You Come To CCM To Get It Right
Howie Kurtz makes the same point made by my friend in the know, as reported here:
By choosing to unveil his nominee at 9 p.m., Bush not only threw the media establishment into a tizzy, he also broke the news right on deadline for East Coast newspapers and after the network newscasts. He cut through "the filter," as he calls the media, preventing -- or at least delaying -- journalists from researching long pieces picking apart his choice. The president also guaranteed himself a bigger audience than with a morning announcement (even if some would have preferred the scheduled "Big Brother 6" and "I Want to Be a Hilton").Wonder what Bu$h Ate My Baby thinks.....
posted by Jonah B. Gelbach at 9:30 AM
2 Comments:
I wonder whether Howard Kurtz would agree with his own article now having had a chance to read his own paper's edition today. The Washington Post had pages of substantive analysis and reporting on John Roberts, even including a sidebar article on the infamous local "Metro fry" case, in today's print edition. I don't think that the Washington Post's initial coverage (i.e. its coverage in today's paper) was substantively harmed by not knowing for sure until 8 p.m. the previous night that the nominee was John Roberts. (I say 8 p.m. because that's about when the nomination was "officially leaked" -- the Washington Post website had an initial report up at least by 8:30 p.m., when my wife called to let me know that the WP had something up on their website).
On the other hand, I do agree with Kurtz that there was bigger exposure by making an evening announcement -- though did any of the broadcast networks break in to cover the announcement?
CCM, my sympathies lie with journalists who may have had to stay up a little later to file their story, but major print publications seemed to have handled it just fine.
Thanks for the comment, BAMB. On this point:
The Washington Post had pages of substantive analysis and reporting on John Roberts, even including a sidebar article on the infamous local "Metro fry" case, in today's print edition.
I'm just guessing here (and I haven't read the Post yet), but I'd wager that much of the analysis/reporting you mention was stuff that was already in the mix. Any major paper with reasonable editors would have had lots of stuff ready to go on all the major candidates (kind of like the way they write obits while famous people are still alive).
I think my Smart Friend's point was much more about the difficulty of getting in-depth Democratic/interest-group reaction to the nomination itself before deadline. It's not so much a matter of staying up late as it is of getting stories filed (and edited--which is no small issue for some papers) in time to make the printing. And calling/talking/writing/quoting/editing does take real time.
I read every article on the issue in the NYT (except for Bumiller's), and I have to say that I saw very little in the way of substantive reaction to the nomination.
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