The Great Tele-diplomat and the game of "spin patrol": Reagan, the media and the hijacking of TWA Flight 847

This study focuses on the relationship between foreign policy making and television news making during the 1985 hijacking crisis of TWA Flight 847. More specifically, it analyzes the relationship and its outcome as a competition and bargaining process involving the production of news and policy frames by the President, his advisors, the television news networks, as well as by other players such as the Shi'ite hijackers, the Amal leadership and the Israeli government. The study traces the rise of the International Terrorism Frame (ITF), a policy and news frame produced by an intellectual elite, the Neoconservatives, that dominated Reagan's foreign policy agenda. The ITF, which responded to the needs of the members of the American foreign policy Iron Triangle, as well as to the interests of other players, such as Israel was digested by the three television news networks. The ITF focused on international terrorism as the major preoccupation of the Reagan foreign policy agenda and created expectations about tough American response. As a result, the crisis invited wide media coverage which magnified the gap between the expectations created by the ITF and the reality of an administration negotiating with the terrorists, contrary to the ITF's tenets. The study suggests that the crisis was dominated by the Administration's efforts to prevent the destruction of the ITF through a sophisticated manipulation of the media, which in turn, exerted pressure on Israel to release a group of Shi'ite prisoners it was holding in release for the freedom of the hijacked American passengers. Hence, contrary to arguments made by Administration officials and media critics about the media's role in constraining presidential options during the crisis, this study concludes by suggesting that President Reagan was able to impose his foreign policy frames on the media during the crisis, reflecting the ability of every president to control and dominate policy and media frames during international crises.