Government Goes Down the Tube

Corruption, buffoonery, ineptitude and red tape are the hallmarks of government on primetime entertainment television in the 1990s.

So says a study released by the Partnership for Trust in Government, a joint project of the Council for Excellence in Government and the Ford Foundation.

Led by S. Robert Lichter, president of the Center for Media and Public Affairs, "Images of Government in TV Entertainment" found that, overall, television's depictions of government officials and systems have grown increasingly negative since 1955. In sum, television portrays public officials and civil servants as "politicians and bureaucrats who serve their own interests or special interests rather than the public interest." Government institutions have fared even worse.

Opinion research finds that the public tends to believe that television portrayals of government are realistic. According to an independent poll released by the Connecticut-based Yankelovick Partners Consulting group, more than half of the American television audiences believe government officials and public servants are accurately portrayed on prime-time entertainment network television. Two-thirds of Generation X viewers — 18- to 34-year-olds — agree.

"We are concerned about the lack of balance in the way people who work in government are portrayed. In the world of 1990s prime-time television, the mayor is clueless or corrupt, the postal carrier is stockpiling your mail in a storage unit, and a secret government agency is plotting to kill off citizens with biological weapons," says MPA 1975 graduate Patricia McGinnis, president and CEO of the Council for Excellence in Government.

"These are the more outrageous examples, but by and large, the viewing public is buying into these negative stereotypes. The helpful civil servant and the concerned public official are rare exceptions on television and in the minds of viewers."

The study, which focused on 1,234 series episodes and 9,588 characters, 28 percent of whom were civilian, public-sector employees, examined portrayals of public-sector employees and institutions on prime-time entertainment television series on ABC, CBS, NBC, and, more recently, Fox from 1995 through 1998.

Among the study's findings:
• In the 1990s, elected or appointed government officials had the worst image of any major occupational group portrayed — and civil servants fared only slightly better.
• Since 1975, three of every four television episodes involving the U.S. political or legal systems have portrayed them as corrupt.
• Every major group of government employees is portrayed more negatively today than in the past.
• On entertainment television, when government institutions do serve the public, it is usually because of mavericks or whistleblowers who fight the system to make it work.

"Prime-time entertainment today gives public service little notice and less respect," said Lichter. "Teachers and law enforcers are still positively portrayed, but rarely as government representatives. The core institutions of government — the political system and those who work within it — are treated badly."

Which is why, said Richard C. Leone, president of The Century Foundation, changes must be made. "Government can work, and most government employees work hard for all of us. We need to be more vigilant about finding ways to counteract the pervasive negative images portrayed on television and film."

To read the full study, visit www.trustingov.org/research/govtv/index.htm.

Lisa-Joy Zgorski MPP 1993, first vice chair of the KSG Alumni Executive Council, serves as communications manager for The Century Foundation in Washington, DC. She can be contacted at lisajoy@alumni.ksg.harvard.edu.