Posts from March 20, 2004

Strategize

Strategize
: Jay Rosen rants against “strategy news.”

I would not say it’s their motivation (although some would) but it is definitely a consequence of their method: journalists doing strategy stories get to be more evaluative, more like critics at a performance. They can bring in more knowledge on their own authority, and show how well they understand the game. They are “allowed” more room by their own codes

These are the seductions of the form, which gets the journalist to identify, not with the candidate, but with the theatre of strategy itself, where there is an audience of cognoscenti, and the players discuss with that audience the bamboozlement of another, larger audience–the voters–who are outside the theatre, a “them,” not an us.

It comes out of the press’ desire to seem inside and ahead even if it’s not substance they’re reporting.

It’s also a part of the tiresome sermonizing formula of news coverage. A good sermon, the saw says, follows a standard structure: it tells ’em what you’re going to tell ’em, then tells ’em, then tells ’em what you’ve told ’em.

News coverage, by comparison, wants to tell you what’s going to happen and then tell you it’s happening and then tell you it happened — making news repetitive, predictable, and dull… and not necessarily informative. I remember when Bush announced his space plan we were buried in previews, then reports, then analyses. The story dragged out for two weeks when it should have lasted two days.

Campaigns take that sermonizing structure and add big buckets of bull.

Olympic terror fears

Olympic terror fears
: The head of the British Olympic effort is threatening to pull out unless security for athletes is guaranteed in the face of terror fears.

The Scotsman says there is “private speculation” that America will pull out, too.

: Meanwhile, the Observer reports that athletes are getting 24-hour guards.

The foolproof voting machine

The foolproof voting machine
: Go see Florida’s new voting machine at IT&W. Really, go see.

It was not a war

It was not a war
: Iraqi blogger Mohammed says today:

Yes, it was not a war. Let everyone and especially the pacifists and all who opposed the coalition that what happened was an operation to free the Iraqi people and eliminate a criminal gang that does not represent any body but itself and its narrow interests and that pauses a serious danger on our country and the others.

That was not a confrontation between two nations nor it was a conflict between different convictions, it was an operation to excise a malignant tumor that was about to destroy everything.

: And fellow Iraqi blogger Ays lectures the antiwar protestors:

It

The blogging ascetic

The blogging ascetic
: Halley reveals her ascetic lifestyle, which makes Joe Territo feel like shameful shlub.

And what’s cool is that these happen to be friends of mine from utterly separate universes and they meet via blog posts.