Cable News: Is Being First Being Last?
A spherical head
I suppose this is something of a holdover from Tuesday’s New Hampshire primary, but I’ve been thinking about it since the AP called the race for Hillary Clinton. Let me set the scene: My roommate and I are watching MSNBC’s coverage because we’re both hopelessly addicted/in love to/with Tim Russert and I find Keith Olberman fine enough. We’re kind of doing that thing where we’re half watching the slowly creeping numbers of their various on-screen graphics and half making fun of everything on screen despite the fact that not-so-deep-down we clearly love all of this and don’t want it to end. Then the AP calls the race for Hillary Clinton and the night is ostensibly over. But instead of flipping off the television I flip back over to CNN to see what Wolf “They’re so black” Blitzer has to say about things. What they had to say was that CNN “was not prepared to call the race for Mrs. Clinton.” GAME ON! More after the jump…
Yesterday The Times ran a story about news organizations being cautious in calling election victories because of mistakes made in the past. Yes, this is the obvious reason for CNN’s delayed announcement, but what if their reasoning was more ratings-centric? What if it had nothing to do with journalistic integrity but everything to do with a good horse race? Let’s think about my specific scenario. I was watching MSNBC until the race ended, then I flipped over to CNN where as far as they were concerned Obama could still pull it out. This is what I wanted to see. I wanted to see a world where a guy down three points with sixty-percent of the precincts reporting could still claim victory. What the hell do I care if it was all show, if the numbers suggested otherwise?
We are currently inhabiting a specific time in our cultural history where information moves so fast “being first” is no longer something of value. What CNN did on Tuesday night was to say that the suspence leading up to a winner was far better television then the ultimate news we had turned in to see in the first place. It makes smart business sense too. Assuming my roommate and I were not the only people in America who made this flip to prolong the inevitable, CNN’s refusal to be first might have actually scored them some ratings points (I don’t know if this is true, nor do I have access to said numbers to find out).
Ever since the election debacle of 2000, “too close to call” has become a Pavlovian trigger for arm-chair wonks to begin salivating like dogs in heat. If a news organization can prolong that bliss why on earth would choose not to?
Tags: cable news, CNN, MSNBC, Politics
