Patterson State of Play

There is a symbiotic relationship between politicians and the media in which both parties benefit and both parties could potentially ruin each other. The media relies on political entities for a story and a source. However, politicians rely on the press to portray them and the issues they may be associated with in a certain light. The two powers mutually benefit each other. This is evident in the scene where Collins goes to stay over at Cal’s house since there are reporters camped outside his house and his wife isn’t talking to him. The fact that he is there helps Cal because he gets the inside scoop and plenty of information to put him ahead at the paper. However, Cal is automatically helping him by telling him to call Sophie’s family to offer condolences since the media believes she committed suicide, and this would at least help his career. The fact that the media even gets to the assumption that Sophie committed suicide just shows how much influence the press has over the public. Media can take the facts and sources and portray them and twist them in any way they want to make the public see what they want the public to see. The media is like a middle man between government and the people. In this sense, my interpretation of their relationship is that the media has more power than politicians, in respect to the public. In the scene where Sophia’s death as a suicide is being headlined, it is clear that there aren’t hard facts behind that assertion. This shows that the press can choose what information to describe and what to ignore. They are basically recorders of everything that goes on in the government, and yet they participate in it directly because they relay the message any way they want back to everyone else. The only power that politicians hold is the source of information they have to give in order for these stories to be credible. This is evident in the film when Cam doesn’t want to run the story that Cal and Della have without better sources. Right then, of course, Collins and his wife walk in to go on the record about the entire ordeal. Without politicians and the government, the media really would have no credible information, let alone a story at all. The press and politicians can either help or hurt each other.