Howard Highlights

During his chat today, Howard Kurtz discussed such topics as the Post's coverage over the Metro derailment, semantics of the Iraq debate and media coverage of the John Edwards presidential campaign. He even got a little snippy, it would seem. Excerpts when you click below... Wilmington, N.C.: From today's column:"An unscripted moment caught on a cellphone camera? Not exactly." Is the "not exactly" referring to the "unscripted comment" part or the "cellphone camera" part? If it's the "unscripted" part, I'd ask, how do you know? If it's the "cellphone camera" part, I'd ask, who cares about the specific equipment used? This definitely reads like you're saying the scene is not genuine, was that your point? If so, how do you know? Howard Kurtz: It's called reporting. Actually, it applies to both. It's not an inadvertently captured unscripted moment because Edwards was sitting there talking to a television crew that he had hired, and they were using cameras, not cell phones. That doesn't mean he wasn't being candid, but he certainly wasn't caught unawares. ... Baltimore, Md.: Howard, Why does the media tend to adopt for its own use the buzzwords and euphemisms of the administration in power? The word I'm referring to at the moment is "surge" because I've heard and read journalists casually tossing this word around instead of stating in clear language what the administration is actually proposing to do: substantially increase U.S. involvement in Iraq by sending in thousands more troops. What I dislike about this practice is that that the language an administration uses to explain its policies is frequently used to obfuscate rather than illuminate a given policy or proposal. Whenever the media adopts the language of an administration, the administration wins a battle in its P.R campaign. Howard Kurtz: The only thing good about surge is that, for headline-writers, it's short. It's obviously a linguistic attempt by the administration to find a term less dramatic than escalation. I've been using escalation myself, or so-called surge. Because who's to say the additional troops would indeed be temporary, as surge implies? There is a long history, of course, of politicians and activists trying to control the language -- with phrases like affirmation action, or pro-life -- in ways that help their cause. ... Arlington, Va.: So, on today's Post front page, the derailment of a Metro train, with twenty local people injured and the Metro system, as of press time, potentially crippled, runs BELOW the fold. Above the fold the Post has a retrospective on Iraq deaths and a speculative article about what stem cells may yield someday. Is this (a) a small example of political opportunism overcoming news judgment, or (b) an admission that (as with Time and Newsweek) no one reads newspapers for actual news anymore, just for features? Howard Kurtz: You might be overthinking this. They're all on the FRONT page. A local Metro accident is big news, but new figures on civilian deaths in Iraq, and a possible scientific breakthrough on stem cell that would neutralize much of the moral debate, also strike me as pretty important. Read the entire chat here.

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Howard Highlights

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