Stenography 101: How the press let Palin and Cheney rig the system
Eric Boehlart
MediaMatters
January 12, 2010
Not content with its lapdog coverage of President Bush over the past decade, the Beltway press has adopted a new, super-soft way to deal with Bush's former vice president, Dick Cheney, as well as GOP media star Sarah Palin. Journalists have set aside what had been decades' worth of guidelines and embraced special new rules for how Cheney and Palin get treated.
In a word, it's stenography.
That's how too many scribes have covered Cheney and Palin in recent months, allowing them to dispense tightly controlled pieces of information, which journalists then trumpet as breaking news. And yes, the trend is unprecedented in modern day American politics.
It's actually a two-fer. First, it's unprecedented because the Beltway press has never showered attention on political losers, such as Cheney and Palin. Meaning, the press has never cared what a former VP had to say about current events right after leaving the White House (think: Dan Quayle), or what a failed VP candidate had to say just months after losing in a landslide (think: Geraldine Ferraro). Traditionally, pundits and reporters disdain political losers (think: Mike Dukakis). But for Cheney and Palin, the rules have been generously reworked.
(More here.)
MediaMatters
January 12, 2010
Not content with its lapdog coverage of President Bush over the past decade, the Beltway press has adopted a new, super-soft way to deal with Bush's former vice president, Dick Cheney, as well as GOP media star Sarah Palin. Journalists have set aside what had been decades' worth of guidelines and embraced special new rules for how Cheney and Palin get treated.
In a word, it's stenography.
That's how too many scribes have covered Cheney and Palin in recent months, allowing them to dispense tightly controlled pieces of information, which journalists then trumpet as breaking news. And yes, the trend is unprecedented in modern day American politics.
It's actually a two-fer. First, it's unprecedented because the Beltway press has never showered attention on political losers, such as Cheney and Palin. Meaning, the press has never cared what a former VP had to say about current events right after leaving the White House (think: Dan Quayle), or what a failed VP candidate had to say just months after losing in a landslide (think: Geraldine Ferraro). Traditionally, pundits and reporters disdain political losers (think: Mike Dukakis). But for Cheney and Palin, the rules have been generously reworked.
(More here.)
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