 |
         
|
All three networks ran the same soundbites from the Democratic Presidential debate on CNN in South Carolina. "You were a corporate lawyer sitting on the board of Wal-Mart," said he. "You were practicing law and representing tour contributor Rezko in his slumlord business in inner-city Chicago," said she. So here we see the contest get "more bitter by the day," according to CBS' Dean Reynolds (no link) or "more bitter every day," as NBC's Andrea Mitchell put it. ABC's Kate Snow quoted Hillary Rodham Clinton's husband Bill as calling it "a family feud." Barack Obama, Snow added, "now has a hotline for voters to report on nasty flyers or phone calls."
NBC's Tim Russert added that the Democratic race, besides being "personal" and "divisive" is also breaking down along demographic lines of class and race.
Tyndall Report argued last week (text link) on how neatly coverage of these quarrels falls into television's Reality Gameshow genre. That prompted a 20-minute videostreamed discussion with my dear friend Max Robins (access since denied), the distinguished television journalist and commentator, on his new site mediazulu.com. Robins is developing exciting new video software there. There are still a couple of buffering glitches in the video so be patient--but the back and forth was fun anyway.
On the topic of Reality Gameshow journalism supplanting Horse Race journalism, Jay Rosen (text link) at PressThink goes into thoughtful depth about why the Horse Race model--which I argue is moribund--deserves to be so. Rosen does not think it is quite dead yet, however.
You must be logged in to this website to leave a comment. Please click here to log in so you can participate in the discussion.
