Thomas E. Patterson

About the author: Thomas E. Patterson is a political science professor at Syracuse University in Syracuse, New York, and the author of many books on the mass media and American politics, including The Mass Media Election and The American Democracy.

Campaign reforms in the early 1970s changed the role of the media in elections. Prior to the 1968 election, presidential candidates were chosen by the political parties' leadership. Following the reforms of the McGovern-Fraser Commission, candidates were chosen by voters in primary elections. The unintended effect of the reforms was to give the media the responsibility of identifying viable candidates for president and informing voters about them. The media are ill-equipped to play this new role: Since they do not constitute a political institution, the media have no incentive to...