Media hype: How small stories become big news

[BigBearJack]

by John Harris
Politico Magazine
5-25-2008

Who can guess what stories will cause the media machine to rev up its hype jets?

Actually, I have gotten pretty good at guessing which ones will. So have many of my colleagues and a generation of political operatives.

This weekend’s uproar over Hillary Rodham Clinton invoking the assassination of Robert Kennedy as rationale for continuing her presidential campaign is an especially vivid example of modern journalism as hyperkinetic child — overstimulated by speed and hunger for a head-turning angle that will draw an audience.

The truth about what Clinton said — and any fair-minded appraisal of what she meant — was entirely beside the point.

Her comment was news by any standard. But it was only big news when wrested from context and set aflame by a news media more concerned with being interesting and provocative than with being relevant or serious. Thus, the story made the front page of The New York Times, was the lead story of The Washington Post and got prominent treatment on the evening news on ABC, CBS and NBC.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0508/10604.html

[But....]

1. I'm not so sure...

it seems like one of those subjects that you just don't touch as a Candidate. :eyes:

[smiley_glad_hands]

2. Why bring it up? She is pathetic and so are her supporters. eom

[Arctic Dave]

3. Thats a broad brush you paint with my friend. n/t

[smiley_glad_hands]

7. Anyone still supporting her is pathetic. Sad, but true. I thought it was a very precise statement.

[WoodyM]

5. Being an elitist

does not necessarily mean to have money. It is the belief that some people are inherently superior to others and deserve preferential treatment, or higher rewards because of their inherent superiority.

It is what us old, white, working people without a college education mean when we say “Looking down your nose.”

This is the way that so many Obama supports look at us but still will expect us to vote for Obama in the general election. Could there be a greater demonstration of an elitist than this?

[smiley_glad_hands]

6. Hardy har har. Are you one of her supporters that vote on skin color?

There's a name for that too, since you consider me an elitist.

[specimenfred1984]

11. Learn how to support (D)s

If this were my site you'd be banned, as it is you'll just be ignored as another freeper that DU won't get rid of.

http://www.newstatesman.com/north-america/2008/05/obama-clinton-vote-usa-media

[MasonJar]

4. Does DU now allow posters to demean other fellow DUers in such

an inexcusable way? If so, why am I here?

[grasswire]

8. here is the nugget

"Perhaps half an hour after the story broke Martin called me back over to his desk. It turned out the Argus Leader had video of its big interview. I huddled over Martin’s computer as we watched.

It was a deflating experience.

The RFK remarks were deep in a 20-minute clip of an otherwise routine conversation. Then, once we actually got to the relevant portion of the video, it was hardly an electric moment.

Clinton does indeed mention the Kennedy assassination, speaking in a calm and analytical tone: “My husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June, right? We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California.”

Martin and I both thought we saw a slight twinge in Clinton’s facial expression, as though she recognized she had just said something dumb.

Whether she recognized it or not, she had.

But it was also clear that Clinton’s error was not in saying something beyond the pale but in saying something that pulled from context would sound as if it were beyond the pale."

That's the nugget of the story.

[Miss Authoritiva]

9. DING-DING-DING

You got it, grasswire. That is Politico.com backing away from a story that it helped to hype. Politico.com cannot technically retract the story, but it is giving us a charming vignette on how they screwed up.

What would be really interesting to find out is whether those under the greatest time pressure, eg, premier-league blog writers and cable newsers such as Jack Cafferty and Keith Olbermann, actually saw the video from the Argus Leader. (Personally, I doubt it.) As posted elsewhere on DU, the Drudge Report siren was spinning and the on-air pundits went full-tilt gonzo on Friday night.

By Sunday, print op/ed writers, who presumably had had the time to review the Argus Leader video of Clinton's interview, were certainly much more circumspect. I wonder why.....


NOTE: My comment is about journalism in general and political reporting in particular. It is not about any particular wonderful/awful candidate whom you may be idolizing/hating at the moment.

[Skittles]

10. look how hyserical half of DU was over that RFK nonsense

how about the "bitter" shit on Obama. FUCKING PATHETIC.