Covering the coverage

By Wayne Brown

It’s what the media often does: hype a story out of all proportion; fall to believing its own hype; and then be deeply dismayed to discover its audience has moved on, leaving it enisled in its own vaporous excitement.

So, after the latest media frenzy over the Reverend Wright – including four hour-long ‘specials’ on Wright and Obama on CNN and MSNBC in the days immediately prior to Tuesday’s primaries – both cable networks had Tuesday’s narrative ready to go. Based on the belief that (their own) wall-to-wall coverage of the Reverend had finally destroyed Obama, this was that Hillary was not only going to romp home in Indiana but was coming from behind in North Carolina with a terrific surge to pip Obama on the post. (The Clinton campaign evidently believed the latter, too: last weekend they abruptly re-scheduled Hillary to appear in the Tar Heel state and poured money they didn’t have – that $450,000 which Hillary lent her campaign the day before North Carolina? – into 11th hour television ads there.)