Understatement of the year…
This is the classic example of the media not being able to walk and chew gum at the same time. Yesterday morning, Bush comes out to the podium with his nominee for Attorney General, Michael Mukasey, who nobody knows anything about, retired Federal judge, and about 12 seconds after they’re done, it’s O.J., O.J., O.J. So, it does seem that there’s a little bit of a lack of balance. Again, a lot of public interest in this story, a lot of ratings in this story. But Attorney General, Hillary health care plan, Iraq, I haven’t seen mentioned in about two days. They shouldn’t get completely and totally blown off the radar screen while we all marinate ourselves in the juice.
Howard Kurtz on Morning Joe talking about you know what. (via TVNewser)
There’s a rumor running around that MSNBC killed Super Tuesday coverage today so that they could do OJ instead. I know it was scheduled. I saw the ads Friday. I was prepared to give MSNBC major props for sticking with the political coverage in the face of the OJ flood. Alas, so much for branding. Chuck Todd must be wondering what he got himself into…
Update: I am in error. MSNBC rescheduled Super Tuesday to preview the debate Tim Russert is hosting next Wednesday (in my defense I will say nobody told me it was rescheduled and this was after it was mentioned on MSNBC’s air Friday). Apologies to MSNBC. Also it should be pointed out that MSNBC did cover Hillary Clinton’s Health Care proposal yesterday with Alison Kartevold on the scene throuhgout the day so Kurtz doesn’t have his facts straight either.
I said I wouldn’t cover O.J. I’m not going to hype the cable networks putting their people in position or breaking the latest news to cover a story that doesn’t deserve that sort of attention.
I never said I wouldn’t continue to throw out occasional barbs regarding the overcoverage of OJ. If that makes me a little bit pregnant, then so be it…
And in any case this isn’t about covering OJ. This is about not covering other stuff like politics.
Comment by Spud — September 18, 2007 @ 10:56 am
It’s absolutely ridiculous. The lead story on O’Reilly, the lead story on Hannity & Colmes. After that, I quit watching. It’s sickening! This epitomizes everything that is wrong with cable news. They find a story like this and hammer into the ground. The same thing happens every few months… Natalee Holloway, Anna Nicole, Chris Benoit, Rosie vs. Trump, now O.J. again.
It’s time to turn this crap off and stop giving them the ratings boosts from these stupid stories.
Comment by bigred — September 18, 2007 @ 1:50 pm
Spud, FYI, while Bill, Nancy and Rick were covering O.J. from the top of the hour, Alison Stewart spent the first half of “Countdown” covering Greenspan and the new A.G., and didn’t get to O.J. until :30.
Comment by Dmuse — September 18, 2007 @ 1:58 pm
As I’ve said, I’m less concerned about primetime than I am daytime.
Comment by Spud — September 18, 2007 @ 2:04 pm
Dmuse, I’m sure MSNBC/Countdown was just giddy over the fact that Bush was trashed by Greenspan, so it makes a lot of sense that they would devote so much time to same. I’m surprised Keith didn’t drag himself in from his hospital bed, hooked up to IVs and monitors, to cover such a story.
So I don’t think any altruism was involved; MSNBC and the Countdown crew just hate Bush so much that even OJ couldn’t stop them from leading with the Greenspan hates Bush story.
Comment by Missy — September 18, 2007 @ 3:24 pm
#4, of course they covered Greenspan on Countdown first. The format for the show never changes:
The first 2 segments bash Bush/Republicans & praise Hillary/Democrats.
The Worst People in the World are Bill O’Reilly (regularly), someone from FNC, or other conservatives.
If you’ve seen it once, that’s all you need.
BTW, I noticed a Countdown promo during “Hardball” last night, and they were promoting comprehensive coverage of O.J.
Comment by bigred — September 18, 2007 @ 3:58 pm
Missy, I was addressing Spud’s legitimate concern over the already-upon-us O.J. “overkill”, and was only pointing out that in the MOST IMPORTANT hour of the day, that “Countdown” addressed two of the most important stories of the day for the first :30, unlike its competitors. If you choose to make that into a political judgment, so be it, but please don’t be hypocritical later when the other three networks outrate MSNBC because of their choosing O.J. coverage first.
Comment by Dmuse — September 18, 2007 @ 7:53 pm