On Monday, a YouTube video surfaced online showing Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) debating health care. In the video, Baucus slurs words and rambles. The person who posted the video accused the senator of being drunk on the senate floor.
On Tuesday, the Bozeman Daily Chronicle published a routine story on this week's City Commission meeting, during which the commissioners approved spending about $50,000 in federal stimulus money to fix up the tennis courts at Bogert Park.
Both stories received oodles of attention online. The Baucus video, with its provocative title, "Senator Max Baucus Drunk/Intoxicated on Senate Floor - Shouts Down Wicker," was circulated widely around the social Web and blogosphere. The tennis courts story was linked by the Drudge Report, which led to all manner of social media and blog reactions.
The Baucus story was ignored by mainstream media outlets for the most part. The tennis court story was picked up by the Associated Press and inspired a 7-minute segment on Fox News. Why one and not the other?First, I can't speak for other newsrooms across the country, but in ours, many of the reporters have in the past spoken with Baucus in person. Our own experience told us that the way he's heard speaking in the video is about how he speaks all the time. The man slurs words; he rambles. That's Max Baucus.
Second, we have to look at the source. The person who posted the YouTube video with the inflammatory title goes by the username SocialistsSteal. He lists his occupation, on his YouTube profile page, as "Crusader Against Fascism and Socialism Crap." For his Web site, he lists Liberty Forest, a Ron Paul forum.
I'm just going to come out and say it: SocialistsSteals does not seem like a trustworthy source.
Baucus' office must have fielded at least a few calls from news organizations about the video on Monday (Politico's Click blog said it had sent questions) because Baucus issued a statement to the media late Monday.
Spokesman Ty Matsdorf denied that Baucus was drunk on the Senate floor, the Great Falls Tribune reported. Matsdorf said the accusations paired with the video show just how nasty the debate over health care has become.
Unfortunately, those who want to kill any meaningful reform turned it into an unfounded, untrue, personal-smear Internet rumor. This is beyond the pale, and this type of gutter politics has no place in the public sphere.
So a poor source and past journalistic experience pretty much guaranteed accusations of drunkenness weren't going to make the papers.
Now what about the tennis courts? That story picked up just as much Web buzz as the Baucus story and it got covered in quite a few papers (thanks to it being picked up by the Associated Press).
First of all, the facts of the story were undeniable. The city of Bozeman was spending roughly $50,000 to resurface the tennis courts, and that money was coming from the federal stimulus package for Montana.
Second, the headline, "City spending stimulus money on new tennis courts," had just enough keywords to catch the attention of somebody at Drudge Report, which being a right-leaning site, was naturally looking for stories about potential abuses of the stimulus package.
Finally, perhaps the most important nail in the coffin for covering the tennis court outcry was the fact that Bozeman has found its way into the Web spotlight twice already this year — once for the March 5 natural gas explosion downtown and again for the social networking privacy fiasco.
When lightning strikes a third time, you cover it.
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Michael Becker has been blogging about academia, digital culture and journalism since 2005. He is the Web editor of the Bozeman Daily Chronicle.
Stimulus money, tennis courts and Baucus accusations
On Monday, a YouTube video surfaced online showing Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) debating health care. In the video, Baucus slurs words and rambles. The person who posted the video accused the senator of being drunk on the senate floor.
On Tuesday, the Bozeman Daily Chronicle published a routine story on this week's City Commission meeting, during which the commissioners approved spending about $50,000 in federal stimulus money to fix up the tennis courts at Bogert Park.
Both stories received oodles of attention online. The Baucus video, with its provocative title, "Senator Max Baucus Drunk/Intoxicated on Senate Floor - Shouts Down Wicker," was circulated widely around the social Web and blogosphere. The tennis courts story was linked by the Drudge Report, which led to all manner of social media and blog reactions.
The Baucus story was ignored by mainstream media outlets for the most part. The tennis court story was picked up by the Associated Press and inspired a 7-minute segment on Fox News. Why one and not the other?First, I can't speak for other newsrooms across the country, but in ours, many of the reporters have in the past spoken with Baucus in person. Our own experience told us that the way he's heard speaking in the video is about how he speaks all the time. The man slurs words; he rambles. That's Max Baucus.
Second, we have to look at the source. The person who posted the YouTube video with the inflammatory title goes by the username SocialistsSteal. He lists his occupation, on his YouTube profile page, as "Crusader Against Fascism and Socialism Crap." For his Web site, he lists Liberty Forest, a Ron Paul forum.
I'm just going to come out and say it: SocialistsSteals does not seem like a trustworthy source.
Baucus' office must have fielded at least a few calls from news organizations about the video on Monday (Politico's Click blog said it had sent questions) because Baucus issued a statement to the media late Monday.
Spokesman Ty Matsdorf denied that Baucus was drunk on the Senate floor, the Great Falls Tribune reported. Matsdorf said the accusations paired with the video show just how nasty the debate over health care has become.
So a poor source and past journalistic experience pretty much guaranteed accusations of drunkenness weren't going to make the papers.
Now what about the tennis courts? That story picked up just as much Web buzz as the Baucus story and it got covered in quite a few papers (thanks to it being picked up by the Associated Press).
First of all, the facts of the story were undeniable. The city of Bozeman was spending roughly $50,000 to resurface the tennis courts, and that money was coming from the federal stimulus package for Montana.
Second, the headline, "City spending stimulus money on new tennis courts," had just enough keywords to catch the attention of somebody at Drudge Report, which being a right-leaning site, was naturally looking for stories about potential abuses of the stimulus package.
Tennis courts connote ideas of luxury, not public recreation and fitness. The story seemed to be about wasteful or wrongheaded spending, despite the fact that the Montana Reinvestment Act specifically allows Bozeman to spend stimulus money on improving recreation facilities. And since major news outlets tend to only give local stories like this a casual glance and then use a boiled-down parable version of the story to make a political point, it was, again, natural that this would make good fodder for the talking heads onscreen.
Finally, perhaps the most important nail in the coffin for covering the tennis court outcry was the fact that Bozeman has found its way into the Web spotlight twice already this year — once for the March 5 natural gas explosion downtown and again for the social networking privacy fiasco.
When lightning strikes a third time, you cover it.
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