we are living in the world of news crazy and frenzy feeding to public:
Swept Away by the Hype
By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, September 19, 2003; 8:47 AM
Why do they do it?
I'm sitting here, perfectly dry in my study, watching otherwise smart and rational journalists standing in the pouring rain and hurricane-strength winds to bring us the latest "news."
Whether it's Brian Williams or Ashleigh Banfield or hordes of local reporters being buffeted by the elements, you have to wonder whether there isn't a circus element to this storm coverage. Whether television couldn't impart the same information from climate-controlled studios or even from behind the windows of a safe building in North Carolina or Virginia.
I'm looking at one Fox guy getting soaked outside the Capitol, before the really heavy rains arrive, even though Fox has a bureau with a commanding (and dry) view of the dome.
With no war going on, this must be the closest thing to combat duty.
More important than the water-logged correspondents is the week of nonstop warnings about Isabel. Assessments of total damage are still coming in, but the 24-hour trumpeting about windows and plywood have scared everyone.
The truth is that TV, especially local TV, loves hurricanes, because it's a chance to trot out the team coverage and ride the gale-force winds to higher ratings on an event that affects everyone. Until, that is, the power lines go down and many of the viewers can no longer watch the overheated coverage.
Gregg Easterbrook lashes what he calls "CATEGORY 5 HYPE":
" 'Twelve million children live in the path of Hurricane Isabel," CBS Radio sternly warned yesterday. As mega-hype for the storm continues -- at this writing the hype is raging more than the hurricane -- you're sure to hear that hurricane activity is a proof of global warming. The scientific case for artificial global warming is in fact getting stronger. But hurricane incidence is inconclusive as an omen of climate change. . . .
"As the storm of hype continues, bear two other things in mind. First, Isabel is a Category 2 event. Sixty-five worse storms -- Categories 3, 4, and 5 -- have made landfall in the United States in the past century, according to NOAA . The media is so disaster-hype-prone at the moment -- partly because disaster predictions keep the ever-larger demographic of senior citizens glued to the tube -- that Isabel will be spoken of as some kind of weather event without precedent. It's been worse 65 times in the last century.
"Second, you'll hear that property damage is unprecedented. This will be cited by hype-meisters to justify the notion of Isabel as a phenomenal mega-event, and cited by enviros to back claims the hurricanes are increasing in intensity. But of course property damage will set new records: property is becoming more valuable. Between inflation, the strong market in housing values and a 30-year trend of building upscale housing in coastal areas, with each passing year, what stands in the paths of hurricane is simply worth more. All the National Weather Service record-damage hurricanes (Andrew, $26.5 billion, 1992; Hugo, $7 billion, 1989; Floyd, $4.5 billion, 1999; Fran, $3.2 billion, 1996; Opal, $3 billion, 1995) are recent. This is a result of rising property values, not rising storm intensity."
Why didn't I think of that?
Andrew Sullivan is enjoying the show:
"My favorite thing about hurricanes is the coverage. Matt Drudge is getting the vapors, the way he does. Others are getting a little uptight. I also love the way weather people on the telly pretend to be terribly upset that a hurricane may come and give us hell, when quite obviously they're having the time of their lives. The crushing look of disappointment they feel telling viewers it isn't going to be as intense as they first 'feared' has to be seen to be believed."
Washington Post columnist Marc Fisher ponders the mass hysteria:
"I plan to spend tonight watching to see if the basement door holds back the elements, which at least will be a relief from the pre-storm hysteria fomented by the media fearmongers.
"Out of reportorial duty, I made the ritual pilgrimage to the store yesterday, where I gazed with satisfaction at the empty battery rack and the long expanse of shelving now bereft of bread, milk and the perfect barometer of TV-induced weather panic, toilet paper. (Someone, someday will explain why people associate impending heavy weather with a powerful increase in bathroom needs.)"
On to non-weather matters, where National Review's Peter Lawler sees Wesley Clark as a stalking horse for you-know-who:
"It seems to me that all Clark needs to do to prevail after the first couple of primaries is to be the viable alternative to Dean and be enthusiastically endorsed by both Clintons. And Bill and Hillary are clearly raising their visibility with that job in mind. They are the Democratic establishment, and they can't risk having a nominee they can't control. On Bill's word, African-American voters will flock to Clark. . . .
"Clark is also more of an outsider than Dean; he has no political experience at all! And all astute Democrats will choose him over Dean as the man who could really beat Bush, as more a Clinton than a McGovern. Clark is actually Clinton with some Eisenhower added; it's hard to accuse a general of lacking personal courage or ignoring issues of natural security. Lieberman, the national-security candidate at this point, will endorse Clark when he drops out fairly early in the primary season. Clark, more than Clinton, will be a formidable candidate in the south.
"Clark has to be regarded as the favorite for the nomination, and it would be a mistake at this point to regard him as an underdog in the general election. The main stumbling block to his success would be Hillary entering the race. As far as I can tell, her judgment is that the risk for her at this point is too high. She surely secretly hopes for a narrow Democratic defeat next year to clear the way for her in 2008. But political results can't be engineered that precisely, and don't be surprised if she doesn't adopt the amazingly low-risk strategy of making herself available as Clark's running mate. That would make her the presumptive nominee in either 2008 or 2012, depending on the general's skill and fortune."
How exactly does Lawler know what Hillary "secretly hopes"?
The New Republic examines the impact on the field:
"So who does he help? Well, assuming Dean is still the de facto front-runner, and that the rest of the major candidates, including Clark, are pretty much just vying for the anti-Dean slot in the race, then one possibility is that Dean benefits. That is, the non-Clark candidate (remember, Clark's almost certainly not going to win) who ends up filling the role of non-Dean will almost certainly arrive in that role weaker than he would have been without Clark in the race. (Since Clark sucks up support and money and media attention. . . . )
"The other possibility is that Dick Gephardt benefits. As we've already mentioned, Clark undermines part of the case for Kerry and Edwards. As an apparent cultural moderate with impeccable national security credentials, he also partially undermines the case for Joe Lieberman. It's Gephardt whose rationale for running seems most different from Clark's -- he's a lifelong insider, whereas Clark will probably claim the outsider mantle. And, among Democrats, he's probably most closely associated with the war, having essentially given George W. Bush the cover he needed on the issue. Geographically, too, Gephardt seems to be most immune to Clark. The one early contest he has to win, Iowa, is the one race Clark is least likely to contest. (New Hampshire, on the other hand, has shown itself to be pretty amenable to unorthodox insurgent-types over the years.)
"In the end, though, this too could help Howard Dean. That's because Gephardt seems to be the non-Dean/establishment candidate Dean best matches up against, should the nomination come down to a one-on-one faceoff. Gephardt is exactly the kind of special-interest, inside-the-beltway stiff the Dean campaign has been engineered to beat."
John Fund also looks at the Clinton connection on OpinionJournal:
"One of the challenges Mr. Clark will face will be his closeness to the Clintons. It is no secret that they are suspicious of Dr. Dean, the current front-runner, whom they fear would be trounced so badly against President Bush that he could hurt Hillary's prospects in 2008. Should Mr. Clark be elected president, the Clintons would have a strong ally in the Oval Office. If he does well but doesn't get the nomination, he may be viewed as a suitable running mate for Mrs. Clinton or some other Democratic nominee in the future.
"Mr. Clark is no doubt running for president for many reasons. But an important, unacknowledged one is that he is the favorite candidate of the Democratic Party's two best-known figures. To the extent that he succeeds, the Clintons will see their already substantial influence in the Democratic Party grow. Mr. Clark no doubt is his own man, but with so many old Clinton hands surrounding him, don't be surprised if Mr. Clinton is occasionally tempted to act as if he were still Mr. Clark's commander-in-chief."
American Prospect' Michael Tomasky looks beyond the strategists, saying Clark has "assembled a veteran campaign team, even if it looks (suspiciously, to some people) heavily drawn from the former Clinton-Al Gore axis.
"But the question isn't whether Clark's handlers are good at politics; it's whether he is. The maiden speech certainly came up well short of inspiring. He seemed, like many such rookie candidates, a bit flabbergasted to be up there. Spare and cautious, his rhetoric sounded only half-developed -- I kept thinking sentences were going to go on for another phrase or two when, splat, they just ended -- and he seemed far more intent on touching the bases his consultants told him to touch rather than expressing a theme, vision or rationale for his candidacy. Yes, it's troubling, as some of the TV commentators noted, that there weren't any specifics in the speech. But far more troubling was the fact that there wasn't any music in it.
"Fine, it's just one speech. But this brings up another problem for Clark, a situation that, among all the candidates I've watched over the years, has only ever been faced in quite this way by Hillary Clinton in her New York Senate bid: Clark will have to do all his learning, and make all his mistakes, under a media spotlight so intense that every errant syllable will be analyzed and exaggerated.
"And one more thing. A friend who watched Clark's announcement on Fox (I should have known, but I foolishly stuck with CNN) reports that the network showed less than two minutes of Clark's speech before cutting away to a studio audience of Murdoch shills who started bellyaching that the general had nothing to say and wasn't qualified for the job and so on. As my friend put it, 'The war has begun.'"
They opine, you decide.
Out in recall land, the Los Angeles Times takes note of Arnold's trifecta of interviews with talk-show pals Howard Stern, Oprah Winfrey and Larry King:
"The interviews came as the Schwarzenegger campaign appears to be pulling back slightly from a recent effort to be more accessible to the political press and is concentrating, instead, on venues where he is assured of a friendly reception. . . .
"In the last four days Schwarzenegger has held a single eight-minute question-and-answer session with the reporters following his campaign, preferring to speak on talk shows and in town hall meetings with audiences carefully selected by his campaign.
"Schwarzenegger's strategists say the candidate's appearances reflect nothing more than a nontraditional candidate's effort to reach nontraditional audiences."
The San Francisco Chronicle rounds up the negative reaction:
"Arnold Schwarzenegger, in another attempt to carefully shape his media profile, played to vastly different crowds Wednesday, accepting an endorsement from shock jock Howard Stern -- who asked his position on lap dancing -- and later fielding gentle queries from CNN talk show host Larry King...
"Schwarzenegger's decision to make a repeat appearance on the Stern show, regularly populated by porn stars and peppered with talk of sex acts, raised alarms from unlikely allies -- women's advocates and conservative Republicans. Some critics said the candidate's decision to sidestep regular debates and detailed interviews, relying instead on glitzier national media shows, has hurt his credibility.
" 'To do that radio show (Stern's) while seeking political office is not only offensive to the voters but to Republicans who emphasize ideas,' said GOP consultant K.B. Forbes, who has been an adviser to former GOP candidate Bill Simon, who dropped out of the Oct. 7 recall election. . . .
"The Stern appearance was far more tame than Schwarzenegger's last visit in late June, when the shock jock pressed him about the size of his private parts, his nude scenes in the "Terminator" movies and whether he would allow himself and his wife to be filmed having sex."
Tom Friedman, meanwhile, has all but declared war on Paris:
"It's time we Americans came to terms with something: France is not just our annoying ally. It is not just our jealous rival. France is becoming our enemy.
"If you add up how France behaved in the run-up to the Iraq war (making it impossible for the Security Council to put a real ultimatum to Saddam Hussein that might have avoided a war), and if you look at how France behaved during the war (when its foreign minister, Dominique de Villepin, refused to answer the question of whether he wanted Saddam or America to win in Iraq), and if you watch how France is behaving today (demanding some kind of loopy symbolic transfer of Iraqi sovereignty to some kind of hastily thrown together Iraqi provisional government, with the rest of Iraq's transition to democracy to be overseen more by a divided U.N. than by America), then there is only one conclusion one can draw: France wants America to fail in Iraq.
"France wants America to sink in a quagmire there in the crazy hope that a weakened U.S. will pave the way for France to assume its 'rightful' place as America's equal, if not superior, in shaping world affairs."
Enough geopolitics for now. Time to batten down the hatches. |
