Why does the media suck? Why has cable television been running more footage of Obama bowling and Hillary joking about Obama bowling in the last few days than debating about Iraq or melting ice caps?
WE’RE BORED. Having now spent an entire (almost) primary election cycle in a newsroom that actually cares about continuing to cover substance even when the candidates have no interest in talking about it, I can tell you that doing so well should be considered an amazing feat of journalism and attention span. I can recite Obama and Clinton’s policies front to back, their disputes over Hillary’s war vote, over Obama’s health care plan, over Iran and Pakistan, over their “theories of change.” I am bored with them. We all are. So we watch Obama through gutter balls to get through the day.
This presents an interesting structural challenge for the candidates. How do you keep the punditocracy and the national media and the blogosphere entertained and making arguments on your behalf while also trying to appeal to voters who haven’t been listening to your stump speech for 9 months? I assume this is bread and butter communications shop stuff, something everyone has a plan for and an issue everyone in the campaign strategy hierarchies have considered, but I’d never understood so fundamentally why it’s important until the last month when the very sight of either of these candidates has made me recoil in revulsion-laced boredom.
Update: I should note, for the record, that I think TPM has done a valiant job of, instead of turning the entire news section into a fun bowling competition, turned once again to the varieties of malfeasance being perpetrated by the Bush Administration. But news organizations of lesser restraint could, I suspect, entertain themselves with less work.
