On Oct. 13, 2005, Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Public Policy saw the gathering of several notable figures, including Senator Edward Kennedy, NBC anchor Tom Brokaw, and even President Bill Clinton and California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger by video call. News anchors and political analysts formed a panel, giving valuable insight honoring the subject at hand.
What was the occasion? A magazine.
John F. Kennedy Jr. was born into the Kennedy political dynasty and subsequently, a life of mass media attention. He died young at age 38, in a plane crash over Martha’s Vineyard, alongside his wife, Carolyn and sister-in-law, Lauren, leaving an uncertain legacy but a foreseeable purpose with his political magazine, George.
The first cover of George magazine saw Cindy Crawford posing as a midriff-exposed George Washington, a symbol for the intersectionality between politics and popular culture that Kennedy hoped to achieve by viewing politics in a new light.
According to Rosemarie Terenzio, Chief of Staff at George from 1994 to 1999, Kennedy was told that “the only two magazines that will never sell are religion and politics.” Despite that, the magazine would be unveiled in 1995 to a crowd of hungry reporters.
George would live a short life, seeing more celebrities adorned covers, and a vision into the future of politics and media.
American politics is usually messy and can be dysfunctional. The 2024 election was no exception.
We saw Donald Trump, who was found guilty on 34 felony counts only months before the election, among a repertoire of other controversies, versus Kamala Harris, who was left with only a 107 day campaign after incumbent Joe Biden dropped out of the race.
In 2024, we saw politics become a ball of incivility and disrespect, with Trump using phrases like “Comrade Kamala” and “Tampon Tim” to dub the Democratic ticket or “Low IQ War Hawk,” to describe Liz Cheney. Contrastingly, Biden called Trump and his fans “garbage” during a rally, in response to comments made at a Trump rally about Puerto Rico as a “floating island of trash.”
Some of the 2024 presidential debate highlights included Biden asking Trump “How many billions of dollars do you owe in civil penalties for molesting a woman in public?” in a horrific first debate and Trump falsely antagonizing Haitian immigrants for eating domestic pets in Ohio in his first and only debate with Harris.
The internet and social media, now lodged into American life, played a large part in connecting presidential candidates and their campaigns with voters. Mass media helped to control and disrupt the political narrative, feeding viewers information that they wanted to hear, even if it was misinformation, or in an echo chamber.
The disparaging back and forth between candidates and the heightened media influence are just two examples of why our political norm is a boiling pot of hatred, division, and worse of all, confusion.
But, it wasn’t always like this.
Winning his presidential races against John McCain in 2008 and Mitt Romney in 2012, Barack Obama, and both of his opponents, managed to keep their respect for each other. In fact, McCain and Obama were even civil enough to arrange for the latter to eulogize the former at his 2018 funeral, without any semblance of an actual friendship.
Politics was much more civil when the intricate relationship between media and politics had not yet entangled into the mess it is today.
Through George, JFK Jr. correctly predicted that modern media and pop culture would become an accompaniment to politics, just not in the optimistic way that he had intended.
Kennedy had set out to “demystify” politics, especially to the average media consumer or young person who had no previous ties to the world of elections and campaigns.
A bi-partisan magazine, George embraced staff, guests, and perspectives from all walks of politics, including conservative commentator Ann Coulter, former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich, and long-time Democrat supporter George Clooney, making an effort to foster political conversation that did not divide, but instead unified. George offered a solution to the way that politics could connect people.
Modern audiences are used to politics being a very specific way. Shock hungry media outlets work to dramatize our idea of politics and to divide the polarized.
The type of election news that gets attention are the ones that highlight polling data, debate results, and fundraising efforts, all of which work together to drive viewer perception of politics towards cynicism and the belief that politics is all about winning instead of serving public interest.
In addition, many media outlets lean heavily towards one side of the political spectrum. Biased media coverage of elections can leave audiences stuck in an echo chamber, feeding into their own beliefs without consulting the opinions of others. Different media outlets may also pick and choose which issues to cover, influencing which issues audiences deem most important.
In a multitude of ways, consuming media about politics today means the end of widening your political knowledge, halting the pursuit for political awareness in exchange for reaffirming what you already knew or thought you knew.
George not only hooked readers with the popular, but implored them to look at politics in a different way, into the ways that politics could connect with everyday life.
By connecting politics, something divisive and at times boring, with pop culture, something relatable, George explored a new way to weave politics into the lives of young people and how they could engage with modern civics. George teaches modern media that talking politics can reach the average viewer, through a change of perspective and an embrace of the unusual.
Kellyanne Conway, now the former the campaign manager and senior counsel to Donald Trump, was a pollster for George during its tenure. According to Conway, Kennedy was “fascinated with polling, because polling was the touchstone to what people think.”
He sucked people into the world of George and its politics with these “touchstones,” the captivating bits of worldly gossip and pop culture that would intrigue anybody.
Conway recalled telling Kennedy about how “I don’t know” is a great answer that gets ignored to which he responded with “Let’s not push people,” noticing the nuances of the relationships between politics and people. Kennedy realized how unlike what politics wants, people do not easily gravitate to one side or the other.
To seek out an informed vote, past the headlines, quotations, or gossip, you must first admit that you simply do not know.
George utilized connecting its readers to the media and popular as a way to ignite their political curiosity. Not to assure them of a certain bias or sway them in one direction, but to have them admit the ever relevant “I don’t know” that pushes them to seek knowledge.
George proved an important lesson in how we should use the attention grabbing nature of media to our advantage in order to productively consume political information. The headlines that dominate our political media and skew our political perception should be our signal for more. Instead of serving as a static reassurance, they should ignite our search for the truth.
George and its tagline, “not just politics as usual” reminds us to not view politics as it is, but as the beginning of something more.