Credit where it's due, sort of. In the aftermath of my complaint yesterday about the sense of place, and lack of it, in the Times' New Hampshire coverage, I ought to specifically acknowledge the last-minute campaign snapshots (off-A1) collected from the NH correspondents today. Each of the short reports, one per contender, takes care to locate its candidate and his statements within the physical space (and physical pressures) of his campaign: Clark "standing on a chair at Timoleon's restaurant in Keene, N.H." to talk about growing up poor, Dean "holding [his] microphone out, rock-star style, to the crowd crammed into a Nashua hotel ballroom for coffee and muffins on Monday morning," and so on. The pieces by Jodi Wilgoren (if you can abstract from her trademark brattiness) on Dean and Randal C. Archibold on Edwards seem especially well written and well constructed for the task at hand.

Larger complaint stands, however. These are vignettes, and offered as such: the Times seems to think that a little of this stuff (reporting, don't-cha know) goes a long way. Strictly entertainment value. Analysis, the drawing of conclusions, that remains a matter of summarizing the polls and the CW and getting insiders to give you the quotes that'll fit your approved storyline.

And our example of serious, analytic journalism on A1 today? The hoariest and most information-free wheeze in the election-campaign playbook, the man-on-the street compilation. Elisabeth Rosenthal, a respected health-and-medicine journalist (known for her coverage of the spread of HIV in central China), was inexplicably forced to stand on a few freezing streetcorners until she gathered enough quotes from Democratic undecideds (telling us how difficult is was this time around to make a decision) to be allowed back inside. I extend my condolences for her ordeal. Ms. Rosenthal, on the other hand, is to become the Times science editor this summer, so she should really know better than to characterize her streetcorner interviews as "random" and suggest that they "confirm polls" about voter concern over electability, or about anything else.

posted by michael  4:56:27 PM  
tell me about it []  

 

See, doc, I try to concentrate on other things, but the ringing just won't stop ... Wilgoren Watch offers some qualified praise of JW's portion of the Times campaign-snapshots article today as being even-handed and non-snarky. While I hesitate to go against the experts, seems to me there's more than a hint of snark in this:

After the most tumultuous week in his yearlong roller-coaster ride to the Democratic nominating contests, Dr. Dean was doing his shtick again [emphasis added], the volume only slightly turned down.

"His shtick"?? Looks like Daniel Okrent's excessively mild rebuke of Wilgoren intruding "columnist language" into her news reports didn't quite take.

To be fair, it's tough having sensitive ears. Just can't leave it alone, can you, Jodi?

posted by michael  1:52:00 PM  
tell me about it []  

 

Slipping one past the goaltender? James Risen follows up this morning on yesterday's off-the-reservation interview with David Kay in a piece headlined "White House Shows Less Certainty Now on Iraq's Arms." Brad DeLong thinks this is another phony, let-em-off-the-hook A1 headline, but I have my doubts. There's this one adjective in there that catches my eye:

The White House began to back away on Monday from its assertions that Iraq had illegal weapons, saying it now wanted to compare prewar intelligence assessments with what may be actually found there.

The evolving [emphasis added] position followed criticism of the intelligence reports about Iraq from the C.I.A.'s former chief weapons inspector, David A. Kay, comments that increased pressure on the C.I.A. and intensified the political debate in Washington over who was responsible for shaping the prewar intelligence that President Bush used to justify toppling Saddam Hussein.

Maybe it's just me, but in context I think I hear a tone in that "evolving." Like, "The (ahem!) 'evolving' position ..." Given that this is about evolving something the way somersaulting out of the car just before you plow it into a brick wall is about safe driving.

Ah, dry, Establishment humor. Unless I'm just pathetically eager to find even a hint of a crack in the Great Stone Face of the Times' ARPC (administration-related political correctness). Your call.

posted by michael  11:59:57 AM  
tell me about it []