When the Game Is Name

By Thomas Griffith

Winston Churchill once said, 'There is no such thing as public opinion; there is only published opinion." If the remark is right rather than merely clever, then the press has a lot to do with whose opinion gets heard. In a way, it does. The press spends much of its time badgering one set of people (politicians, coaches, businessmen) who may at the moment be reluctant to comment, and the rest of the time fending off others (politicians, performers, promoters) all too eager to draw attention to themselves. Those avoiding the press, or avoided by the press, are apt to consider the process unfair.

For the past year, six to eight Democratic presidential candidates have been crisscrossing the country, often appearing together in that performance known as the cattle show. They have not stirred much interest. All must envy Ronald Reagan, who has cut back on his press conferences (where he doesn't always look his best) while keeping before the public in brief "photo opportunities" chosen to set him off to advantage. The press would be paying more attention to the Democratic candidates if the public were. But the public has the right instinct about early campaigns. For 3 1/2 years out of four a President should govern as he has to (while being challenged in Congress); all too soon will come the season when politicians avoid hard choices and pander to voting blocs. Challengers are not yet entitled to equal time.

The game of name recognition is becoming a major industry in every field. First establish your base, as Congressman, actor, scientist, running back, swimsuit model, writer; then separate yourself from the ruck in a way that commands notice. Lee lacocca did it as a businessman selling Chryslers, so now we have what's-his-name who liked that razor so much he bought the company. Journalism loves expert opinions; an economist or an environmentalist no wiser than his colleagues can make it big if he has vast self-confidence and the gift of articulation. Politicians who become national figures must be glib enough to operate under what Russell Baker calls "television's refusal to allow thought before speech." Even those who scorn publicity usually pursue it when they have a book or film to promote. Goodbye, Columbus made Philip Roth known; Portnoy's Complaint made him a celebrity. When a new novel appears, Roth unbends a little, but, as he told PEOPLE magazine, he dislikes questions about home, the family, marriage: "I've spent years trying to get it right in fiction, and I don't propose to get it wrong in a sentence or two." If everyone felt that way, talk shows would stop dead.

To some extent, newspapers, magazines and television are gatekeepers for those who would be well known, at first to be courted, perhaps later to be disdained. Celebrityhood is our form of aristocracy, but it does not carry, as aristocracy does, the right to keep out of sight. Once a person becomes an object of public curiosity, behavior becomes public too. Athletes and Hollywood dolls who begin as role models of success can become, with drugs and dissipation, role models of a different kind, lessons in failure. Less flamboyant celebrities have another worry: that they will cease to be news.

But the role of the press in making or breaking celebrities is easily exaggerated. It can make the introduction, but whether someone catches on or not is up to the public. The process may be mysterious but is also measurable, by such devices as network ratings, bestseller lists, record charts. Editors all over the country have a sense, not much different from the public's, of who is of current interest, though an editor may have to ask at home who Michael Jackson is.

Television, living in fear of anyone's turning the dial, is ruthless in dropping people and shows that have lost favor. Newspapers, however, can publish stories that appeal to some readers but not to all. An editor misses each time a reader sees a name quoted in a headline and, untempted, jumps to the next item. Officeholders, office seekers and celebrities share a precarious, even cruel transience: each needs the public's continuing interest.