Good morning.
- Assumptions go awry
In the runup to last night’s caucuses, the press was emphatic: Big Iowa turnouts would be bad news for Hillary Clinton and Ted Cruz. Oops! And so much for Donald Trump’s much-touted brilliance in not taking part in that Fox debate. Or his passionately defending “New York values.” And all the media polls that showed Trump the likely Iowa winner.Pivoting quickly, the cable networks called Cruz the winner at about the same time, waited until way later for declarations of Clinton’s possible razor-thin win and heralded a buoyant Marco Rubio’s strong third-place “victory.” “That’s a big deal,” CNN’s Chris Cuomo underscored about Rubio this morning long after David Axelrod, of CNN’s Brady Bunch army of pundits, tweeted about how an anxious GOP establishment might flock Rubio’s way. The same media that trumpeted Trump’s campaign success seamlessly segued to raise doubts about, if not inter him.
The cable networks were undisguised in tipping their ideological hands. When Cruz and Clinton surfaced simultaneously to herald their results, Fox went with Cruz but MSNBC and CNN with Clinton. On this TV night, newspapers did the data crunching, disclosing how Sanders did better with voters 17 to 29 than Barack Obama in 2008, (The New York Times) and how data mining and evangelical fervor boosted Cruz. (The Washington Post)
And in one analysts tussle, CNN’s John King, the encyclopedic master of the electronic “Magic Wall,” confronted stiff video wall competition from MSNBC’s Steve Kornacki but keeps his crown as King of the Fingertip Hill with his prodigious, informative recall of minutiae.
And if you conked out too early, you missed the quick shift in focus to New Hampshire, where some bleary-eyed reporters were alighting from the Heartland in the New England dark this morning. Iowa? Where’s Iowa? It’s now all about next Tuesday.
- A freakish accident
A San Diego TV cameraman, Mike Gold, and a reporter, Marie Coronel, were seriously injured Monday when hit by a tree while covering a weather story. “They were preparing for a 5 a.m. live report when a eucalyptus tree fell on top of them. Gold was able to call 911, and both were transported by ambulance to Scripps Memorial Hospital, La Jolla.” (San Diego Union-Tribune) They’ll both survive but Gold required surgery for a compound leg fracture. (10News) - The state of political journalism
Just as things were really getting underway in Iowa came this release: “Just in time for the official kick off of the 2016 Elections, POLITICO unveiled today a first-of-its-kind digital stadium experience to capture the intensity of major political moments. Readers across POLITICO will find smarter, faster and more data-rich access to the full and impressive breadth of the coverage we’re offering in these crucial moments. The digital experience, presented by Innovation Alliance, provides pre-game insights, in-the-moment coverage and post-game analysis, which will be used throughout the election year on big nights like debates, primaries and caucuses and the conventions.”Yes. Pregame, postgame, etc., as if politics were a money-driven branch of ESPN. It’s a vivid, if unwitting, display of a lack of detachment toward the actual lives of actual people. Again, it invited you to “enter the stadium experience here.” As if all a game.
- Tragedy on the cusp of opportunity
Michael Feeney, 32, was about to start “his dream job as an entertainment reporter for CNN.” The former New York Daily News reporter got very sick last week and died of complications from a staph infection in his kidneys. (The New York Times). - Pink-slipped but hawking their talents
Al Jazeera America workers are victims of poor management and marketing (the name was a big miscue) and will be gone in a few months after their futile entry into the cable news wars. But they’ve also done some very good, if virtually unwatched, work. Some of that is showcased on a site created by the lame-duck employees to potentially lure prospective employers. It’s making digital virtue out of necessity. (Poynter) - ‘…I can tell her what I think about her.’
A county election commission chairman quit Monday right in advance of a local TV news report in which he used the B-word as he got rhetorically combative with a female reporter. “I said it. I meant it. I still mean it,” he said when the dust had settled. (Tennessean) - Twitter NOT doomed?!
There have been de facto eulogies written for Twitter of late, such as “The End of Twitter.” (The New Yorker) It’s been the tech journalism fashion to grouse about the company losing its strategic way, stalling in its growth and not getting its act together in the executive ranks.
Now comes a defense arguing that, yes, “there are actual numbers that seem to support the narrative that it is failing to deliver on its promise. But those numbers don’t mean what Twitter’s critics think they mean. And conflating them with vague anecdotes about how the service feels is a category error that disserves everyone: readers, investors, and most of all the people who use and love Twitter as it is.” (Slate) Sheesh. Imagine having more than 300 million diehards and being in purported trouble.
- A moderator’s plea
John Donvan is a former ABC foreign correspondent who still contributes to the network and has a critically praised new book he’s co-authored on autism. (The New York Times) He’s also a longtime moderator of Oxford-style debates known as Intelligence Squared. They’re quite good. Now, in an interview, he argues that the Oxford-style formats (he’s handled about 100 of them, some of which I’ve seen with intellectual heavyweights combatants) should be applied to the presidential election debates. His take is that they could avoid both the sense the moderators are pressing a personal ideology or that the candidates are victims of “gotcha” queries. (Big Think) - The big news at Yahoo today
It won’t involve analysis of what’s up with the New Hampshire primary. It will be its very own fourth quarter earnings and whether embattled CEO Marissa Mayer “can give some clear statement about the plans for a spinoff of its core assets and also details about cost cuts, largely via layoffs and closures of low-performing units.” And, perhaps, most important, is it open to a sale? (Re/code) - Job moves, edited by Benjamin Mullin
Clinton Yates is joining The Undefeated. Previously, he was a columnist at The Washington Post. (Washingtonian) | Marina Galperina is now a senior editor at Gawker. Previously, she was editor-in-chief of Hopesandfears.com. (@pareene) | Miki King will be vice president of operations at The Washington Post. Previously, she was executive vice president of operations at POLITICO. (Wash Post PR) | Job of the day: The Houston Chronicle is looking for a business editor. Get your resumes in! (Journalism Jobs) | Send Ben your job moves: bmullin@poynter.org.
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