Campaign Story Lines, All Knotted Up

CAMPAIGN STORY LINES, ALL KNOTTED UP
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Howard Kurtz]
Time and again, the media's preferred narratives for this campaign have collided with reality. Reporters consistently overestimate the importance of money in presidential campaigns. There have been factual errors as well calling election results (see Missouri) and predicting votes (see New Hampshire and California). And the media have long been trying to winnow the field. The key to the way news organizations have framed this campaign is that the personal trumps the political. Tackling what is actually happening -- the candidates clashing on the issues, making speeches, piling up delegates -- is insufficiently exciting compared with speculation about what might happen down the road. Minutes after Romney dropped out Thursday, the pundits started handicapping his chances in 2012. Even as McCain was winning nine states on Super Tuesday, much of the television chatter was about whether he could persuade Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham and other conservative radio talkers to stop beating up on him. Although that is a significant story, it's not quite in the same league as the Arizona senator amassing nearly two-thirds of the delegates needed for nomination. But it's more fun to kick around. By the same token, far more media scrutiny was applied to the "snub" story -- whether Obama had deliberately turned his back on Clinton at the State of the Union address -- than to the details of their dueling health-care plans.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/10/AR2008021002235.html
(requires registration)