How Phil Donahue came to manage the '92 campaign.

• Author: Alter, Jonathan
• Position: Political campaigns and the media

A loss of control: You could say it's the thread running through the events of our time, but then the metaphor would be backwards. Rather, it's the thread that's unraveling through the events of our time. At the international level, the loss of control is generally good news. At the national level, the loss of control has us fearing the apocalypse. And in the media, it's a mixed blessing, suggesting promises and dangers at the same time.

The loss of control by despots and stultifying Communist bureaucracies is obviously the best news of the latter part of the 20th century. The world is freer now than at any time in human history, a strange and exhilarating concept we don't often pause to consider. Last month, South Africa announced that by the end of the year it would have a black president --at least on a rotating basis. It was ho-hum news, barely covered. The good news now comes at nearly the same pace as the bad news in the mid-to-late forties, when countries turning communist didn't always make the front page.

But if loss of control helped free the world, at home it translated into abdication of responsibility--on the part of government and the individual. We need only look to the Los Angeles riots to appreciate the powerful forces such irresponsibility has unleashed. But one bit of good news in the aftermath is that the idea of personal responsibility is finally getting a hearing. That means that when the process of regaining control resumes, there's hope that it can be accomplished from the bottom up.

The most poorly understood loss of control this year has been on the part of the media. Actually, coverage of politics by the so-called national media has not been as terrible this campaign as in 1988. Horse-race coverage is down; issue coverage is up. People who say they can't find details about where the candidates stand in the print press haven't been trying very hard. Even network television is making a greater effort to cover substance.

But it doesn't matter. The networks and other mainstream news organizations, which at one time dominated the election process, don't do so anymore. Talk shows from CNN's "Crossfire" to "Donahue" are increasingly warping traditional campaign coverage. Ross Perot circumvented the print press and the networks and announced his candidacy on "Larry King Live"; he may decide to forgo the campaign plane altogether and run his campaign by satellite linkup. Similarly, Jerry Brown has been more likely to pop up on the "Today" show or MTV than on "Nightline". And after taking a drubbing in the weeks leading up to the New York primary, Bill Clinton helped...