FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 2011
Two stories can be one too many: It doesn’t take much to create confusion in our national discourse. Consider a headline which appears in today’s New York Times:
NEW YORK TIMES HEADLINE (2/18/11): Facing Vote on Cuts, Wisconsin Democrats VanishThat’s the headline, as it appears in our hard-copy Times. Unfortunately, that isn’t why those Democrats vanished, to judge from the text of Monica Davey’s news report:
DAVEY (2/18/11): The fury among thousands of workers, students and union supporters rose to a boil on Thursday,as state lawmakers prepared to vote on landmark legislation that would slash collective bargaining rights for public workers. Protesters blocked a door to the Senate chambers. They sat down, body against body, filling a corridor. They chanted “Freedom, democracy, unions!” in the stately gallery as the senators convened.
Then the surprising drama in Madison this week added a new twist: the Democrats disappeared.According to Davey’s report, the point at interest was the fact that this state legislation would “slash collective bargaining rights for public workers.” She stresses that point again, a bit later. But up in the headline, readers were told it was really about (spending) cuts.
As you may know if you’ve followed this story, there are two basic parts to this unfolding story. This has proved to be one too many for many national journalists.
Yes, the legislation in question does involve spending cuts. But it also involves the matter with which Davey led her report—an attempt to restrict collective bargaining rights for many Wisconsin state workers. Davey led with the bargaining rights, as most Wisconsin activists have. But a headline writer ran back to the “cuts,” which does in fact have fewer letters.
Are two topics one too many? At the start of today’s Morning Joe, five journalists struggled and strained with this story; they seemed to have no idea that this matter involves that attempt on those bargaining rights. Midway through a hapless discussion, Joe Scarborough did interject this fact, rather suddenly—though we got the idea that he may have heard this through his ear piece, whispered to by a producer.
Mika and Joe and The Parson Meacham seemed quite clueless this morning. Barnicle seemed hazy too—although he seemed upset to think that legislators would leave the state because of a few spending cuts. But then, we’ve been struck by Ed Schultz’s failure to explain these stories this week as he has thundered about this unfolding story.
On Tuesday and Wednesday evenings, Schultz seemed to have little real information about the two topics involved in this story, although he built his program around the Wisconsin struggle each night. On Tuesday night, we thought he made a Republican state senator from Wisconsin seem like the world’s most balanced and best-informed man. The Republican seemed calm, and he seemed to know some facts, which set him apart from Big Eddie.
This morning, Joe and Mika and the others seemed unprepared and uncomprehending. But then, there are two major parts to this unfolding story—and given the press corps’ attention span, that will often be one too many.
