Filmmaker Mark Kassen, CNN Journalist Sara Sidner Talk Media and Politics at IOP Forum

Filmmaker Mark Kassen discussed how politicians sacrifice their fundamental beliefs and promises to constituents for favorable media coverage during an Institute of Politics forum on Monday night.

The event, moderated by CNN correspondent Sara Sidner, covered how politics is portrayed in films, including Kassen’s latest, “PH-1.” Kassen discussed how politicians felt compelled to make a “Faustian bargain,” trading their deeply held views for media coverage and ultimately electoral wins.

“I’ve gotten to interview a handful of people from when they got elected to the next time they went to get reelected, and you watch the best of intentions that folks have in front of their constituents, and then the characters that they become to stay elected,” Kassen said.

During the talk, Sidner said politicians have also become increasingly reliant on media to help identify which issues to prioritize and which positions to take in debates, arguing that coverage has often emphasized voices from Congress over those of constituents.

Turning too much to the media can warp politicians’ perceptions of what’s important, Sidner said.

“You get the skewed idea of what problems are. And I think politicians also get a skewed idea of what the problems are — if they’re engaging just in doing media, Washington, talking to their small groups there, and then going on to fundraise,” Sidner said.

The rise of social media has only complicated the relationship between media and politics, Kassen said.

One issue is that platforms’ content screening processes are imperfect. As part of his bipartisan civic engagement effort, “A Starting Point,” Kassen tried posting social media ads describing both Republican and Democrat definitions for controversial policies. But, he said, they were often rejected by platforms as “political speech.”

“I would recut it or repeal it, and I could always get the Democrat through, and I oftentimes could not get the Republican through,” Kassen said.

But he added that, in his opinion, some social media companies have overreacted to this problem by foregoing fact-checking on their platforms altogether.

“How did they decide to deal with that issue? Take away fact checking,” Kassen said. “So now there’s no fact checking on Facebook. There’s no fact checking on Twitter.”

Though many have called for greater regulation of social media companies, Kassen said, regulation efforts in the U.S. are facing an uphill battle because most legislators are older and don’t have a good grasp of modern social media platforms.

“The biggest thing I learned when talking to everybody and elected officials is, I mean, you see it, how embarrassing some of these hearings are,” he said. “They’re expected to pass legislation to protect us around something that they don’t understand.”

The challenge, he added, is compounded by the fact that legislators often harbor ties to industry, and voters are often reluctant to see technologies they use daily be changed under new regulations.

“People don’t like it when you take something away from them,” Kassen said. “We put a regulation on something they used to be able to have, and so it’s very hard to put that genie back in the bottle.”

Kassen said he believes social media companies should assume more responsibility themselves. Currently, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 protects social media giants from liability for user-generated content.

“But now that they are the news,” Kassen said, “I would say they have a responsibility.”

During the talk, Kassen briefly discussed his latest film, “PH-1,” and showed a clip from the movie. The film follows a promising politician who is held hostage in his penthouse apartment. The man, played by Kassen, is forced to watch as his captor uses both social and traditional media to destroy his reputation, according to the film’s IMDb website.

The audience was invited to stay after the event for a free screening of “PH-1.” The film’s theatrical release is set for April 10.