Memo To Media Figures: The Presidential Race Isn't Being Conducted To Entertain You
February 18, 2008 -- 11:52 AM EST // //

WaPo's Howard Kurtz has a pretty good rundown of how lopsided and imbalanced the press coverage of Hillary has been this cycle, and I wanted to flag this little nugget that he slips in at the end of the piece...

While few in the media world will say so out loud, a Hillary collapse ("The Fall of the House of Clinton," as a Weekly Standard cover put it last month) is a more dramatic outcome than a win by the woman originally depicted as inevitable. But there is considerable danger in writing that story prematurely.

I'm glad Kurtz is warning his colleagues not to write the story of Hillary's demise in advance. But this suggestion that media insiders think a Hillary loss is a "more dramatic outcome" than any other is crying out for comment.

I mean, the presidential race isn't being conducted to provide drama and amusement for members of the media. It's being waged to pick the next president. You know, most powerful person in the world, critical moment in history, finger on the nuke button, environment in crisis, all that boring and earnest stuff.

While Kurtz doesn't say so directly, he's clearly floating the notion that a key thing driving some media figures and their editorial choices is a preference for the Fall of Hillary narrative. To be clear, this isn't to knock Kurtz, He's the ultimate D.C. media insider, and it's good to have someone suggesting -- from inside the belly of the Beltway media beast -- that this is part of the media dynamic at play here.

It shouldn't be, of course, but as Atrios has repeatedly noted, press coverage is determined to a lopsided degree by whichever narrative is deemed more entertaining by members of the media. It's just one of the many ugly realities we keep having to deal with in cycle after cycle.

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