New at CJR: The dangers of silly season

I have a new column at Columbia Journalism Review on how bored reporters and social media can hype fake controversies and spread misinformation. Here's how it begins:

When Rick Santorum suspended his candidacy for the GOP presidential nomination on Tuesday, he removed any remaining doubt that Mitt Romney would be the Republican presidential nominee. The result is a news vacuum that can easily be filled by spin and misinformation.

Consider the ridiculous debate over comments made on CNN about stay-at-home moms by Hilary Rosen, which dominated the news cycle and the political Twittersphere yesterday. As NBC’s First Read points out, while “manufactured controversies are nothing new in American politics,” what is new “is how much faster and professionalized—due to Twitter and the drive to make something go viral—these manufactured controversies have become.” Such controversies can be especially potent as we enter what First Read calls “silly season.” When few competing stories exist and political reporters are starved for material, any whiff of scandal or controversy can create a feeding frenzy. A bored media is dangerous for politicians.

Read the whole thing for more.

Comments

[David in Cal]

IMHO the controversy over Hilary Rosen's comment is less manufactured than the carefully constructed controversy over whether supporting a religious exemption for free birth control means that Republicans are making war on women. I think Rosen's comment is significant because it tends to confirm an existing impression that liberal feminists have contempt for homemakers.

Or, try this analogy. Suppose Karl Rove said that Michelle Obama shouldn't be listened to regarding women's economic issues, because she's black and got where she did thanks to the benefits of affirmative action. (Not that I believe this.) There would be a huge controversy, and IMHO it would be appropriate. Rove's hypothetical comment would be rightly taken as a slam at all black people.

[David in Cal]

A commenter on anther blog saw Rosen's comment in the context of traditional sexism:

Rosen's remarks fall into a pattern of "housewives aren't smart enough to understand." Women weren't smart enough to vote, supposedly, women weren't smart enough for that....Ann Romney's a home maker. Because she's that, she's not qualified on the economy? It is sexist and offensive.

I would add that it's so normal for politicians to support motherhood and apple pie that the phrase is defined as "Statements of principles or values with which few disagree."

For a political campaign to attack motherhood is remarkable, and therefore newsworthy.

[Rob]

Poor Hilary Rosen, pilloried for giving the unfiltered version of what she really thought. And as some of her defenders have pointed out, her slam against stay-at-home moms was actually peripheral to her real point, which was to slam the rich. Class warfare is completely respectable, you see, at least among the Obama faithful.