The 21st century news media loves a controversy, particularly when an issue or event can be set up as a point/counterpoint type happening — someone on the right faces off against someone on the left…the words fly…the charges are hurled..partisans on each side diss the opposite side while they effusively praise and conduct CYA for their own side.
Tomorrow, the media culture’s favorite happening will reach its apex, as President Barack Obama gives a speech on national security and is followed 45 minutes later by former Vice President Dick Cheney giving a speech, too. And, on cable TV, at least, both will be given live coverage:
Looks like Dick Cheney’s big national security speech at the American Enterprise Institute tomorrow is going to get wall-to-wall cable coverage — giving a major assist to those who hope that his speech will be seen as “dueling” with the one that Obama is planning to give on the same topic tomorrow.
Both CNN and MSNBC will be carrying Cheney’s speech live tomorrow, in addition to carrying Obama’s, spokespeople for both networks confirm to me, barring the intrusion of some major news event. Fox News will certainly be all over the Cheney speech tomorrow — a major cataclysm couldn’t tear them away from such a big moment. So that means roadblocked cable coverage for Cheney.
Obama is set to deliver his big speech on national security at 10 A.M. Cheney’s is set to follow at 10:45. Politico framed the story of tomorrow’s speeches in advance in a piece called: “Barack Obama, Dick Cheney plan dueling speeches.”
This, naturally, raised some hackles on the left, where people pointed out that Obama is the Commander in Chief, meaning his national security views have real-world significance, while Dick Cheney is a private citizen who only has his reputation at stake.
No matter. It’s the kind of story that for the new and old media is like a kid being not just given the keys to the candy shop, but given a week to go inside of it and even sleep there. It will be instant CONTROVERSY (unless Obama frames his words to defuse an anticipated Cheney attack on Obama’s administration and, by implication, Obama’s dedication to combating terrorism or even his being a “real” American).
And how can the media pass it up? What a line up. First the President, a commander-in-chief who has helped his party achieve parity with the GOP on the Republican’s once-advantageous national security issue — and then Cheney, who has either been defending his legacy, indulging in partisan demonization, or is genuinely concerned about the path taken by the Obama administration (choose what you know is the truth according to your own political preference).
The key will be: will the coverage center on the substance of ideas? Or will it be a he said/he said kind of day?
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.