“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:

Obama’s Better-Late-Than-Never Gestures of Goodwill Toward Clinton

Scanning the online news coverage this morning, it appeared the media had nearly spent its faux outrage at Clinton’s remarks on Friday about earlier Democratic campaigns that had lasted until June – the former first lady and New York senator was expressing understandable bewilderment at the repeated attempts by Obama supporters and his media allies to force her out of the race before the primaries were over.

According to Kate Seelye’s “retrospective” posted at the Caucus (NY Times), the flames were initially ignited by a Drudge Report link to an online New York Post item, which had already stamped Clinton’s comments with its own slanderous interpretation: “She is still in the presidential race, she said today, because historically, it makes no sense to quit, and added that, ‘Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June,’ making an odd comparison between the dead candidate and Barack Obama.”

Note the Post’s use of the phrase 'dead candidate' to deliberately exacerbate the situation. Never mind qualms about ethical journalism; our vigilant press was all over it.

The Obama camp was quick to add a gallon or two of gasoline to the flames:

“By then,” Seelye reports, “the Obama campaign had issued a statement, linking to the Post item and saying her comment ‘was unfortunate and has no place in this campaign.’ Privately, we were told, the Obama camp was livid.”

In the midst of the uproar, one online news source stood out from the pack of loudly bleating sheep: ABC’s Teddy Davis And Talal Al-Khatib with Eloise Harper challenged the Obama team’s over-reaction, suggesting that Obama was not living up to his commitment to show good faith to others that he describes in his book, The Audacity of Hope.

Obama was a couple of days late when he finally chose to do the right thing; he waited until Hillary Clinton had endured yet another prolonged onslaught of abuse from his supporters and media allies. As quoted in Political Intelligence (Boston Globe), the so-called presumptive nominee had stepped forward to say he would take Senator Clinton’s word that she did not intend any offense by her comment.

I seem to recall that Obama also waited until the damage had been done after his campaign had attempted to smear the Clintons as racists prior to his win in South Carolina. It was several weeks later that Obama hung his head during a televised debate to grudgingly admit: “The Clintons are not racists.”

The rest of the world had long been aware of that fact.