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You are here: Home / Politics / Domestic Politics / Not Seeing It

Not Seeing It

by John Cole|  August 27, 200910:53 am| 39 Comments

This post is in: Domestic Politics, Media

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This is an odd write-up:

To the casual viewer, cable news coverage of Sen. Edward Kennedy’s death Wednesday lined up as neatly as the punch line in a joke about the alleged political agendas of those channels.

Starting from the safe premise that Kennedy was a liberal, you can probably even guess the order.

On the left: MSNBC, which went wall-to-wall Kennedy the entire day, interspersing fresh reactions with warm remembrances of his life and times.

On the right: Fox News, where Kennedy was the main story all day – but where it was often used as an opener to discussions of the health-care plan he endorsed, which faces heavy criticism and an uncertain fate.

In the middle: CNN, which stayed wall-to-wall longer than Fox and incorporated more Kennedy features, but broke off as well for other stories.

You know I’m always kind of hypercritical of the week long hagiographies following the death of someone “important.” There is just something about it that rubs me the wrong way, as if we treat some people like royalty. I can’t describe it, but it just irritates me.

But as far as what I have seen, and I only watch CNN and MSNBC, the Kennedy coverage has seemed quite restrained. I have Ratigan on in the background as I sit here, and I don’t think Kennedy’s name has even been mentioned in the last hour.

As a point of comparison, three days after Tim Russert died, they were in their 73rd hour of remembrances, there were candles in the studio, anyone who had ever met Tim Russert was given an opportunity to talk about how swell he was, et cetera. And that wasn’t just on MSNBC, it was like that on every channel. It was completely understandable, because he was their friend and one of “them,” but it was still nauseating.

Now I have no doubt that there is still ample time for the Kennedy funerals to go over the top, but I just haven’t seen any over the top coverage so far.

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39Comments

  1. 1.

    joes527

    August 27, 2009 at 10:57 am

    It would be interesting to chart where the ongoing Michael Jackson coverage reasserts itself to be more prevalent than the Kennedy coverage.

    My guess is that point will be after the funeral … but not long after the funeral.

  2. 2.

    Rey

    August 27, 2009 at 11:03 am

    Well just wait until tomorrow and Saturday. Just heard that all four ex-presidents will be attending the funeral and Prez Obama will be delivering the eulogy. It’s only getting started. I hope Sarah Palin shows up- hee haw!

  3. 3.

    Napoleon

    August 27, 2009 at 11:07 am

    Plus in a way the Kennedy coverage is more then just about him but a connection to a big family that has dominated news since before WWII and in a way a connection to an era that has passed. Recently the last surviving WWI vet from GB died and that got a lot of press (not as much as Teddy of course) for what I think is a similar reason, it marks the passing of an era.

  4. 4.

    demkat620

    August 27, 2009 at 11:08 am

    MSNBC is covering Mark Sanford now.

    Knowing the Kennedys, I really doubt this will be the spectacle the right is hoping for.

  5. 5.

    General Winfield Stuck

    August 27, 2009 at 11:08 am

    The thing about the Kennedy’s, I think, at least one reason why the coverage is restrained and multi layered,, is the ever present aura of tragedy that they engender. You can’t really take about one of them dying without remembering JFK and Bobby, and even Joe Jr. to an extent. Yes, there is also an aura of royalty, along with some pretty sour scandal and very poor behavior by some of them. Mix that in with what even many repubs acknowledge as dedication and stone seriousness they represent for the liberal causes they relentlessly championed, and you have a situation that can’t be described with pop hero worship sound bites, Say like the wingnuts on Ronnie Raygun.

  6. 6.

    different church-lady

    August 27, 2009 at 11:10 am

    Well, don’t forget, Russert was some who really mattered, whereas Kennedy was just a senator…

  7. 7.

    Aunt Moe

    August 27, 2009 at 11:14 am

    Echoing earlier comments – He wasn’t just Ted, he was an astonishing American family with a story worthy of Homer. A young friend of mine said ‘well, now with Teddy gone, we can finally close the book on the 20th century’. And I would add, when Robert Byrd goes, we can close the book on the 19th century as well. Meanwhile, RIP Teddy.

  8. 8.

    Da Bomb

    August 27, 2009 at 11:15 am

    I don’t feel that coverage has been over the top either. At least it hasn’t been as gut-wrenching as some of the celebrity deaths that have occurred over the last 2 years.

    You would think some of these people found the cure to cancer by the grief some of the public has shown.

  9. 9.

    SpotWeld

    August 27, 2009 at 11:16 am

    All the networks are jockeying for interviews with the family, and coverage of the procession/burial.

    Once he’s in the ground we’ll see the tabloid stuff come out.

  10. 10.

    Zifnab

    August 27, 2009 at 11:17 am

    I think you’re giving corporate media too much credit. Ted Kennedy pushed for policies time and again that the GOP has been working feverishly to dismantle ever since. The media is GOP friendly. Ergo, I don’t expect a lot of long winded Kennedy-worshiping eulogies. If they can’t say anything snide or obnoxious, the pundits aren’t going to say anything at all.

    Right now, on the eve of major health insurance reform, none of the major insurance company advertisers are going to want to see wall-to-wall coverage of their biggest opponent. Michael Jackson and Anna Nicole Smith didn’t really stand for anything by the time they passed. Kennedy stands for the modern American liberal. Unless the GOP can find a way to completely misrepresent the Kennedy legacy, Ted isn’t going to get any serious TV coverage.

  11. 11.

    Cat Lady

    August 27, 2009 at 11:18 am

    Slightly OT, but to put the Kennedy thing in perspective from here in Boston, yesterday was the first day there hasn’t been a Kennedy representing us here in Mass. since 1947. I don’t think there is such a thing as too much coverage, and it’s not too much to ask of the country to understand the role that family has played in its history.

  12. 12.

    wilfred

    August 27, 2009 at 11:21 am

    Healthy iconoclasm is the only defense against the spectacles mounted by the press/political establishment: “Today we gather not to mourn the passing but to celebrate the life of a gluuuuurrrrius American…”

    Aretha Franklin sings Amazing Grace, a muffled tear, a montage including John-John saluting… etc., etc. etc.

  13. 13.

    General Winfield Stuck

    August 27, 2009 at 11:25 am

    @Cat Lady:

    and it’s not too much to ask of the country to understand the role that family has played in its history.

    That role is deep and wide and lasted over half a century, and it’s still going on, though without it’s heaviest hitter. You could include the Adam’s and even the Clinton’s and Bush’s, but they are far down the poll from the impact the Kennedy’s have had, whether good, bad, or indifferent. It is unmatched in our history, AFAIK/

  14. 14.

    maya

    August 27, 2009 at 11:25 am

    Keeping expectations on the lite side, I’m just hoping we won’t be subjected to a Schwarzenegger riff. However, I did see a blurb today that Flappaquidditch got a large number of hits on teh google yesterday. Stand by.

  15. 15.

    The Grand Panjandrum

    August 27, 2009 at 11:26 am

    I’m glad I don’t watch TV anymore. I spent a couple of hours reading write ups about Kennedy. Ezra had a great post about him.

    There is an impulse to honor the dead by erasing the sharp edges of their life. To ensure they belong to all of us, and in doing, deprive them of the dignity conferred by their actual choices, their lonely stands, and their long work. But Ted Kennedy didn’t belong to all of us. He didn’t even belong to all Democrats. He was not of the party that voted for more than a trillion in unfunded tax cuts but cannot bring itself to pay for health-care reform. He was not of the party that fears the next election more than the next failure to help America’s needy. Rather, he belonged to the party of Medicare and Medicaid, the Americans With Disabilities Act and the Children’s Health Insurance Program, the Civil Rights Act and immigration reform. He belonged to the party that sought to advance the conditions and opportunities of the least among us. He was, as Harold Meyerson says, “the senior senator from Massachusetts and for all the excluded in American life.”

    Butthis one was my favorite. It says a lot about the man he became.

    Williams told us during one choir practice that he and Kennedy had been making these visits for several years, which was one reason Kennedy’s family had tapped Williams to choreograph the big gospel production at Kennedy’s birthday party. What I found touching about the story was that Williams said Kennedy’s visits to Walter Reed were never publicized. The country’s most famous senator regularly went to the run-down military hospital without the cameras to show his support for the people who had fought in a war he never supported. It was an authentic expression of patriotism and seemed to say a lot about who Kennedy was and why he will be so so sorely missed in American political life.

    No flag pins required.

  16. 16.

    Fwiffo

    August 27, 2009 at 11:26 am

    The thing is, the Kennedys actually are royalty, or the closest thing we’ll ever have in this country. They’re not practically that much different from, e.g. the British royal family. Somewhat more political power, somewhat less pomp and circumstance.

  17. 17.

    The Grand Panjandrum

    August 27, 2009 at 11:28 am

    @The Grand Panjandrum: My bad! I guess I forogt to embed the link for the second quote. Here it be.

  18. 18.

    YellowJournalism

    August 27, 2009 at 11:30 am

    I was watching HLN (Glutton for punishment? Yes.), and Chuck Roberts was talking about Kennedy. Then he goes, “Because we’re HLN, we have other important news to cover today as well, but we’ll go back to remembering Kennedy throughout the day.”

    I found the way he said it to be extremely tacky and rude, seeing as they really didn’t stop covering Jackson the weekend he died or made comments like that when they finally did go to other news stories. Have not turned that channel on since. CNN and HLN makes me want to puke, lately.

    Late last night, MSNBC aired the documentary on the Kennedy brothers done by Chris Matthews.

    I did flip to Fox a few times. O’Reilly was actually restrained during his Talking Points. Other times, Kennedy really was more of a jumping off point than the actual focus. The few minutes I was able to stomach Glenn Beck last night, he was ranting about free speech and how his show last night was the most important hour for free speech evah, so stay tuned because Rush was coming on. I flipped away before he turned the crazy up so much the knob broke off.

  19. 19.

    dww44

    August 27, 2009 at 11:31 am

    If there aren’t at least 4 or 5 official public functions to mark Teddy Kennedy’s death, as there was with Reagan, then I don’t think it will be over the top. Being the age that I am, in college when JFK was assasinated, the Kennedys seem to carry these events off with dignity and restraint. Yes, it is the passing of the era, but at least there won’t be, I hope, formal events on both coasts for days on end. Even my Republican leaning husband looked at me at one point and said “How many memorials and funerals will he have (Reagan)?

    IMO, the right can go hang itself. Nothing that happens will meet with their approval anyways. But, it just occurred to me, if the coverage thus far has been far more restrained than that about Tim Russert, then it’s probably the fear on the part of the MSM and their owners that the right will start yelling, “Liberal bias, liberal bias!” Some day soon I hope that their incessant yelling is going to wear out its welcome with the rest of the country.

  20. 20.

    wilfred

    August 27, 2009 at 11:32 am

    @Fwiffo:

    We don’t have royalty. The tendency to want it is indicative of decay in the country, in my opinion. Americans should spit in the direction of royalty and aristocrats, not long for them.

  21. 21.

    DonkeyKong

    August 27, 2009 at 11:33 am

    “It was completely understandable, because he was their friend and one of “them,” but it was still nauseating.”

    Yes, Russert was one of “them” that’s for sure. Waiting for the phone to ring in the run up to the war rather than doing his fucking job.

    He was one of them.

    Teddy, on the otherhand, was one of us.

  22. 22.

    jurassicpork

    August 27, 2009 at 11:34 am

    American Zen‘s Mike Flannigan weighs in heavily on Republican hypocrisy and moral relativism after Sen. Kennedy’s death.

  23. 23.

    SGEW

    August 27, 2009 at 11:35 am

    @General Winfield Stuck: Actually, I would argue that John and John Quincy Adams had as much of an impact as the Kennedys – it was just a long time ago.

    And what about the Roosevelt clan?

    (Of course, having comparing the Kennedys to the Roosevelts or the Adams at all says enough about their importance, no?)

  24. 24.

    J.

    August 27, 2009 at 11:35 am

    On the bright side, it means less space/room for Michael Jackson coverage.

  25. 25.

    Cat Lady

    August 27, 2009 at 11:36 am

    @General Winfield Stuck:

    Yes, this. Today I haz a sad! Back in the 60’s my MIT trained physicist uncle travelled the world. He’d come back with stamps and coins and stories of strange places, but he would always marvel that whatever little shop in whatever little godforsaken hamlet he was in, there would be a picture of JFK pinned to the wall by the cash box, carefully wrapped in plastic for posterity. That’s some legacy. Now trashed, which is where my undying contempt for Bush and Cheney originates.

  26. 26.

    RedKitten

    August 27, 2009 at 11:36 am

    and it’s not too much to ask of the country to understand the role that family has played in its history.

    So it’s not just me, then. It does seem that the death of Anna Nicole Freaking Smith got about 10 times the coverage of Teddy Kennedy’s death. Mind you, not that I’m wishing a media circus upon Teddy’s family, but it just seems really…odd.

  27. 27.

    SGEW

    August 27, 2009 at 11:36 am

    [ahem: “Of course, having to compare the Kennedys . . . “]

  28. 28.

    joes527

    August 27, 2009 at 11:36 am

    @Cat Lady: It must be an east coast thing to value dynasties like that. Sure, the individual Kennedys can be admired for their achievements … but does it really matter who sprung from whose loins and/or intermarried?

    Here on the West Coast, we have our own offshoot of the Kennedy clan married in to the Governator. She might be a swell gal in her own right, but the governor still sucks.

    More locally, the dynasty that we have is the Duncan Hunter clan. Now THERE’s an argument for term limiting whole families.

  29. 29.

    Dismayed Liberal

    August 27, 2009 at 11:39 am

    You could include the Adam’s and even the Clinton’s and Bush’s, but they are far down the poll from the impact the Kennedy’s have had, whether good, bad, or indifferent. It is unmatched in our history, AFAIK/

    I think the Roosevelt’s could give the Kennedy’s a run for the most influential family, but point taken. The Kennedy’s have had an almost unimaginable level of influence on a country the size of the US, given that they’re just one family (even if it is an Irish Catholic one that pumped out kids like Starbucks does coffee).

  30. 30.

    PeakVT

    August 27, 2009 at 11:41 am

    OT: Today’s WaPo chat participant will be an improvement.

  31. 31.

    Cat Lady

    August 27, 2009 at 11:44 am

    @joes527:

    You’re not going to get an argument from me about the value of dynasty. I’ve never been very much impressed with any of the kids.

  32. 32.

    Skepticat

    August 27, 2009 at 11:52 am

    Perhaps there’s less hysteria and hype (yes, I know, everything is relative) because Senator Kennedy’s death is hardly a surprise and he perforce has been less visible than usual for more than a year.

    As my neighbor said yesterday, now that we’ve lost it, we in Massachusetts are going to find out soon just how much power and impact the senator really had for and on the commonwealth. I hope the same isn’t true for the nation and health care reform.

  33. 33.

    General Winfield Stuck

    August 27, 2009 at 11:55 am

    @SGEW:

    Yes, the Adam’s did have a huge impact, specially since they were during the early formative years of the Republic. The Kennedy’s are in that league and like you say, that says a lot.

  34. 34.

    SGEW

    August 27, 2009 at 11:55 am

    @Skepticat:

    Perhaps there’s less hysteria and hype (yes, I know, everything is relative) because Senator Kennedy’s death is hardly a surprise and he perforce has been less visible than usual for more than a year.

    Agreed. For me, the really tragic news was when I heard about the brain tumor. The terminal news of his passing came almost as a final, poignant note in a sad song.

  35. 35.

    ThatLeftTurnInABQ

    August 27, 2009 at 12:32 pm

    One of the things which struck me from watching the Kennedy bios on TV last night was that this is the end of an era in another sense – that JFK and RFK and Ted came out of an era when the northeast and Massachusetts in particular was one of the dominant cultural hearths in our nation in a way that it just isn’t any more. The big deal made about Ted and the nostalgia of sailing really brought that home. We used to be more of an oceanic nation, coming out of the era of 19th century mercantile trade which built so many of the great fortunes from that era. So many of our movers and shakers used to have salt water running in their veins, but more recently oil has replaced that. We went from being a sailing nation to a petroleum nation.

  36. 36.

    D-Chance.

    August 27, 2009 at 1:21 pm

    That sounds about right. From the very little I saw, Shep Smith opened with TMK (making sure to mention you know where), then on to other news; while CNN was airing a “Teddy In His Own Words” hagiography, loaded with black-and-whites from the mystical, magical, mythological era of so-called “Camelot”… an era in which TMK was strangely enough the most minor of characters.

    I’m not sure that MSNBC and CNN are reporting TMK’s death so much as they’re waxing nostalgic for the era of his brothers’ triumphs and promises.

  37. 37.

    Wa-F

    August 27, 2009 at 1:56 pm

    I agree. The media coverage once somebody important or famous dies can really go overboard. Just look at how some media outlets are still devoting entire segments to news of Michael Jackson. I think that there is a fine line between honoring the life and accomplishments of an important person and simply covering what is popular in order to achieve more ratings. Sadly, I think that the funeral coverage and later news will lean towards the latter.

  38. 38.

    JenJen

    August 27, 2009 at 2:04 pm

    The Russert coverage was just ridiculous. He was a TV host, and that’s all he was. His death was unexpected, which is what made it especially newsworthy, but after a day of that, it really should’ve been enough.

    I have a dear friend who is convinced that we’re living in a simulation. Some of his arguments have been compelling, especially as the country got really, really weird between 2001 and 2005. But he was always kidding; it was just a way to explain away the strange.

    Until The Russert Rainbow, which is when I went full-in. We are living in a simulation. :-)

    http://www.flickr.com/photos/curiouslee/2591737594/

  39. 39.

    Bruce (formerly Steve S.)

    August 27, 2009 at 4:27 pm

    1 PM Pacific time and CNN/MSNBC are following his corpse being driven around (FOX to a lesser extent). Regardless of your political affiliation, if you think that watching a corpse being driven around in a car is the slightest bit fruitful or interesting then there is no hope for you. Pardon me while I switch to the Paint-Drying Channel.

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