In other words, Romney is on the upswing because he is more confident. The tautological nature of the way the media covers “confidence” has never been better expressed.
United States Project
12:05 PM - June 19, 2012
Why Romney looks more ‘confident’ in reporters’ eyes
It’s journalism-speak for “seeming more likely to win”
‘See you on the other side’ - Meet Jessica Lum, a terminally ill 25-year-old who chose to spend what little time she had practicing journalism
#Realtalk: This is the best moment to be in journalism - The old stuff isn’t coming back, but that’s okay
Streams of consciousness - Millennials expect a steady diet of quick-hit, social-media-mediated bits and bytes. What does that mean for journalism?
Sticking with the truth - How ‘balanced’ coverage helped sustain the bogus claim that childhood vaccines can cause autism
An ink-stained stretch - Can Aaron Kushner save the Orange County Register—and the newspaper industry?
This is the best moment to be in journalism (25)
The WSJ editorial page hits rock bottom (19)
Public television’s attempts to placate David Koch
One journalist took matters into his own hands when a fellow audience member wouldn’t stop using her smartphone during a theater performance
Purchasing Tumblr is Yahoo’s flashy bet on a shift in social media
The shift from Facebook to more creative social networks
Gay Talese’s outline for ‘Frank Sinatra Has a Cold,’ 1966
Handwritten on a shirt board
CJR's Guide to Online News Startups
Uptown Messenger – Hyperlocal news for a neighborhood in New Orleans
Who Owns What
The Business of Digital Journalism
A report from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism
Questions and exercises for journalism students.
Devastatingly right. And it's more than a little ironic that pointing out the journalistic meme about confidence exposes how much of expert political coverage is itself a confidence game.
#1 Posted by RobC, CJR on Tue 19 Jun 2012 at 12:34 PM
Good overall point by Brendan Nyhan about fickle and often evidence-free campaign coverage, but what about today's NYT piece about Romney's continuing wooden, tone-deaf campaigning style? Some things don't change no matter what horse-race reporters say.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/19/us/politics/road-trip-helps-romney-brush-up-on-banter.html?hp
#2 Posted by Harris Meyer, CJR on Tue 19 Jun 2012 at 02:33 PM
MSM journalists are dupes, court historians, and cowards. The only way they can get away with telling their readers that the two candidates are fundamentally different is by not exposing the sameness of the candidates' fascistic, lying, tyrannical, imperial, war-mongering tendencies.
#3 Posted by Dan A., CJR on Wed 20 Jun 2012 at 04:21 AM
It seems remarkable to me that the CJR is just now realizing how much journalists suck at their jobs. The rest of us have known this for many years.
The reality of modern journalism is that journalists seldom have deep knowledge of what they are reporting, are burdened with ridiculously naive political biases and work in an environment where the duty to inform is irrelevant as compared with the duty to drive traffic.
Ill-educated and improperly motivated equals failure.
#4 Posted by Mick Stockinger, CJR on Wed 20 Jun 2012 at 12:59 PM