Remember a couple years ago when there were barbie dolls marketed to girls, and they came with a pull string that when you pulled on it the doll would issue some statement. One of the statements was “Math class is tough!,” and people were rightly pissed off. That’s kind of how I feel about the entire press corps right about now, particularly after reading this:
President Obama sometimes forgets that an important speech does not have to be endless. On Thursday, appearing before supporters at a Cleveland community college, he spent 53 minutes on the stark contrast between his goals and the failed Bush-era policies that Mitt Romney is trying to resurrect. It’s hard to imagine that the speech, overgrown as it was with policy details, won the hearts of many independent voters yearning for a clear understanding of how much is at stake in November.
OMG! HE SPOKE FOR 50 MINUTES. LISTENING IS TOUGH.
Fifty minutes is about the same amount of time as your average high school or college lecture, but we’re being told by the media that it’s just too hard for Americans to sit and listen about one of the more important choices they have to make in their lives. No, it appears that our media would rather politicians stick to five minute speeches packed with lies (they make better sound bites), rather than 50 minutes of being treated like an adult.
El Cid
Yeah, but what if the Beltway press is waiting for the luncheon or snacks which follow? That’s, like, a loooong time when you’re really hungry.
trollhattan
“You know who else gave long speeches…”
(Somebody had to.)
dr. bloor
If you’re not ready for it, you’re not ready for it.
dr. bloor
@El Cid: Maybe Obama should stop giving speeches just before lunch period.
Martin
Running the country shouldn’t require more than 3 pages.
Brachiator
@trollhattan:
Castro? Hugo Chavez?
New Rule: If you can’t deliver a political stump speech as a Twitter post, it shouldn’t be given at all.
On the other hand, newspapers and news magazines keep shrinking. Pretty soon a single speech will take up the entire print issue.
Also, too. Journalist Hack Barbie: Reportifying is hard.
Hunter Gathers
People will watch hours of American Idol every week, 6 hours of football on Sundays in the fall, pay 10 bucks for a 2 hour movie but a 50 minute speech is too long.
Dear MSM – just call him an uppity nigger and get it over with. It might get you invited to one of Sally Quinn’s 3 hour dinner parties.
taylormattd
Yup. The media is the worst problem facing the country, period. We have no hope until they are fixed.
Steve
The classic example of the genre was Clinton’s 1999 SOTU, which was heavy on policy and extremely well-received by the electorate, but universally panned by the media for being way too long. They used to do the same thing when Gore would hold long town halls where he would answer everyone’s questions. Fundamentally, these people are just lazy and would prefer you just give them a sound bite so they can send in their story and go have a beer.
Splitting Image
They’re not kidding when they say they don’t want to be lectured to.
ornery_curmudgeon
@taylormattd: The media is the worst problem facing the country, period.
Agreed … they are corporate owned working for a corporate agenda, and folks make endless excuses for their behavior.
Monkey Business
I know people that work as reporters, and they work insanely hard.
Notably, none of them are Washington political reporters, who I’m convinced are literally the laziest people on the planet Earth.
arguingwithsignposts
@trollhattan: Lincoln and Douglas?
pseudonymous in nc
Shorter political media: we have the attention span of mayflies-OMGtwitter.
MikeBoyScout
So much FAIL in so few words!
Let’s review!
1. Mind reading! President Obama sometimes forgets
2. Mixed metaphors! overgrown as it was with policy details
3. Romance! won the hearts of
4. Even MORE mind reading! many independent voters yearning
Better opinions were written by my Junior High School newspaper.
mouse tolliver
It was surreal yesterday to watch the speech live and hear the audience’s enthusiastic response, and then to see Jonathan Alter’s Debbie Downer reaction, calling it a failure. WTF? But then these are the same people who call the Bain Capital attacks a misstep even though polling suggests the Bain strategy is working.
Ruviana
John, it’s creeping old age I guess but that “Math is tough” Barbie thing happened in 1992! /pedant
ETA: Sheesh! It’s even in your link!
the Conster
This country has become too stupid to live. I think all the evidence is in. Sorry youngsters – I had such high hopes for my boomer cohort, but instead we ate everything in sight, including the seed corn, and are now walking our fat asses around with our middle fingers held high yelling IGMFY, with the FAIL media getting our backs because we’re #1, because shut up that’s why. WTF.
The Snarxist Formerly Known As Kryptik
Policy stuffs is too hard, better to pretend Obama personally pushed a button that made everyone’s lives absolutely rotten and that Romney would never press that button as Prez.
Mark S.
Oddly, the second to last paragraph makes your point:
But then it’s back to “The speech was too long!”
Roy G.
These corporate-political fluffers are blowing their cover. They yearn to be famous entertainers, and ‘reporter’ is just a role in the Beltway passion play – replacing/augmenting the traditional Fool’s role in the King’s Court.
It’s what the geriatric dead media audience wants, after all.
Felanius Kootea
But they also said this, John:
and this
The NYTimes pointing out that Willard Fucking Mitt Romney is a *habitual liar* is fantastic in my book, even if they beat up Obama a little.
Yutsano
@Mark S.: BOTH SIDES DO IT!! OPINIONS DIFFER!! MUST HAVE BALANCE!! WHERE’S MY TIRE SWING??
Mike E
Now, if he had forced participants to sign loyalty oaths and/or beat dissenters, then he would’ve gotten some journo respect. Amirite?
Davis X. Machina
@arguingwithsignposts: Audiences stood, and the speakers spoke without amplification.
There were giants in the earth in those days.
arguingwithsignposts
Gitmo for Pundits!
Keith
Speeches will be long when your opponent’s plan for America is “the opposite of what the other guy is doing and double what the previous guy did”
El Cid
BOOOOOORING! There are too many words in this post!
gwangung
I think this is of a piece with the reaction to the 2008 debates. The punditry has a dis-connect with the population and has absolutely no idea of what connects with them or not.
rlrr
“Numbers suck. There are too many of them.”
— the media
Davis X. Machina
@Davis X. Machina: You can get recordings of the whole series of debates, with Stephen Douglas read by Richard Dreyfus, and Lincoln read by David Strathairn
The Snarxist Formerly Known As Kryptik
Shorter Press Corp: “OBAMA IS ELITIST BECAUSE HE SPEAKS TO US LIKE ADULTS! WE WANNA BE TREATED LIKE CHILDREN, DADDY!”
trollhattan
@arguingwithsignposts:
Speaking of…Gary Wills’ “Lincoln at Gettysburg” is a worthwhile consideration of Lincoln’s brief remarks (very unusual for the times) compared to Edward Everett’s two-hour oration immediately before.
The DVRs of the day could scarcely store ten minutes of standard-definition video, so were a good match to the Lincoln speech.
Scott S.
In my darker moments — which are, frankly, almost all my moments these days — I fantasize about how great it would be to round up all the pundits and national political reporters and pull a Nitocris on them.
Gretchen
I waited in line for several hours to hear Obama speak in Kansas City in 2008. After my substantial time investment, if he’d breezed in and talked for 15 minutes before breezing out, I would have felt cheated. He gave a nice long speech that was worth the wait. I was pretty far away, though, because lots and lots of people got there before me. The crowd estimate was 20,000.
amk
can’t tweet a 50 min speech.
What buncha moronic twits.
American fourth estate is their fifth columnists.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Hunter Gathers: And you might get to pinch her on the butt.
arguingwithsignposts
“There are, in fact, only so many notes an ear can hear in the course of an evening.”
quannlace
I think today’s press corps prefers political speeches as Jeff Goldblum’s character describes the length of a People magazine story. “No longer than a person can read during an average crap.”
Ugh, Obama make brain hurt!
amk
@Scott S.: Much easier to line them up and put the second amendment to some good use finally.
quannlace
I think today’s press corps prefers political speeches as Jeff Goldblum’s character in the ‘Big Chill’ describes the length of a People magazine story. “No longer than a person can read during an average crap.”
Ugh, Obama make brain hurt!
Soo
I totally agree with you John, but the question is, are they right. Yes, a young adult should be able to/want to sit and listen to a Presidential speech that lasted not even an hour, but if they aren’t, and that’s who Obama’s target public is in the speech, he failed. If Obama wants to inspire young adults to vote he has to speak to them in a way in which they will listen as opposed to how they should listen. It’s a point worth considering.
That said, I couldn’t bear to sit through W’s shortest of speeches, and I’m no kid.
different-church-lady
They are in full-tilt Heathers mode. No meme will go unshared.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Ruviana: Yes, and if you were born the year that came out, this will be your first presidential election and second national election to vote in.
CVS
Even 5 minutes is too long. They would rather he speak in phrases no longer than 140 characters.
Davis X. Machina
@Soo: Young people are no more intrinsically unable, or intrinsically able, to listen to speeches long or short. Audience adaptation is only part of rhetoric, not the entirety of it, and the the audience in the seats in front of you isn’t always the audience you’re addressing.
Forum Transmitted Disease
@Scott S.: That’s pretty good. For poetic justice purposes I’d prefer a sewage lagoon, but, y’know, whatever works and is handy.
amk
@Soo: You mean that he should dumb it down with ‘I am like’ ‘whatever’ ‘dude’ catch-phrases? He is raising the fucking bar. How about fucking meeting it instead of indulging in juvenile stuff ?
pseudonymous in nc
@Gretchen:
This is an important point. When I saw Obama in 2008, it was an all-day wait, under the sun, with a huge crowd. The campaign hacks arrive on the bus around the same time as the candidate, not the advance party: they’re experiencing a very different event.
Scott S.
@amk: Ah, but a nice slow drowning, preferably filmed so it could be shown to other reporters as a lesson about Why Punditing Is Bad — that would be quite nice. I want to be able to watch it while dining, and shootings are just over too quickly.
@Soo: I don’t think young people have a problem with Obama’s speeches. The ones whining about them are the middle-aged pundits.
kd bart
If it’s not a poll or surface crap, the MSM is not interested.
Linda Featheringill
I suspect that these “independent voters” are not truly the center of the universe. Sometimes, some things are directed towards others.
I’m a member of Obama’s base and I found the speech to be very encouraging, as I noted in previous threads.
In this speech, Obama expressed clearly that certain specific efforts really could make the US better for those who follow us. These efforts involve investment in education, communication, energy, and infrastructure. It is possible to devote the needed work and money to these projects if we can create an amenable political situation.
So the task for this old war horse is two-fold: try to get more sane and intelligent people into elected offices and then express my support for the projects listed above.
I can do that. There is no need for me to despair.
Edited because I’m forgetful. :-)
Johnny Gentle (famous crooner)
Give the media a break. 53 minutes is way too long for Mark Halperin to convert it into a listicle.
muddy
There were so many things wrong with the Bush regime, I’m surprised he was able to give an overview in that small amount of time.
Chris
Half of the media: “Obama doesn’t have a plan”. Other half of the media: “Obama gives too many policy details”.
The Snarxist Formerly Known As Kryptik
@Scott S.:
Unfortunately and tragically, guess who has more clout in Washington?
amk
@Scott S.:
Good point. Most of the Obama crowds is yung’uns and many seem rapt.
muddy
@Felanius Kootea:
Too bad they don’t report that the reason millions of Americans believe this stuff is that the media continually spoons this pablum up as a genuine controverst. It’s not like Willard is telling millions of us these lies personally.
Marcellus Shale, Public Dick
the length of the speech was one thing, i was looking for something more. something policy wise that helps in the meantime and ties the obama re-election to congress.
something substantive and bold. like a second stim and a permanent end to debt ceiling debates. some krug-life.
i want to see the dems put it all out there.
jl
No, sorry Cole, the press corps is correct, if you see the world they do
“Debt crisis! You have to make hard choices! No medicare and you work to you drop. I feel your pain. But hard choices. If the rich don’t get all the money things will be worse because Science. I promise to do what Grover says because bipartisan compromise. I am sorry.”
That takes about a minute.
jl
@Felanius Kootea: Thanks for pointing that out. After reading the Milbank dreck, I didn’t read this link, but should have. If the NYT is getting the guts to call out Romney that is good. I think my previous comment is accurate about what people will hear from 90 percent of the pundits on TV and radio, though.
Mnemosyne (iTouch)
I am convinced the reason the press loved W and McCain so much was that they were comfortably certain that they were smarter than both candidates. But Obama and Hillary Clinton made them feel dumb and made it obvious to them that they were not nearly as smart and savvy as they wanted to believe.
That’s why they hate Obama, and Gore, and both Clintons. They hate to be reminded that they’re not nearly as smart as they tell themselves they are.
muddy
@Soo:
I don’t think that’s a valid point at all. The audience was really into it, you could hear them. And it’s something people have gone to voluntarily, they went there wanting to hear him speak. Where do you get the idea that they didn’t listen, or didn’t want to listen, except for the media slant?
He did not fail. The media failed to report it properly.
redshirt
Dear Mr. President. There are too many states today. Please eliminate ten of them.
R-Jud
@arguingwithsignposts: Curse you, you beat me to it!
artem1s
It seemed a bit long and repetitive to me on the Rethug failure bit. But considering I don’t need a primer on what the GOP has been up to the last 30 years, that only makes sense. The students at Cuyahoga Community College are mostly low to middle class urban kids who barely remember anything about the Clinton administration outside of the blue dress. Their parents probably mostly voted for Bill to get rid of George I and the horrible economy in a state once considered recession proof.
I really don’t care what the Village thought, the people who were there and those who get their video feeds via the Obama campaign (that’s where I got mine) got the message. This President isn’t afraid presenting the complexities of an issue even if the media gets all butthurt and whingy. He made it very clear that turnout is everything in this election. And that message got through to people who needed to hear it – those who will be organizing at the grass roots level.
metricpenny
The acronym formed from the title of this post describes our MSM perfectly. DUD.
dud /dʌd/[duhd] noun
1. a device, person, or enterprise that proves to be a failure.
Cluttered Mind
@taylormattd: I am fully in favor of “fixing” the Media. The whole Village, really. The only thing worse than they are is their horrifying offspring (see: Luke Russert and contemporaries)
gogol's wife
@jl:
The Times is divided against itself. The editorial page tends to be the most pro-Obama, but they also concern-troll him from the left while the rest of the paper concern-trolls him from the right. But there have been some good investigative pieces on Romney (pretty much all of which Politico has complained about for being unfair), so it’s a mixed bag.
Culture of Truth
The press almost universally declared teh Gettysburg address an epic fail.
asiangrrlMN
@Scott S.: Dude. She’s badass. I’d never heard of her. Thanks!
I find the Villagers useful for one reason – they get it exactly wrong every fucking time.
Mino
FOLKS! He didn’t release the text of the speech ahead of time.
FlipYrWhig
I really, really hate the way very rich, very self-contented media people project their own preferences onto those of “independent voters.” It’s like how on HGTV all the realtors will walk through ugly rooms and say, “The buyers won’t like it.” No, you mean YOU don’t like it. Stop fobbing off your wishes on everyone else. What pundits want is not what the people want.
Soo
@muddy: @63. I’m sorry. I didn’t think we were talking about the people in the audience. I thought we were talking about the people watching it via other means. Of course the audience was in rapt attention. But Obama already has those votes. What I wonder is how many young adults outside of the room actually watched the entire speech, be it on TV or the net. And that information is valuable to know as if they are not watching it, and having them watch it is his goal, then, yes, from a PR perspective, it is a fail.
FlipYrWhig
@artem1s: On Lawrence O’Donnell there was a great exchange between an African American Ohio state senator and Joe Klein about how well Obama was connecting with Ohioans. Klein was doing the usual “Obama message FAIL” thing where you complain that people don’t know what he’s done because he didn’t do it right (as opposed to the media not telling them). The state senator was so impatient with Klein… It was gratifying to see.
FlipYrWhig
@Soo: At this point no one watches whole speeches ever, so, by your standard, every speech ever given is a massive communications failure.
slag
Second verse same as the first. This is what they always always always say when Obama gives an intelligent speech. I read mistermix’s summary of the Village take on the speech this AM and didn’t really care enough to go listen (it all seemed so predictable!). But then, after I read Dan Savage’s take:
wherein Dan kindly posted the video and made it easy for me to listen to the speech, I listened.
In short, that speech must have been aimed more at people like me than at those in the Village. I liked it a lot; Dan Savage seemed to like it a lot. The Villagers didn’t like it. Second verse same as the first.
Culture of Truth
If there are two things beltway journalists know, it’s complex economic theory, and what average blue collar independents from the heartland are thinking.
slag
@Soo:
He doesn’t just need their votes. He needs their work. And in order to get that, he needs to get them enthusiastic. He needs my work; he needs to get me enthusiastic. He needs Dan Savage’s work; he needs to get Dan Savage enthusiastic. If he keeps this level of clarity and vision in his communication up, he’s on his way to succeeding, as far as I am concerned.
FlipYrWhig
Oh, also, in light of John’s OP, it’s kind of funny that the media loves to kvetch about the need for higher academic standards, and then can’t be bothered to sit still for less than an hour without stroking their devices in boredom. And also tweeting.
karen marie
I listened to yesterday’s speech via livestream, and I thought it was swell. He said a lot of things explicitly I’ve been hoping to hear from him. Was it really 53 minutes? It didn’t feel that long to me.
The “professional” commentary on it, in my opinion, is all wet. As I listened, I kept thinking he can’t possibly lose in November if he sticks to this theme.
gelfling545
@MikeBoyScout:
Mine too, but then, Tim Russert was the editor.
Sly
Most high school teachers don’t lecture for anywhere close to 50 minutes, and for good reason: extended lecture hardly ever works for that target audience.
A high school teacher who lectures for a full class period is not doing a very good job. The dilemma is, in a class with 25 or so students, you’re basic task is to minimize the extent to which you’re boring the students who like the subject and want to participate, and not confuse the students who don’t like it and are trying to distract themselves with something different. Lecture is a very ineffective means of threading that needle because, very often, you’ll lose both sides of the audience.
And given the choice between lecturing for 50+ minutes and doing something different, like a seminar, most college professors and students would choose the latter. Long lecture periods with 50 or more students are an expedient, and not a very good one. Professors who like it probably just prefer to imagine themselves as a “sage on a stage,” i.e. they just want to hear themselves talk about a subject they like. College students who prefer extended lectures are likely just looking for a nap time.
Having said all that, the people who attended that speech wanted to be there. The people who will watch it online or on TV will do so because they want to hear what he has to say. That’s something you don’t generally get with lecture audiences.
Mike E
@FlipYrWhig: What sucked about that was how L.O’D. let Klein poop all over that segment without any moderation. I s’pose it’s a “balance” thang…
EdTheRed
Now let’s forget our troubles with a big bowl of strawberry ice cream!
Jay in Oregon
@Hunter Gathers:
You beat me to it.
How much virtual ink was spilled dissecting any given episode of Lost? How many people spent hours upon hours crunching the numbers to improve their threat generation or DPS/HPS in World of Warcraft?
But figuring out that taking a smaller percentage of a smaller amount of revenue via taxes does not mean that the government gets more money is too tough? Or that a consumption-based economy contracts when people have to spend less money (or spend more money on fewer things)?
FlipYrWhig
@Mike E: Well, I’m sure Klein and O’Donnell are part of the same social circle, and an African American state-level politician certainly isn’t. But I enjoyed her reaction. Just being able to see the look on her face was a great rejoinder to all the Klein/Alter/Wolffe/Heilmann segments that clog up MSNBC, where you immediately know exactly what they’re going to say.
VincentN
@Soo:
If that’s the standard then Obama should have spoken for 5 minutes. Of course the press would have then slammed him for giving a short speech and not going into enough details about his plans for the future.
Soo, who is the audience that you think Obama is talking to? It’s not the apolitical or non-political because they wouldn’t listen to a speech of any length. The audience would be people who are interested in politics and are therefore interested in details and the people who support Obama and want to be reassured that he has a vision for the future.
The independent young people with short attention spans you’re concerned about may not listen to the whole speech but they could still get the highlights off of political blogs (or the news if the mass media actually did their jobs).
NCSteve
@arguingwithsignposts: Somewhere, Lincoln weeps over the degenerate state of our democracy.
Douglas probably does too, but he was the 19th Century equivalent of a Sensible Centrist Very Serious Person, so, frankly his metaphorical ghostly tears mean nothing to me.
sharl
You people who are unsatisfied with major media clearly aren’t paying attention to the right sources. Here’s my recent find; he is unavailable for some stretches, but when he’s in, HE’S ON! What follows is some of his typical work, from a June 7 talk in front of some students:
amk
@FlipYrWhig: Soo sounds like a troll. Let’s not waste time.
Foregone Conclusion
Just about the whole ‘young people have no patience with anything longer than three-and-a-half minutes’ thing, a few facts to ponder:
Some of the most popular TV series among the 18-35 age bracket in the past decade have been things which require extended concentration (e.g. Game of Thrones, The Wire).
Also, compared to the 1960s, today’s songs – even pop – is looong. Consider the fact that very few Beatles’ songs were past the three minute mark before Sgt. Pepper, and compare to the length of the average pop song today. You might argue that the content is crap, but they’re undoubtedly longer.
And, of course, young people are quite happy to sit down for perhaps two and a half hours to watch a film.
So, perhaps it’s not the content which is the problem, it’s the message? But then again, Obama didn’t seem to have a problem attracting under-30s in 2008.
If people want to listen, they aren’t put off by length (well, certainly not something under an hour).
Enhanced Voting Techniques
“when there were barbie dolls marketed to girls, and they came with a pull string that when you pulled on it the doll would issue some statement. One of the statements was “Math class is tough!,” and people were rightly pissed off. ”
My girl friend’s dad worked on them for Matel. The prototypes would say things like “Ohh, your’ hands are cold!” “Hi there big spender”
jenn
@Davis X. Machina: Seriously?! I am so looking for that!
Vince
@taylormattd: By fixed you mean spayed and neutered, right?
Turgidson
Jesus, the idiots can’t even decide WHY they hated Obama’s speech. I’ve read in several other places that it had no new ideas and was just a rehash of other speeches.
But the axiom seems to be “if Obama did something, it must have suxored!!!”
Bring on the meteor.