schools.
Conner Grant 