“What Causes the Media Machine To Rev Up Its Hype Jets?”

Politico’s John F. Harris agrees with my several posts this weekend expressing relative degrees of disgust with the media for its tabloid coverage of the non-story from Hillary Clinton’s interview with the Argus Leader editorial board in South Dakota. Harris is apparently as stunned as I was to discover that leaders in the MSM are no longer setting the agenda for journalistic standards, but are instead following the noise made by sites like the Huffington Post, the blogosphere’s version of the National Enquirer and incidentally a major mouthpiece for Barack Obama.

Harris cites different causes than I have for the deterioration of journalistic standards so evident this weekend. I’ve zeroed in on the media’s adolescent crush on Barack Obama that compels unrelenting efforts to drive Hillary Clinton out of the race. Harris’ analysis focuses on the absence of proportionality and what differentiates a non-story from a big news story. He correctly labels the weekend’s uproar over Clinton’s RFK comment as much ado about nothing.

And Harris' post offers an interesting look at other possible motivations for online news outlets like the Washington Post, the NY Times, ABC, CBS, and NBC to abandon professional standards in news reporting.

“The signature defect of modern political journalism is that it has shredded the ideal of proportionality.

“Important stories, sometimes the product of months of serious reporting, that in an earlier era would have captured the attention of the entire political-media community and even redirected the course of a presidential campaign, these days can disappear with barely a whisper.”

Here’s a thought:

“Trivial stories — the kind that are tailor-made for forwarding to your brother-in-law or college roommate with a wisecracking note at the top — can dominate the campaign narrative for days.”

“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.”

Harris and I are definitely in agreement here:

“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.”

Harris' post is three pages long; to read more, go here: