Tag Archives: news

To Brief Or Not To Brief: Shouldn’t Be A Question

BY B. JAY COOPER
Reprinted from BJayCooper.com

Reed Cherlin, a former assistant press secretary in the Obama White House, wrote a provocative piece for Slate proposing eliminating the daily White House press briefing. He argues, accurately, that the briefings have become a “preening” exercise for the media and a “first, make no news” goal for the Obama press office team.

If those two conditions were to be true and constant, I’d agree with Mr. Cherlin. But, they needn’t be.

I worked in the White House press office in the late 80s, before the Internet and before the onslaught of cable news channels and their ubiquitous talking heads who typically take one extreme position or another and take it over and over all day. The briefings have become even more performance art than they were in my day. But, and I don’t mean to sound like my father but, “in my day,” they also served a purpose. Continue reading →

News Media’s Minimalist News

BY MICHAEL S. JOHNSON

For millions of us the evening news is a ritual. There’s a lot of star power from which to choose. There’s muscle man Scott Pelley on CBS, ABC’s drama queen Diane Sawyer, and breathless Brian Williams on NBC. They all dish up a tossed salad of news, usually with the tastiest and most attractive morsels atop the more nutritious ingredients buried beneath.

Take for example the NBC Nightly News on May 31st.  According to the Peacock network the most important story that day was the hung jury in the John Edwards case. The Edwards trial wasn’t just the lead story. It was also the second story and the third story, taking up about seven minutes of the 28-minute news cast, and I use the term ‘news’ loosely.

We got long clips of Edwards talking about God. Then a sleepy Matt Lauer, sitting in for Brian, went to Lisa Myers who droned on about Edwards and his family. On came legal correspondent Savannah Guthrie with even more analysis. It was mostly favorable to Edwards, who has long enjoyed a place on the altar of media adoration. Continue reading →

Media Miss Real News Again and Again…

BY MICHAEL S. JOHNSON

Eleven Secret Service agents and 11 members of the Armed Forces got into deep trouble after allegedly paying for and partying with prostitutes in Cartagena, Columbia, prior to the President’s trip there for a Latin American summit.

The secret service scandal has been on the front pages of newspapers and leading the evening newscasts for days. The outcome of the Latin American summit got a one-day of coverage on Page 11 of the Washington Post and little if any coverage on network television.

Self-promoting political strategist Hillary Rosen made it onto evening news shows and page one of American newspapers for saying Ann Romney hasn’t worked a day in her life. The news outlets made it a point to say that Rosen’s remarks were just a “gaffe” and that she wasn’t speaking for anyone but herself. If that were the case and since few in America know who Hillary Rosen is, why is what she says such big news? Continue reading →