The Kicker

Stock market’s down. Party-crashing in New York City is up. So reports amNewYork. Also? Some party crashers are posing as reporters ostensibly to ease their passage beyond the velvet rope into the land of the open bar and swag bag. For this to be a legit Trend Story, I’m going to need to see a […]

One of CoutureGate‘s coattails? Political reporters and talking heads feeling moved to air their own dirty laundry to the world by spontaneously sharing their (inevitably more sensible than some VP candidate‘s) shopping habits. Sort of: I don’t know about her, but I’m no fop. Today, we learn right out of the “Media Notes” gate that […]

Halloween-hooked election stories. Election-hooked Halloween stories. It’s time. The (Torrance, CA) Daily Breeze is “Handicapping the winners in the Halloween mask race.” While one mask sales tracking poll has Obama Mask leading McCain Mask 54 to 46, anecdotal evidence is mixed. Here’s Leland Van Andler, owner of the store Lelands Just For Fun in Hermosa […]

The witty folks at McSweeney’s turn their eye for satire to this year’s election with “Extended Trailer for American Demographic: The Movie“: (JOE THE PLUMBER emerges from the bathroom holding a diamond-encrusted plunger and a basin wrench made of solid gold.) JOE THE PLUMBER: Hello, fellow small-business owner. I’m Joe the Plumber, and I’ve successfully […]

A quote from Seymour Hersh, portending interesting stories on the Bush administration, even after inauguration day: “You cannot believe how many people have told me to call them on 20 January … ‘You wanna know about abuses and violations? Call me then.’ So that is what I’ll do, so long as nothing awful happens before […]

Did The New York Times intentionally construct a brilliant juxtaposition of wealth and poverty on its front page this morning? Above the fold, we have “In Sour Economy Some Scale Back on Medication”: As people around the country respond to financial and economic hard times by juggling the cost of necessities like groceries and housing, […]

We know what the campaign press, in general,is doing with its time now, today, thirteen days before election day. But what should campaign reporters be doing? What could they be doing? Katia will have some suggestions for aimless reporters later today at Campaign Desk. Meantime, one decent example of what productive campaign coverage can look […]

Yesterday, Megan offered some suggestions for reporters for how to cover the McCain campaign’s recent cries of socialism, including: “add a brief note of clarification next to a McCain campaign claim about Obama’s socialism…ideally, in your story’s lede.” The AP, which started down this path yesterday, seems to be getting the hang of it: John […]

So,

Yes, CNN’s Dan Lothian did file a report this afternoon standing next to a canon on a Civil War battlefield in Prince William County, Virginia (you know, a battleground state). Can we get Soledad O’Brien on a playground swing in Ohio for a one-on-one with a swing voter? Maybe Ed Henry could hit the gym […]

Perhaps you’ve heard Gov. Palin refer to”Tito the Builder” on the trail recently (in the same bit where she calls her opponent “Barack The Wealth Spender”)? Here’s David Corn’s encounter with Tito Munoz, who announces he is “disgusted with you guys,” for “going after Joe the Plumber” but not reporting “all the time” on Obama’s […]

Politico’s Daniel Libit pronounces Rep. Michele Bachmann’s “call for a media investigation into ‘anti-American’ members of Congress” “the macaca — or McCarthy — moment of 2008.” Chris Matthews, on whose show Bachmann made that “call,” seems to see it as the election 2008 equivalent of his Zell Miller Moment. (You know, in 2004 when Miller […]

Among the interesting bits of Jeffrey Goldberg’s interview with Marc Salter of the McCain campaign: We also talked about Salter’s current view of the press: “I think the media is driven by a need to see this history happen,” he said. “And I think they’ve rationalized it, they think they’re on the level with McCain, […]

The AP applied some basic “accountability journalism” (I guess?) to some recent McCain/Palin campaign trail rhetoric (emphasis mine): Republican Sarah Palin told a rally of several thousand people Monday that Barack Obama would not only raise their taxes as president but also spend the money in a way that could hurt the economy. “What that […]

Joe Biden’s recent “mark my words” words — and the way the press has handled them — were all the talk on MSNBC this morning. Said Joe Scarborough: You know, we’ve been talking about the media coverage of this. I’ve been e-mailing people at the other networks. We covered it last night. I’ve been e-mailing […]