{"id":16294,"date":"2008-07-20T09:30:06","date_gmt":"2008-07-20T13:30:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/16259.html"},"modified":"2008-07-20T09:30:06","modified_gmt":"2008-07-20T13:30:06","slug":"what-if-maliki-changed-everything-but-the-media-didnt-notice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/what-if-maliki-changed-everything-but-the-media-didnt-notice\/","title":{"rendered":"What if Maliki changed everything, but the media didn’t notice?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Following up on the last item<\/a>, Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, unprompted and by name, announced yesterday that Barack Obama’s troop-withdrawal policy is right, while John McCain is wrong about “artificially extending the stay of U.S. troops.” It’s the kind of development that fundamentally changes the geo-political landscape, and creates a seemingly-insurmountable hurdle for the McCain campaign to clear.<\/p>\n

That is, if the media actually notices, and is smart enough to recognize the significance of the developments.<\/p>\n

You’ve no doubt heard the expression, “burying the lede.” The idea is, in journalism, the most important part of the story should come first. There’s also the “inverted-pyramid” style of reporting, which says the key parts of a news item should be at the top.<\/p>\n

Today is a great example of news outlets getting it wrong. The NYT, for example, ran a 1,400-word, front-page article<\/a> under the headline, “Obama’s Visit Renews Focus on Afghanistan.” Within the article, there were four paragraphs about Maliki’s game-changing remarks, one of which was a lengthy quote from the McCain campaign explaining why the prime minister’s endorsement of Obama’s policy doesn’t really matter.<\/p>\n

Now, Obama’s trip is a big deal, and I’m glad the NYT is covering it in detail. But here’s a radical idea: instead of stuffing four paragraphs about Maliki in a story about Afghanistan, how about, you know, running an article about this extremely important development?<\/p>\n

Likewise, the WaPo ran a 1,600-word, front-page article<\/a> about Obama’s Afghanistan visit. It gave the Maliki jaw-dropper five paragraphs, in a he-said, she-said dynamic.<\/p>\n

Seriously, are the nation’s major news outlets trying<\/i> to be awful?
\n
\nThe media did seem amused by the White House distributing<\/a> the embarrassing article.<\/p>\n

An embarrassing slip up for the White House press office Saturday, when an aide hit the wrong button and mistakenly sent to the news media a Reuters article saying Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki backs presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama’s troop withdrawal plan.<\/p>\n

White House spokesman Scott Stanzel says, “It was a mistake. Clips list for staff was supposed to be the addressee.”<\/p>\n

The Obama campaign quickly took advantage of the mistake, forwarding an ABC report detailing the incident to its press list.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Yes, this is amusing. But if reporters could consider what the article said<\/i>, instead of just how the article was distributed by the White House press office, the public might have a greater appreciation for the significance of the development.<\/p>\n

As of this morning, “The Page,” a project of Time’s Mark Halperin that tends to highlight what the media finds important, only mentions<\/a> the Maliki story in the context of the accidental White House distribution. Not a word about the substance or significance of the story itself.<\/p>\n

Indeed, CNN has been especially egregious, running a report<\/a> about Iraqis backtracking on Maliki’s remarks, despite the fact that the “clarification” is transparently ridiculous<\/a>.<\/p>\n

To be fair, I should give credit where credit is due. The LA Times’ report<\/a> did what the WaPo and NYT didn’t — it emphasized Maliki first, then Obama in Afghanistan. The AP report wasn’t bad<\/a>, either.<\/p>\n

But generally speaking, yesterday was a game-changing day, and the media, once again, seems to have largely dropped the ball. Granted, I realize that the prime minister of Iraq endorsing Obama’s withdrawal timeline isn’t nearly as fascinating as, say, Jesse Jackson talking about testicles. That<\/i> was a huge story, which the media pounced on, and obsessed over, for days.<\/p>\n

If journalists could at least pretend to have some kind of professional standards, our democracy would be better off.<\/p>\n

Keep in mind, a couple of weeks ago, when Obama reiterated the exact same Iraq policy<\/a> that he’s had for a year, ABC News’ Rick Klein exclaimed, “There’s been lots of speculation this week about whether Barack Obama has an Iraq problem. He does now.” Time’s Mark Halperin told CNN, “This is one of the biggest things that’s happened so far in the general election.”<\/p>\n

And that was when nothing had actually happened<\/i>. Now, we have the prime minister of Iraq saying that Obama’s right and McCain’s wrong about one of the key arguments on the international landscape. Note to the barbecue-loving, donut-dispensing reporters: this means John McCain has an Iraq problem<\/i>. Maliki’s unprompted endorsement of Obama’s Iraq policy really is one of the biggest things that’s happened so far in the general election<\/i>.<\/p>\n

Honestly, if there were a way to file some kind of class-action lawsuit against the nation’s editors\/producers for crippling malpractice, it’d be worth pursuing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Following up on the last item, Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, unprompted and by name, announced yesterday that Barack Obama’s troop-withdrawal policy is right, while John McCain is wrong about “artificially extending the stay of U.S. troops.” It’s the kind of development that fundamentally changes the geo-political landscape, and creates a seemingly-insurmountable hurdle for the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16294","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16294","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16294"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16294\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16294"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16294"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16294"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}