Via Romenesko, this from National Journal's William Powers is interesting:

So let's assume the latest oracular visions are correct and the GOP suffers a major defeat, something approaching if not matching the stunning Democratic losses of 1994. That would be the political equivalent of an earthquake. But would it have any implications for the media? Would it change the dynamic between the Bush team and the journalists who cover them?

Absolutely. And if the media are true to form, the most dramatic shift would not be in political journalism per se, but in coverage of the most important story of this moment: the Iraq war.

Journalists like to think they are reporting just the facts, straight and unaffected by circumstance. The story is the story is the story. In fact, news is a highly atmospheric product: The way a story is presented, framed, and played (up or down) depends heavily on matters beyond the facts themselves. In Washington, the balance of power between the parties on one hand and between the administration and the media on the other is a hidden but immensely important factor in determining how the news reads and sounds. ...

A November defeat for the Republicans will change everything. If Bush suffers a major political setback, the media will feel freed up to tear into this war as they have never done before. Again, it will not be a conscious, orchestrated decision -- there will be no covert meeting at which senior editors and producers conspire to declare Iraq an epic failure. But the pack will change direction, as it always does when it smells blood.

Eric Umansky made a similar point in a piece in the current issue of Columbia Journalism Review about media coverage of the detainee treatment abuse/torture issue. That the relative lack of Congressional investigation or opposition to the policy contributed to a mutedness to the coverage, as the media seek instinctively a degree of cover in the political tensions that in this case were missing:

As a result of the administration’s stonewalling, the abuse story has been deprived of the oxygen it needs to move forward and stay in the headlines. There are still occasional revelations, but without the typical next steps — congressional hearings, investigations, resignations — the scoops themselves start to lose their pop and the story grows cold. The abuse story has become what Mark Danner, writing in The New York Review of Books, memorably dubbed a “frozen scandal.” Revelations are only followed by more revelations, and readers’ attention, and a news organization’s resources, ultimately drift to other stories. The pack moves on...

Worth reading the whole Umansky piece.

Posted by Laura at September 8, 2006 09:35 AM