Greg Krehbiel
A classic example of the media creating a story
by Greg Krehbiel on 29 September 2003
In re the comment immediately below, here’s how the “whip insignificant story into media frenzy” effect works.
Some fathead ideologue on a talk show, or some minor nut-wing reporter from New York, makes an accusation. A complicit nincompoop reporter picks it up. His editor — either an accomplice or someone who wants to break the next “big story” — lets it go to print, christening the non-event as “news” so it can be reported in other channels. The scent of blood makes it to the editor’s desk (“kick ‘em when they’re up, kick ‘em when they’re down”) and the pack tries to urge the whipping process forward, asking (innocently) if there should be an independent counsel. In any sane universe this wouldn’t be noteworthy. People would just say, “Ah, yes, the troublemakers are stomping around again.”
But that’s some other universe. In this one (“this ever-changing world in which we live in,” according to one scribe), a minor wing-nut functionary of the opposition party takes the cue from the Fevered Reporter — since it is now “news,” rather than the partisan foamings of the Ragin Cajun — and “calls” for an independent counsel. The opposition party goes through the typical pre-battle chest thumping and cat calling to try to get their courage up as one by one they attempt to outdo one another with jeers, insults and statesmanly concerns.
A reporter on the scene calls back to the main desk that the natives are restless. The managing editor asks his White House reporter to put the question. Everyone knows there’s no issue here — it’s just political string-pulling and courage building — testing the waters, building themselves up for more and more outlandish accusations — trying to see how far they can ride this horse — and the White House should respond appropriately, e.g., along the lines of “reporters who ask what kind of underwear the president chooses, or equally stupid questions like that one, will get no rum in their egg nog this Yule.”
Unfortunately, that’s yet another universe. In this one, the Stupid Party owns most of the White House parking passes, so they take the bait and reject calls for an independent counsel.
The story is now completely transformed from non-event into cover-up, which everyone in Washington is trained to believe is always worse than the crime — whether or not there was any.
2003-09-29 » Greg Krehbiel