Why campaign reporters travel in packs
By Steve Benen Sunday Jan 06, 2008 8:16amJon Stewart has described the media’s style of pack journalism many times with the same analogy: 8-year-olds playing soccer. As Stewart describes it, there’s a weird clump of legs, all moving in the same direction. Suddenly the kids see a ball rolling, and the weird clump converges on it in an awkward, graceless, and rather amusing fashion.
As Stewart sees it, reporters are the kids and news stories are the ball. Chris Hayes, displaying why he’s as good a political analyst as anyone I can think of, explains the psychology of the political press in a great item, written after last night’s debate in New Hampshire.
Reporting at event like this is exciting and invigorating, but it’s also terrifying. I’ve done it now a number of times at conventions and such, and in the past I was pretty much alone the entire time. I didn’t know any other reporters, so I kept to myself and tried to navigate the tangle of schedules and parking lots and hotels and event venues. It’s daunting and the whole time you think: “Am I missing something? What’s going? Oh man, I should go interview that guy in the parka with the fifteen buttons on his hat.” You fear getting lost, or missing some important piece of news, or making an ass out of yourself when you have to muster up that little burst of confidence it takes to walk up to a stranger and start asking them questions.
Of course, it’s amazing work. But I realized for the first time yesterday, that this essential terror isn’t just a byproduct of inexperience. It never goes away. Veteran reporters are just as panicked about getting lost or missing something, just as confused about who to talk to. This why reporters move in packs. It’s like the first week of freshman orientation, when you hopped around to parties in groups of three dozen, because no one wanted to miss something or knew where anything was.
The reporting that emerges from this is, to put it mildly, unhelpful. Read the rest.
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Is the term 'reporter' even accurate any more?
glad to see stewart and colbert returning to tv tonight....
as long as traitor bush is in office, they will have job security.... stewart and colbert dont need writers.... thats what republicans are for!
I think most reporters start out really wanting to be good at what they do, problem is once you reach a certain level of reporting you start to develop this arrogant dichotomy between what you know and what you think the little people are willing to accept. Once this stage is reached, it becomes far more important to stay in this little elitist bubble of access and knowledge than it is to do the actual brilliant reporting you may have done to get their yet you still delude yourself that you are doing.
That is my generous analysis. It leaves out the hacks who are not self deluded, that are doing what they do maliciously because they hate the little people.
The Heisenberg Principle as it works in politics.
The act of observation changes the thing observed.
Notice how this election frenzy has wiped all legitimate news off the air ways? Obama up 13 points! McCain goes after Romney! What about Iraq, Black Water, and the destruction of the CIA tapes? This is big business throwing a bone to the masses. And MSM taking up the bait. Bush and his Administration are getting a free pass again.
reports do what their bosses tell them...
from the dallas morning news...about an iraqi soldier who shot two american soldiers
The Iraqi soldier, a 25-year-old from a suburb south of Mosul, has ties to armed insurgent groups and had recently joined the Iraqi army, said Brig. Gen. Mutaa al-Khazraji, the commander of the 2nd Iraqi Army Division in Mosul, who declined to reveal the soldier's name.
During the firefight, he "seized the opportunity and fired on the two U.S. soldiers, killing them," said Gen. Khazraji. "The soldier was an infiltrator."
In a statement released Saturday night, an anti-American Sunni group identified the Iraqi soldier as Qaisar Saadi al-Jubory and said he shot the Americans after their unit refused to stop beating a pregnant woman.
"We do what we want," the Iraqi said the U.S. troops told him, according to the statement, which was posted on the Web site of the Association of Muslim Scholars.
Iraqi and American officials said there did not appear to be any basis to accusations that the U.S. soldiers had mistreated Iraqi civilians.
the last line is telling
Why all the wordy searches for analogies for 'Political Reporters'?
Have they never seen Lemmings?
Or gone Snipe Hunting?
So, they're terrified pack animals, highly anxious, barely competent and too frightened to be thorough or original and stuck at an emotional level somewhere between middle school and their freshman year in college.
That's why their own recent confessional reports tell of them wanting not much more than the comraderie of their bus and the ability to bask in the glow of the most popular kid - the candidate - who graces them with a little attention (John McCain) and free food served up with sarcasm (George W. Bush).
Margeret Carlson did an entire article on how Bush made her feel like a giddy college girl again, and who can blame her? It's not as if she was trained to be an objective reporter or anything. A grateful nation thanks you, Margeret.
Candidates stupid enough to miss this juvenile signal and try to talk about actual substantive topics (Gore, Hillary), are mocked, derided, dimissed, ignored and generally given the Heathers treatment.
That explains Bush's press in '00 & '04, it also explains Gore's press and it explains last week's story about Hillary going to her press bus, only to be given the ever-so-mature silent treatment from the press Heathers, who then really showed why they've earned a place telling America about something vital to their future by making fun of her after she left. After which, they braided each other's hair and talked about Zach Braff and how good Fred Thompson smells, (no, wait, that was Chris Matthews).
It also explains how a male prostitute could pretend to be one of them for two years at the White house Press Corp and none of them even noticed, or chose to report it.
These are the people deciding what we will learn about our candidates? Immature prima-donnas looking for a free meal and a good time snarking on the nerds and the geeks?
From Tweety Matthews to Rove's dancing partner, David Gregory, to the Heathers on the campaign buses, it's way past time to more actively confront these shallow, self-serving excuses for our press. I suggest asking them tough questions. I have a feeling that, like Dana Perino, they will have an appalling lack of knowledge of history or current events.
Just like Jon Stweart going onto Crossfire, time for a little scortched earth on the press corp. Time to call them out and expose them for what the frauds they are.
Oh yes there is a media "gray-out" on Iraq news. The bombings and killings go on apace and the Iraqi government takes another vacation. If we had the unfiltered news, McCain might not be able to shriek "Success, I'm telling you the surge is a success, a success I said" bullshit.
Also the idiot Betsy Stark at CNN is just breathless at the confrontation between Iranian boats(!) and US Navy warships. The witless bitch huffing and puffing about how it's been years, years I tell you since this has happened before. Jesus Christ, these people are nothing less than mouthpieces for the Administration.
I have an older Thesaurus that equates 'reporters' to 'fabulists'.
My newer edition adds 'lazy', 'near-illiterate', and 'stupid' to 'fabulists'.
P.D. @ 5:
A M E N !
And what has CNN become? Not a news outlet, although god help us, it's a bit better than the others. It has become bimbo infotainment. The network is starting to remind me of Pussy Galore's female flying circus in Goldfinger.
thanks, excellent, breaks it down very well.
The end result is making the election something everyone wants to turn off and ignore because it is so friggin' nauseating.
So with the longer election cycle this year, how much worse will all this get?
the beltway bumpkins are having a tupperware party as our society is closing like in Mussolini's Italy
I'm looking forward to an in-depth MSM analysis of why Hillary is not a 'Green' candidate, based on the number of sheets of toilet tissue she uses per pee.
I am totally fed up with the talking heads on tv trying to game the election. Enough already.
Fox news is reporting that one of our Navy ships almost fired on a Iranian ship. Jeez, I'm afraid this is the beginning of something ugly. Something we have all guessed was coming but hoped like hell it wouldn't.
Which gives us on the WEB a chance to compare the 'Greenness' of Hillary and McCain, based on the number of rolls of toilet tissue he uses per crap.
Considering the fact that McCain craps continuously, some estimates show that he uses the equivalent of a redwood tree per week in toilet tissue.
The neo-cons have figured out how to keep the media eating out of their hands. Until there is a bounty on people like Rupert Murdoch, who use their ownership to influence what is reported, until the employees at the various networks/news papers etc. start thinking independently and grow a back bone, and until the viewers/listeners/readers start pressuring the sponsors, telling them: "Enough allready, we won't buy your products.", this is what MSM will be like from now on.
PoP, I agree, this looks like something ugly.
If one of our ships 'almost fired' on an Iranian ship, and that would give us an excuse to start an undeclared war on Iran, imagine the rationale the Iranians would have to Nuke the US, since some of their supplies have been crossing the Iraq border, where our troops are in command.
Buy a desk, duck and cover, INCOMING!!!!!!!!
The main reason that reporters are terrified about missing something is that their bosses are dolts.
The editors and producers do not judge performance based on what a report contains, rather on what it doesn't contain.
If the competition has some sound bite or quote that is "missing" from your story, immediate demands are made for an explanation. And virulent criticism often accompanies such demands.
They had that, why didn't you have that? What the hell is wrong with you?
Couple that with being on a beat that is seen as a very desirable career path, the pack mentality is the result.
Is this pack mentality the same reason the MSM broadcast the same 3 or 4 "top stories" on the evening news. Its as though they're all reading from the same script and there was nothing else going on in the world.
We have been thinking about this too.. and the downfall..
"Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one."
--> and all of the powerful interlocking corporate board members.
Imagine that.....
a powerful organization with a membership comprised primarily of wealthy CEOs bent on subverting and corrupting the democratic political process against the public interest in order to attain their own selfish ends.
During Bush CNN once had a "vice president of global affairs" that went on to work for
--> The U.S. Treasury Department
The MSM looks at reporters the same way that Alfred Hitchcock used to look upon actors,
'They're dumb as hell, but a necessary evil, if one wants to produce the story one has in mind'.
The NeoConZionists look upon the MSM exactly the same way.
The whole MSM is a fraud, a figment.
Here's how the 'Daily News' is really produced.
The MSM share a large desktop, which is programmed to accept incoming press releases from various government bureaucracies, the White House, the AEI, AIPAC, their advertisers, etc., and 'edit them down' to bite-sized snippets.
As the headless herds of 'reporters' return each day from their 'assignments', their 'dispatches', their 'stories', are shredded, and the MSM computer prints their names atop whichever 'snippet' of the various press releases best matches their 'style', and lack of 'character'.
No one speaks of this facade, since it's win/win/win for all (except the US public), in the hallowed tradition of American Corporate Capitalism.
P.D. @ 5:
yes this has been my thinking all along! they started this election crap way before they useually have for a distraction from whats been going on with america ,iraq and afganistan, as ive said before they have been playing us for fools, and this next elections allready in the bag, somehow i feel 08 is all ready over and any way it goes WE LOST!!!
all this site is good for is Stewart and Colbert clips...lets face it...the writing here is a bit puerile.
We all know wild dogs do, the press is just showing it's colors.
revulver @ 27:
... said the person who misspelled "revolver" as their screen name.
P.D. @ 5:
Such is the folly of democracies, them having elections and all... you know, god forbid that the most important act of a democracy: the election of its top officer gets any attention at all :-) Sorry I had to let my sarcasm run rampant on this one.
On a more serious note; The problem is that the average American has an attention span rivaling the fruit fly. And the MSM clearly attacks this problem by having no capacity to multitask, as they seem unable to grasp the concept that more than 1 story happens during any given period of time.
All the candidates are enclosed in their own little boxes, like a herd of Schrodinger's cats.
Wonder which one, if any, we'll find alive when the last ballot boxes are emptied, and the cat boxes dumped?
Next month's Science Facts issue has the report of a renegade biologist who did surreptitious DNA analyses of Bush And Huckabee, and found only one gene differential.
Huckabee has the 'Not-Quite-So-Fuc*ing-Dumb' gene that Bush lacks.
The Dude @ 30:
Dear Dude,
You are absolutely correct. Many people want to bury their heads in the sand as the country goes to pot. My own family can't even tell me who their representatives are, let alone what is going on in the country. Very depressing indeed.
That's a good piece. (As to soccer of that type, I used to call that "horde ball.")
Batocchio @ 35:
It's also referred to a "bumble bee" soccer, with all the little kids buzzing/swarming around the ball. :)
MSM is continually monitoring their ratings, so they know perfectly well what news and human interest stories Mainstreet, USA is actually interested in. It's the height of absurdity to suggest "freedom of the press" is declining in our country, when the simple truth is that anyone who can shell out a few bucks per month for an internet connection and a URL essentially owns their own printing press here in this digital age.
[Deleted.Off topic-Sitemonitor]
Fear-based reporting begets fear-based government? Sounds about right.
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