Let’s forget the Midterm and focus on the more important news: National Journal’s relaunched itself today. The gist of Atlantic Media’s relaunch? Unified newsrooms!
Yes, NJ has combined CongressDaily and The Hotline into itself to form another political media hydra to wage war (and share links with) Politico, CQ-Roll Call and The Hill. But there’s also focus on original video content, faster web production and the new new cover story interview with President Obama 2.0.
Yesterday marked the end of Howard Kurtz’ tenure at the Washington Post and his The Daily Beast debut.
At the end of his final Media Notes, Kurtz writes, “I confess that I enjoyed David Carr’s New York Times line about my job switch prompting the most gasps since Dylan went electric in 1965. But that ain’t me, babe. While I would not have made such a leap even two years ago, it is an evolutionary move, not a revolutionary one, as we all grasp for ways to sustain and reinvent journalism.” Read more…
The true theme of the 2010 mid-term elections is clear: panic? No, it’s anger! Wait, no. Oh, right. It’s all about confusing the message.
Whether it’s been increasingly bizarre defense and attack ads courtesy of Delaware’s Christine “I’m Not A Witch” O’Donnell (rightfully parodied by SNL here) or Chris Coons going the “No Comment” route as the New York Times reports. Ignoring the “Mama Grizzly” trope that Newsweek tried to explain, the message behind the Delaware Senate race is tough to understand.
For the Times, Frank Bruni breaks it down as “She: cheerleader pretty. He: science-club-president plain.” This can be applied to roughly 90 percent of politics with ten percent leftover for ads and scandal.
Politico runs the idea that both parties are hemorrhaging members and sacrificial lambs to the media slaughter:
All of it is part of Washington’s biennial exercise in cold-blooded, risk-reward analysis: Figuring out which candidates to fund in the homestretch and which ones to cut loose. It’s the Beltway equivalent of choosing which of your children to put in the lifeboat, as the party committees decide which candidates to throw overboard because they aren’t viable enough to warrant the investment.
Which is also highly accurate when most newscycles become dominated by the spectacular pony shows that an on-camera interview with Alvin Greene can generate. Even better?
Beware a Republican Congress or else Obama will be impeached–sez Jonathan Chait in The New Republic complete with ominous subhed “The coming impeachment of Barack Hussein Obama.” This isn’t actually happening now, but it could! And so could a complete Dem sweep on November 2nd and so could a cloudy day in June.
This election year has been rife with over-analyzation to the point that it’s even grating for regular policy wonks trying to juggle whether or not a “viral” ad will help or hinder a candidate’s message.
W:WIE hosts Donna Karan, Sarah Brown, and Arianna Huffington
WHC Insider exclusive coverage of the Arianna Huffington book party to celebrate her new book Third World America: How Our Politicians Are Abandoning The Middle Class and Betraying The American Dream, co-presented by Greta Van Susteren and John Coale; Anita Dunn, Sally Susman, Alex Slater, Franco Nuschese, Ted Greenberg and Tammy Haddad. MSNBC’s Dylan Ratigan will MC the program, which will include special guest Seth Reams, founder of WeveGotTimeToHelp.org.
Don’t wait for the C-SPAN book party coverage when you can watch it live with us tonight starting at 6:30 pm.
