Desperation Coverage

Just about all the journalists who cover the campaigns share one primal characteristic: Fear.

We are scared to death...afraid we're going to miss something, whatever story all the rest of the frightened rabbits are calling news. We end up with a coerced collective consciousness that determines what becomes the story of the day.

If it decides that Hillary's near-tears matter, then they do. Everyone scampers away to breathlessly report her "moment".

Then the analysts tell us what it all means (an analyst, by definition, must find meaning, whether it exists or not. Otherwise he or she wouldn't be an analyst).

The other candidates are confronted by a demand to react and they do so at their peril (just ask John Edwards).

At the end of the evening, the reporter can finally go to sleep, deeply relieved that he or she hasn't been exposed for being outside the loop.

As for the analysts, they operate like movie critics. They each want their thumbs up or down to fit in with the rest so they don't stick out like sore finger.. God forbid that their perspective is different from all the other self-appointed experts.

Meanwhile, back on the candidates' buses, reporters suffer from another paralysis. It's the fear of rejection...that they won't be part of their group. Yes there are good reasons to assign one person to stick with a campaign. The familiarity results in superior knowledge and cultivation of sources.

However, all of those reporters end up hermetically sealed off. Their entire world becomes the entourage. Few enjoy being an outcast, so most work very hard at being accepted, not just by their colleagues, but even by the staff people herding them around. If it sounds like peer pressure, it is. It's just like high school, which makes sense since so many of the reporters are just a few years removed from high school. But even the moire experienced hands get caught up in the desperate need to be popular. You're not part of the gang if you go against the grain. No grain no gain. (Sorry) There's a tremendous pressure to play along and not inconvenience everyone else.

That's a major part of the reason that so many of the individual narratives are not individual at all. In truth, they are the group-think we believe is necessary to look like we're in the know.

Every once in awhile, we're exposed as know-nothings. The latest demonstration is our missing the Hillary vote boat in New Hampshire because we all decided we could only be safe riding the trendy Obama wave.

Of course we're reacting now, all of us. Every one of us is doing the "What Went Wrong" story. That includes me, of course. You were expecting independent thinking? You gotta be kidding.

Comments

[TheViewFromCydonia]

Hmm. You seem to be up to date on the trouble with the count.

Can you explain why everyone is conflating the new, hackable Diebold machines with the ones actually used for the count in New Hampshire?

New Hamphire used 20 year old, Diebold unhackable optical scanners to count the votes, not the new, hackable machines prevalent today.

[RaderBarbarian]

Bob, please refrain from using the word "journalists" to describe yourself and all the other sycophants who "play" at working the campaigns. There are no "journalists" anymore. You know that, and I know that, and everyone else is learning it, too.

Stop with the BS. Tell it like it is or just shut up.

[Marioli]

We should ignore them all for a while, without telling them, of course, and then see how they react when we do tell them later.

[LizM]

...independent thinking? No, I don't think so...never even crossed my mind. When it comes to the media, in general, and media coverage of this election campaign, in particular, I have come to expect nothing and that is, essentially, what I get...for all intents and purposes.

And, you still seem to think that all of this is laughable. Well, it is certainly beyond lamentable. How about completely irrelevant, too?

[Sundialsvc4]

What I want to see from journalism is much less of "public relations" and much more of "what we SHOULD be doing." There is entirely too much scripting, entirely too much second-guessing, entirely too much following.

The people who broke Watergate were relentless investigative reporters. I want to bring back that word: "investigative."

[Jjc2006]

Bob, you are one of the very few journalists I trust these days. WHY? I don't know what your politics are. And I don't want to know. When Brokaw was anchor, I did not know his politics. Ditto with Walter Cronkite.

Today there are so few journalists. There seem to be a lot of newsreaders and a plethora of biased pundits.

Please keep it up.

[raptor]

Remember when a question from Dan Rather could make Nixon reel back from the podium?

[tompoe]

Now, you're lying through your teeth. You know very well, that if you told the truth, you would lose your press card to this election cycle, banned from participating. You know that by telling the truth, your job would be in jeopardy, especially if the public picked up on it, and started screaming bloody murder. So, keep your job, but don't push the lies on the readers. They know better, in spite of your not informing them about why the communities in New Hampshire that did not use proprietary electronic voting systems had results that matched the polls, and the communities that did use proprietary electronic voting systems were wildly different from the polls.

Schlock journalism is worse than no journalism.