From The Guardian UK: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jan/13/west-virginia-chemical-spill-versus-bridgegate
Sadly, the West Virginia spill just isn’t as interesting for the media and public as the Chris Christie revenge conspiracy. It should be
Ana Marie Cox
theguardian.com, Monday 13 January 2014
If we called West Virginia 4-methylcyclohexane-methanol leak “Watergate”, do you think the political press would pay more attention?
Hours of cable news time and thousands of words have been spent in search of what “Bridgegate” means for Chris Christie. An equal and opposite amount of energy has been poured into an examination of what the Christie situation means for Obama.
Meanwhile, in West Virginia, there are 300,000 people without useable water, and an unknown number who may fall ill because the warning to avoid the tainted supply came seven hours after the leak was discovered – and perhaps weeks after it happened. (Neighbors of the plant have told reporters they detected the chemical’s odor in December.)
Complaining about desperate news coverage is to call foul on a game that is actually just playing by a different set of rules. I know that. I know, too, that there’s no organized conspiracy, nor even any vague ill will, involved in how it came to be that Bridgegate continues to attract punditry while West Virginia only generates the kind of sympathetic-if-distant coverage we usually grant far-off and not too devastating natural disasters.
Bridgegate is just sexier; it features big personalities and a bold storyline. It gives reporters a chance to show off a range of pop culture references (The Sopranos, Bruce, assorted other Twitticisms!). It is taking place in the literal backyard of most national political reporters. It has very little to do with policy, or numbers, or science. Perhaps best of all, to opine about Bridgegate is to engage in a punditry wager with little or no cost, since 2016 is so very far away. Write that it’s the end of Christie’s career! Write that he’ll be fine! No one is keeping score (truth be told, even when people keep score in punditry, nothing bad happens to the losers).
Journalists can further excuse their myopia about the lane closure controversy with the notion that they’re just giving the public what they want. The story is “breaking through” because everyone can identify with those poor stuck commuters: “Traffic is a huge deal,” as one writer put it. That may be the case, but don’t even more people drink water?
Continue reading at: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jan/13/west-virginia-chemical-spill-versus-bridgegate
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