The 24-Hour News Cycle

With the dawn of 24-hour news cycle and the instant ‘Tweet’ reporters need a new story every five minutes and, it turns out, even a Republican Primary with nineteen candidates and Donald Trump, all talking at once, can’t fill the bill.

The reporters need more so they’re straining to turn Hillary versus Bernie Sanders into a story: The other morning I heard a reporter breathlessly talking on the radio about how Bernie Sanders is drawing the biggest crowds anyone ever saw and how he’s surging and gaining on Hillary but the candidate I remember who drew the biggest crowds was George McGovern who lost to Richard Nixon in a landslide.

Of course, the reporters know or should know that even the Democrats aren’t crazy enough to nominate a Socialist and that a few thousand ultra-liberals enjoying themselves at a Sanders’ rally isn’t a political earthquake – but, still, they need a story and until something better comes along they’ll make do with Bernie Sanders.

Which is an undeserved blessing for Sanders but, at the same time, the 24-hour news cycle is nothing if not fickle – with fiction following fiction – until, ironically, this morning’s undeserved blessing turns into this afternoon’s unexpected grief.

‘Sanders Surges’ is a fine story to fill the news cycle but the next story reporters latch onto (to fuel their Neilson Ratings) may be ‘Amazing Comeback by Hillary.’

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Carter Wrenn

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The 24-Hour News Cycle

With the dawn of 24-hour news cycle and the instant ‘Tweet’ reporters need a new story every five minutes and, it turns out, even a Republican Primary with nineteen candidates and Donald Trump, all talking at once, can’t fill the bill.

The reporters need more so they’re straining to turn Hillary versus Bernie Sanders into a story: The other morning I heard a reporter breathlessly talking on the radio about how Bernie Sanders is drawing the biggest crowds anyone ever saw and how he’s surging and gaining on Hillary but the candidate I remember who drew the biggest crowds was George McGovern who lost to Richard Nixon in a landslide.

Of course, the reporters know or should know that even the Democrats aren’t crazy enough to nominate a Socialist and that a few thousand ultra-liberals enjoying themselves at a Sanders’ rally isn’t a political earthquake – but, still, they need a story and until something better comes along they’ll make do with Bernie Sanders.

Which is an undeserved blessing for Sanders but, at the same time, the 24-hour news cycle is nothing if not fickle – with fiction following fiction – until, ironically, this morning’s undeserved blessing turns into this afternoon’s unexpected grief.

‘Sanders Surges’ is a fine story to fill the news cycle but the next story reporters latch onto (to fuel their Neilson Ratings) may be ‘Amazing Comeback by Hillary.’

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Carter Wrenn

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