Tag Archive for: media

Let's Find Common Ground - Episode 71

Special Episode: Lessons From The 2022 Midterm Elections

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What lessons can we learn from the 2022 midterms? Hear from two experienced political strategists.

Why did the widely forecast “red wave” election turn into a ripple? What are the prospects for finding common ground in Congress where both houses will have razor-thin majorities? What will the midterm election results mean for the future of our Republic?

In this special podcast episode of Let’s Find Common Ground, releasing just days after several key races were determined, two of the most experienced political strategists of recent decades share their insights. Democrat Bob Shrum and Republican Mike Murphy serve as co-directors of The Center for the Political Future at the University of Southern California. Among other topics, we explore their relationship as good friends who are on opposite sides of the political divide.

Mike Murphy is one of the Republican Party’s most successful political media consultants, having handled strategy and advertising for more than two dozen successful gubernatorial and senatorial campaigns. Bob Shrum was once described as “the most sought-after consultant in the Democratic Party,” by The Atlantic Monthly. He was the strategist in over 25 winning U.S. Senate campaigns, eight successful races for governor, and numerous campaigns for Congress and statewide offices.

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Ep 71 – Special Episode: Lessons From The 2022 Midterm Elections

Bob Shrum

Robert Shrum is the Director of the Center for the Political Future and the Carmen H. and Louis Warschaw Chair in Practical Politics at USC Dornsife. A legendary political strategist, he was once described as “the most sought-after consultant in the Democratic Party,” by The Atlantic Monthly. He was a speechwriter for Senator George McGovern in the 1972 presidential campaign and for Senator Edward Kennedy in the 1980 presidential campaign. He served as the Senator’s Press Secretary in the early 1980s and as a political consultant and strategist in his subsequent Senate campaigns. He was also the strategist in over 25 other winning U.S. Senate campaigns, eight successful campaigns for governor, successful campaigns for mayors in major American cities, and numerous campaigns for Congress and other statewide offices. His clients included Joe Biden, John Glenn, Barbara Mikulski, David Dinkins, and Tom Bradley – and John Kerry and Al Gore in their presidential races. Overseas his clients included Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, the British Labour Party, the Prime Minister of Ireland, and the Presidents of Colombia and Bolivia.

In 2005 he shifted his attention to the academic world. Professor Shrum teaches several classes at USC on domestic policy, applied politics, and elections. He had previously taught at New York University, was a Silliman Fellow at Yale, and Kennedy Fellow at the Institute of Politics at Harvard. He is a member of the Board of Directors of the Edward M Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate.

Shrum’s book, No Excuse: Concessions of a Serial Campaigner was a national bestseller published in June 2007 by Simon and Schuster. As a journalist, Shrum’s work has appeared in the New York Times, New York Magazine, The Los Angeles Times, Time, Newsweek, and The Huffington Post. He has been a columnist for Slate, The Week, and the Daily Beast. He has written for commercial television, including “The Emmy Awards,” “The American Film Institute Life Achievement Awards,” and the Emmy and Peabody Award-winning “Kennedy Center Honors: A Celebration of the Performing Arts,” for which he received a Writers Guild of America award.

He is a graduate of Georgetown University and Harvard Law School. While at Georgetown, Shrum was named top speaker at the 1965 Collegiate National Debate Tournament. An award named after Shrum is now presented annually to the top speaker at the National Speech and Debate Tournament for high school students. Shrum was born in Connellsville, Pennsylvania and raised in Culver City, California. He now lives in Los Angeles, California with his wife, the writer and activist Marylouise Oates, and their dog Cody.

In 2015 Shrum received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Association of Political Consultants (AAPC) and was inducted into its Hall of Fame.

Mike Murphy

Mike Murphy is the Co-Director of the Center for the Political Future at USC. Murphy is one of the Republican Party’s most successful political media consultants, having handled strategy and advertising for more than 26 successful gubernatorial and senatorial campaigns. His record in helping Republicans win Democratic states is unmatched by any other GOP consultant. Murphy has been called a “media master” by Fortune magazine, the GOP’s “hottest media consultant” by Newsweek, and the leader of a “new breed” of campaign consultants by Congressional Quarterly. He is a widely known political pundit, appearing frequently on NBC, CNN, and NPR. Previously, he served as a regular on the Meet the Press political roundtable and wrote the “Murphy’s Law” column for TIME Magazine.

Murphy served as senior strategist for both John McCain’s first campaign for President in 2000 and Arnold Schwarzenegger’s historic election as Governor of California. Murphy has worked on successful campaigns for many GOP Governors and Senators including Jeb Bush, Mitt Romney, Terry Branstad, Lamar Alexander, Jeff Sessions, Slade Gorton, Dirk Kempthorne, Tommy Thompson and John Engler. In the 2016 primary season, Murphy served as the chief strategist to the Right to Rise PAC, which supported Jeb Bush’s candidacy. In 2020 Murphy joined former aides to George W. Bush and John McCain to endorse Joe Biden for president. He has advised political leaders in six foreign countries, too. A partner in the Washington, DC based Revolution Agency, Murphy also advises several Fortune 500 corporations and several of America’s largest trade associations.

Murphy has partnered with fellow campaign veteran David Axelrod to discuss American politics twice a week on their podcast, Hacks on Tap. Murphy previously hosted Radio Free GOP where he facilitated insider discussions about political campaigns with campaign veterans from both parties.

He was born in Detroit, Michigan in 1962 and attended the Edmund Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. Murphy also served as a Senior Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and is on the Board of Advisors for the Institute of Politics at the University of Chicago. In addition to his consulting practice, Murphy also works as a writer/producer in the entertainment industry. He and his wife Tiffany now live in Los Angeles, California where they have been based since 2003.

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Let's Find Common Ground - Episode 70

Broken Media: The Roots of Today’s News Crisis

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How did the news crisis begin and how can it be solved? Hear from an industry insider.

While many American consumers have given up their daily news habit, millions of others are now addicted to rage media— cable news and social media that push sensationalism, groupthink and partisan tribalism.

This trend of “news bubbles” is relatively recent. Over the past 30 years, the decline of many regional newspapers has given way to a new form of slick, easy, and profitable national opinion journalism that caters to narrow segments of the population across the nation. Local reporting of how our towns, cities and states are run has died out in many parts of the country.


In this episode of Let’s Find Common Ground, we look at the current state of the news industry and ask why the media and news consumers should insist  on better journalism. Our guest is Chris Stirewalt, a columnist, author and former political editor for Fox News. Chris is the author of the new book, “Broken News: Why the Media Rage Machine Divides America and How to Fight Back.”

 

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Ep 70 – Broken Media: The Roots of Today’s News Crisis

Chris Stirewalt

Chris Stirewalt is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), where he focuses on American politics, voting trends, public opinion, and the media. He is concurrently a contributing editor and weekly columnist for The Dispatch. Before joining AEI, he was political editor of Fox News Channel, where he helped coordinate political coverage across the network and specialized in on-air analysis of polls and voting trends.

Before joining Fox News Channel, Mr. Stirewalt served as political editor of the Washington Examiner, where he wrote a twice-weekly column and led political coverage for the newspaper. He also served as political editor of the Charleston Daily Mail and West Virginia Media. Mr. Stirewalt began his career at the Wheeling Intelligencer in West Virginia.

A well-known political commentator, Mr. Stirewalt wrote about his personal experience of the 2020 election in the Los Angeles Times. He is the author of “Broken News: Why the Media Rage Machine Divides America and How to Fight Back” (Center Street, 2022), a new book on media and politics.

Mr. Stirewalt is a graduate of Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia, where he studied history.

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Broken Media? Restoring Trust in News Coverage

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Can the media help solve polarization, rather than cause it? Two journalists weigh in.

The United States has one of the highest news avoidance rates in the world. Tens of millions of Americans don’t read, watch or listen to the news each day, and the media is generally held in low regard. So, is there a better way to report and analyze current events that will satisfy readers’ interests?

In this episode of Let’s Find Common Ground, we hear from Mark Sappenfield, Editor of The Christian Science Monitor, and Story Hinckley, the National Political Correspondent. We’re releasing this podcast less than two weeks before the midterm elections — a time when many news outlets have amped up their coverage, speculated about winners and losers, and put additional emphasis on the nation’s deep partisan divides.

We discuss evolving news values with the Monitor and how reporters and editors are striving to highlight constructive solutions that unite rather than divide. We also hear about election coverage and why the media need to challenge readers, build trust, and report the news truthfully.

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Ep 69 – Broken Media? Restoring Trust in News Coverage

Mark Sappenfield

Mark Sappenfield is the Editor for The Christian Science Monitor. He joined the Monitor in 1996 and has since written from Boston, the San Francisco Bay Area, the Pentagon, and India. In addition to reporting from Pakistan and Afghanistan during his time in South Asia, Mark has also written on issues of sports and science. He has covered seven Olympic Games and attended events at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, including the landing of the Mars rover Opportunity. After returning to Boston in 2009, Mark served as both deputy national news editor and national news editor.

Story Hinckley

Story Hinckley is a Washington-based National Political Correspondent for The Christian Science Monitor. She holds a B.A. from the University of Virginia where she double majored in Political Science and Environmental Thought and Practice, and a master’s in journalism from Northeastern University.

Want to hear more? Check out our podcast page to see all the discussions!