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1. Feeding Frenzy Larry Sabato Summary 3
2. Feeding Frenzy Larry Sabato Summary 1

In “Feeding Frenzy” by Larry Sabato he is critical of the characteristics of the media in situations where they openly ridicule and attack a widely known person for some sort of wrongdoing, or past indiscretion. According to Sabato, journalists and the media now fit snugly into their newfound role as gatekeeper, which he says enables them. In ecology, a feeding frenzy occurs when predators are overwhelmed by the amount of prey available. For example, a large school of fish can cause nearby sharks, such as the lemon shark, to enter into a feeding frenzy. This can cause the sharks to go wild, biting anything that moves, including each other or anything else within biting range. Professor Sabato's 'Feeding Frenzy' is a thoughtful look at the role of the press in campaigns. From 'lapdog journalism' (Kennedy and earlier years) to 'watchdog journalism' (Nixon) to 'attack dog journalism' (more recent events), he examines the manner in which the media have covered candidates over the years, where they have been constructive, and where they have not.

A media feeding frenzy is intense media coverage of a story of great interest to the public.

The 1998 Lewinsky scandal in the U.S. was a well-noted example of this.

The metaphor, drawing an analogy with feeding frenzies of groups of animals, was popularized by Larry Sabato's book Feeding Frenzy: Attack Journalism and American Politics.

Feeding Frenzy Larry Sabato Summary 3

Other examples include media coverage of 'crime waves' that often drive changes in criminal law to address problems that do not appear in the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), the most reliable indicator of actual crime in the U.S.; unlike the Uniform Crime Reports (UCR), the NCVS is not affected by changes in people's willingness to report crimes to law enforcement and in the willingness of law enforcement to forward UCRs to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) for inclusion in national summaries.^[1]

Sacco claimed that media outlets try to organize their reporting as much as possible around themes to help them amortize over several reports the work required to educate a journalist to the point where s/he can discuss a subject intelligently. These themes become 'feeding frenzies'.^[2] The availability cascade helps explain the human psychology behind a media feeding frenzy.

Of course, a commercial media organization could lose advertising if they had a media feeding frenzy that affected an advertiser's business: Advertisers don't want to feed mouths that bite them, and have been known to modify where they spend their advertising budget accordingly. Commercial media disseminate negative information about advertisers only to the extent required to keep customers.^[3]

See also[edit]

Feeding Frenzy Larry Sabato Summary 1

Notes[edit]

1. ^Sacco, Vincent F. (2005), When Crime Waves, Sage, ISBN9780761927839
2. ^Sacco, Vincent F. (1995). 'Media constructions of crime'. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. 539 (1): 141–154. doi:10.1177/0002716295539001011. cited from Potter and Kapeller (1998, pp. 37-51; see especially the section on 'The Content of Crime Problems', p. 42
3. ^McChesney, Robert W. (2004). The Problem of the Media: U.S. Communication Politics in the 21st Century. Monthly Review Press. ISBN1-58367-105-6.

Mr. Sabato discussed his book Feeding Frenzy: How Attack Journalism Has Transformed American Politics. In his book, Mr. Sabato discusses… read more

Mr. Sabato discussed his book Feeding Frenzy: How Attack Journalism Has Transformed American Politics. In his book, Mr. Sabato discusses what he sees as the major changes that have occured in modern journalism in recent years. He believes that along with a decline in journalistic ethics, there is an increasing tendency among the media to overscrutenize the private lives of public figures, thus obscuring the genuine political issues. close

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*This transcript was compiled from uncorrected Closed Captioning.

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• Brian LambHostC-SPAN
• Larry J. SabatoProfessorUniversity of Virginia->Department of Government and Foreign Affairs

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