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Elki
get busyModerator, ClubPA Mod Emeritus
get busyModerator, ClubPA Mod Emeritus
Top Story On John McCain Run Out Of Obligation
Rice, on Palin: "She's a governor of a state here in the United States."
Hi5 to you.
NEW YORK—Although his lack of charisma and charm has lately prevented the Arizona senator from grabbing front-page headlines, the tenets of journalistic objectivity made it necessary today to publish a top news story on Republican presidential candidate John McCain.
According to the newspaper's editors, the decision to run the story came after they realized that they had not printed a cover story about Sen. McCain (R-AZ) in a number of months, despite the distinct possibility that he could become the leader of the free world for the next four to eight years.
Some of the publication's employees said they recalled a recent profile on McCain's military service—also run out of obligation—but archival records revealed that piece was published in April 2007. While other articles published in recent weeks have referred to McCain, today's story marks a conscious effort to focus on John McCain and only John McCain, and to mention John McCain's name whenever possible.
"John McCain is one of only two men who has a chance to become president of the United States of America, and by running an entire 600-word article about him, we are acknowledging that we are aware of that fact," a statement from the newspaper's editorial board read in part. "Even though we are certain that the presence of Sen. McCain's name and image on the front page will result in a decrease in reader interest, sales, and web traffic, running this story was, regrettably, the right thing to do."
"On the plus side, it gives us the opportunity to wait two more months before we feel pressured to write another lead story on the senator," the statement continued.
To make room for the McCain article, a story about Vice President Dick Cheney and 9/11 was relegated to a less prominent position on the front page.
Sources confirmed that the primary placement of the McCain article also serves to bolster the publication's reputation as a legitimate paper of record, one that is above being swayed by the hypnotic effect of other, more dynamic public figures who are younger, more visually pleasing, and more adept at garnering media attention.
"Featuring this article was a bold move, and the result is—though completely uninteresting—quite impressive," media critic Tim Keller said. "They have printed a headline that includes McCain's name, put it in a bolded, 48-point font size, and accompanied it with a significant amount of text and a large color photograph of the senator. It takes a strong sense of professional responsibility to commit to something like this."
"Granted, nobody's actually going to read the story," Keller added.
The completion of the article, however, proved far more difficult than expected. Approximately two-thirds of the way through, the legitimate news content grew thin, and several last-ditch efforts were made to increase the length of the story, including a crude listing of pertinent or interesting facts and background information on McCain.
John McCain was born at the Coco Solo Naval Air Station in the Panama Canal Zone. John McCain attended Episcopal High School, a private boarding school in Alexandria, VA. John McCain was captured and taken prisoner in Vietnam on Oct. 26, 1967. John McCain hosted an episode of Saturday Night Live with musical guest the White Stripes in 2002.
In a clear attempt to fill the remaining space on the jump page, the article then presented a dissenting opinion from an outside source on several points made previously in the story.
"If you have to convince the reading public that the story you want to publish is a top story, then it's not a top story," said New York University journalism professor Greg Hillman. "There is obviously a reason the newspaper decided that McCain had done little up to this point to warrant front-page coverage. Perhaps that's the story right there."
Toward its conclusion, the article began to stretch for even more information to pad the piece, at one point mentioning John McCain's age (72), his years in the Senate (21), and his wife's name (Cindy Hensley McCain, born Cindy Lou Hensley) for the sole purpose of adding 49 words.
"Maybe they should have quoted an average citizen to make the article a bit more relatable to readers," said Akron, OH resident Mark Casali, 32. "But I doubt he'd really have anything interesting to say."
Rice, on Palin: "She's a governor of a state here in the United States."
Hi5 to you.
Elki on
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CAMPAIGN WARCHEST AS OF JUNE 30:
Tom Petri (R): $1,999,561
Roger Kittelson (D): $2,254
Mark Wollum (D): Look in your couch. Did you find a penny? You've just outraised Mark Wollum.
Anywho, we were talking about military action: My opinion is pretty convoluted. Military action has it's place, but you need to have everyone involved in the choice not be wearing rose colored glasses and accurately lay out the possible outcomes. Cherry picking the 0.5% good outcome as the likely one is not an acceptable form of risk management.
I don't think more hardcore reporting would have necessarily addressed the roots of those problems.
If Mark Wollum is that incompetent at fund raising he probably shouldn't be a Congressman anyway. He realizes he could donate to his own campaign, right?
QEDMF xbl: PantsB G+
You don't think reporting of the actual facts could not have changed the launching of the Iraq War? Or the 2004 elections?
QEDMF xbl: PantsB G+
who do you mean by everyone?
and what do you mean by involved?
someone is always going to be opposed to military action both in our country and other countries....
unless you mean "enough people involved that it isnt just america attacking on its own ideas" which is why the first bush had more success in iraq than both clinton and bush II.
•*I am worried that the selection of Sarah Palin has erased both Obama's enthusiasm and our ground game advantages. Evangelicals are now energized and starting to GOTV in huge numbers. Evangelicals make up a fourth of voters.
• I am worried that "it's the economy, stupid!" is no longer a valid strategy, as it was for Clinton. 9/11 and a decade of the culture wars has convinced a huge number of Americans to vote against their economic interests. Besides, liberals have long voted against their economic interests, so it's rather silly for us to expect that other demographics would not.
• I am worried that McCain is going to win the independents and undecideds by a huge margin. If you are undecided at this point in the election, you are probably uninformed or even willfully ignorant about national politics. Or maybe you're waiting to decide based on "debate performance," as if that alone was the most important indication of presidential ability. I think the Republican strategy is much better at manipulating such voters' ignorance than the Democratic strategy.
• I am worried that we're going to do really badly in the debates. You know how like half the country thinks creationism is true and evolution is false, and that Saddam Hussein attacked us on 9/11? These are the people who will be judging the debates—not people like us.
Somewhat. State sponsorship of terrorism makes life easier but isn't a requirement to be a pain in the ass. The IRA had support via the USSR in the form of guns and money, but they didn't have local government support. They still managed to carry out operations. ETA is in the same boat.
Unfortunately, attacking every country that has ties to terrorism would stretch our army well beyond the breaking point. The Arab League supported the PLO quite heavily and that's 22 nations right there. Do you count nations like Georgia who have terrorist operating inside their borders but are simply too poor to effectively stop them? Because that's a pretty good chunk of the world. It's too many targets to be successful at preempting.
The Taliban offered shelter, safe-haven and training grounds.
My understanding was that AQ operated pretty much in the open in Afghanistan. Had training camps, most of the command and control came from that area.
Yea, it probably would have.
Sorry, it was related because everyone wanted to know why I like McCain.
taliban being afganistan
I think the Evangelicals were going to come out anyways. For these people the critical item is the supreme court. Palin made it happen sooner rather then later.
How valid it will be is determined by how the economy is come November. We don't have much control over it. I expect another "here is a check for $600" type event before the election.
Debate performance is a valid reason to make a decision. This is where politicians aren't talking off a script and can make grave errors. I think this plays in Obamas favor. McCain is a good debater (more so then we give him credit for) but could snap...
Those people are already voting McCain.
I'll grant that they could have chipped away at the Iraq support (though not, in my opinion, enough in a post-9/11 environment to prevent the war), but if you think journalism can combat consumer spending trends or bubble economy behavior... I don't agree.
Only parts of Afghanistan.
But in the last thread you seemed to imply that we should go after the people who sponsored al-Qaeda with communications and finances:
To which I responded: which national government are you talking about here? Saudi Arabia? Afghanistan didn't manufacture the cell phones they used to plan 9/11, nor did they finance the mission, nor did they host the banks and internet companies that transferred the funds to the attackers.
Al-Qaeda operated with the Taliban's blessing, which is why we still need to beat the shit out of the Taliban. But terrorist networks like al-Qaeda can and do function without national governments and that will probably be the norm in the near future.
Alrighty, I didn't have time to catch up with the other thread.
EVERYYYOONNNNEEEE!!!!!!
just my 2c
I'm worried that liberals perpetual love affair with despair, despondency and negative knee-jerk reactions will hurt the campaign more than Republicans will.
It's always "We're going great, we're doing great!" Then the first sign of Republicans throwing a punch or putting up a struggle and posts like this go up. Did you expect the GOP to just hand over the keys? Or that it wouldn't be a struggle to wrest control away from the right's extremism?
We shouldn't have to wheel the fainting couch in here every time McCain puts out a press release.
Agreed. I'm optimistic that Obama is going to win despite McCain's recent inroads in national polls. The national polls are relatively meaningless right now since they're still reflecting the Republican convention bounce. We can't see how things have shifted until the next major campaign event occurs.
I don't know if you guys read fivethirtyeight.com but you should. It provides context for the polling numbers you see and he does a good job of explaining his predictions.
That said, I'm going to Indiana this week to canvass, since it appears that the race is closer there than previously envisioned. If Obama can turn Indiana blue, then he'll be in fine shape. So if you're close to any battleground states or live in one, volunteer! It sure beats sitting around worrying.
I can't really explain this myself, but I expect things to reverse in the next week or two.
I'm pessimistic because I remember 2000 and 2004. Also, no matter how low my opinion of humanity gets, they always find a way to lower it further. :P
By rebounding you mean that the unemployment rate just shot up to a 5 year high? I can see that logic.
Massive government bail-out of a vital industry anyone?
Are they sending people to Indiana? I signed up and I live right next to IN, but the website told me to go canvass in Michigan. I was worried that they'd ceded IN.
Where in Indiana are you going? I live in Chicago and my hometown is in northwest Indiana.
McCain, meanwhile, asks you to troll his talking points on the Internet, word for word, and by doing so you earn points you can use to buy campaign merchandise. Which, if you came here and posted today's talking points:
you'd get busted in a heartbeat. Probably infracted for thinking we're that stupid to believe those are your words and not the campaign's.
Even if the GOP mobilizes, the Dems have a clear edge. Make sure to use it.
Having worked the phones: oh, it is. Just keep hammering away that a) people are getting foreclosed on all over the place, b) unemployment's at a 5-year high, and c) McCain is utterly tone-deaf to the problem. (And if that doesn't work, I've gotten a surprising amount of traction from Cindy's $280,000 earrings she wore to the RNC. Yeah, it's the John Edwards haircut all over again, but when your target's house costs less than half of what the candidate's wife's earrings cost, it makes a hell of an impact in a hell of a hurry.)
If that's your worry, go ahead and let them see the debates. I've got faith that Obama and Biden can crush McCain and Palin in a debate format, especially with Lehrer, Ifill, Brokaw and Schieffer staring them down. The shitty moderators are gone.
You're referring to people who've basically already made up their mind and just haven't admitted it yet. Those aren't the ones to worry about; nothing Obama or Biden say or do is going to win them over anyway. Worry about the people who have other things on their minds that could go either way.
The convention bounces are still in effect. It's really hard to draw any deep conclusions until they dissipate, though I anticipate that both sides will have trouble opening up a real gap of more than 3-4 points.
But I'm relatively sure that Obama is going to win, with a much larger margin the electoral college than in the popular vote.
I'm not sure. My gf is setting up; I'm just going along for the ride. I live in Chicago too; I'll pass on more details once I get them. Would you be up for going this Saturday?
Even without the bounces, it's closer than it should be.
I also question the ability for polling agencies to keep up with technology though. How many people here have ever been polled? I know my old neighbor got polled on a biweekly basis, I've never had anyone so much as ask my opinion on a credit card.