Fundamentals of Interactive Journalism

I live-blogged from 9:04 MCT (that’s my computer time) till 10:32 MCT.  Highlights are here; full commentary on my personal blog, SeeMurphy.  Final comments are about Michelle Obama in that hip-hugging dress.  I’m still making up my mind about writing like this… it’s fun for me.  But, is it fun or helpful for you, the reader? [UPDATE: Joe the plumber is real. But he's not a licensed plumber. And his name isn't Joe.]

9:04: McCain, Americans are innocent victims of Wall Street greed.  Really? It’s never helpful, if you’re a grown-up, for others to absolve you when even you know you’ve been wrong.

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9:08: McCain’s looking into the camera after asking Obama a question about increasing Joe the Plumber’s taxes.  I don’t really want the candidate to tell me what they’re gonna do for me.  I want them to talk to each other.
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9:11: Is Joe the plumber a real person? Hi Joe.  Betcha wish you had a name like Barack now, huh.

9:13: Ask McCain how we’re going to pay off the trillion dollar national debt if we don’t raise taxes?

9:14: “Living beyond our means”–that’s 2008’s most memorable phrase

9:15: Schieffer means business.  Just cut in on Obama not answering fast enough on which programs he’ll cut.
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9:19: Obama sounds like he actually reads the reports that come across his table.  Earmarks account for 1/2 of 1% of the budget? Or was that 1/2 of .1% of the budget?  Either way, the man reads!
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9:20: My roommate just said, “McCain’s getting very sassy.” In response to McCain telling Obama if he wanted to run against G Bush, he should’ve run against him 4 years ago.

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9:24: McCain’s environmental record.  One of the “positives” Obama has is that he has no record for me to look back and say, No, you didn’t.  McCain doesn’t have that luxury.
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9:25: McCain, stop talking about the doggone town hall debates… “we could’ve done 10 of ‘em by now.”  Jeez, you sound like a stood up date.
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9:29: This is a vigorous debate? Obama, get outta here with that.
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9:30: OK McCain, stop with the Obama spending more money on negative ads.  He’s got more money to spend.  It’s the percentages that count.

9:31: Oooh, wow, “When my name was mentioned… people saying stuff like “Terrorist” and “Kill me.” That’s Obama talking! Schieffer: ask Obama what it’s like to hear this?  What it’s been like for how he explains it to his daughters?
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9:38: “Those are the people, Dems and Repubs who have shaped my ideas…” — Obama

9:39: McCain, let it go.  What can you win with the Ayers and ACORN link?
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9:41: See this week’s New Yorker interview on how Biden came to accept the VP offer.

9:45: McCain, “We’re seeing Iraqis uniting as Iraqis…” — Huh?

9:46: Obama comes across like he’s thinking on the spot and processing information in place.  McCain comes across like he’s giving talking points.

9:47: McCain, Where’re you planning to build those 45 nuclear plants?

9:48: This debate is setting up some measurements for success in 2012.  How much has the country reduced its dependence on foreign oil? is one.
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9:53: I’m checking out TNC’s live-blogging too

9:53: I’m drifting.  I heard “Peruvian” and now I’m listening at “automakers.”

9:55: Obama’s cracking up at McCain’s “sitting down without preconditions” line.  Like, full mouthed toothy grin.  Hilarious.
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10:00: McCain, We’re back to Joe again!  Dang, what about Latisha? And Hakim?  Mike!

10:00: Obama, “I’m happy to talk to you too Joe if you’re out there.” LOL.  Obama’s not a disser. He’s a smart-ass.

10:03: Now McCain’s talking to Joe.  Joe’s a star!  Go Joe!  First of all, how many Joe’s are there out there?  That ‘Joe’ tactic works if that type’s in the overwhelming majority but what happens if he’s not.  McCain and Obama, by going along with McCain’s thread, are leaving out a lot of people.
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10:12: God, I’ve heard enough about the abortion stuff.  If we’re talking about Supreme Court, a question for McCain would be, how can you in good conscience appoint someone who disagrees with the beliefs of most American women?  For Obama, how can you be feel comfortable nominating liberal justices when most of the country is likely moderate or conservative?

10:17: I also like Ambinder’s live-blogging

10:18: Dude, I stopped listening 5 minutes ago.

10:18: McCain, since when do the worse performing schools get the most money?  For New Yorkers, Brownsville gets more money per student than Westchester?  I agree that throwing money at the problem isn’t the only answer but this annoyed me.
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10:26: McCain’s sarcasm is unattractive.  Did I say that because I’m a woman? I bet there’s gonna be a poll asking that question and giving a gender breakdown of the responses.
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10:30: “Go vote now, it’ll make you feel big and strong.” Schieffer.

10:32: Before I sign off, Dahhhhhh-mmmmmm, Michelle in that dress.  And I’m straight!

END PLAY

In the last week, journalists and opinionators have been talking up some variant of the question: How will blacks react if Barack Obama loses?  My response: Does it matter?

Supporters listen to Obama at a town-hall event in McKeesport, Pa. ( Matthew Cavanaugh/EPA-Corbis)

Our economy is in fetal position.  In two presidential debates–the shining examples of transparency and access that they were–both candidates avoided the word, sacrifice, like its very utterance would pox the American consumer.  The word doesn’t jive with our other national pasttime but folks in Indiana, for example, have been sacrificing for a minute now.

Compared to Indiana Joe Sixpack, at least the New York Times’ Everyman still has the normalcy of his genteel fears.  Really, when are the genteel not scared of something?  Millions of Americans have been complaining for years, of: losing their one car; making the false choice between health care for themselves or their children; declining wages; a disappearing job market, much less a disappearing job; affording college.  With the nation in triage, the NYT’s Everyman worry seems quaint by comparison.

And so does, at least as reported by Newsweek, TIME, and the Washington Post and discussed in the black blogosphere, a racialized preoccupation with an Obama loss.  This isn’t the 1960s.  While race is a factor, it’s not the underlying tension feeding the nation’s partisan rancor.  I’d venture that the only color that rational voters care about these days, is, green–especially as it relates to health care, jobs and Iraq and Afghanistan.

Instead, recent media coverage of the “What if” question favors the more romantic narrative arc of “the children of slaves,” “firehoses and police dogs” and “rising hopes, finally.”  Cue the cliffhanging score by Spike Lee’s favorite composer Terence Blanchard, please.  Will rioting follow? Will whites be proven as racists after all?  Will blacks fall en masse into a depressive swoon never to recover again?  I can’t help but feel like a desire for drama is partially influencing how media is framing a Barack Obama loss.

And I get it.  Great story.  Great story.  But is the made-for-TV-movie “children of slaves” narrative obscuring more than it reveals?  Real life, certainly, isn’t that simple.  More than that though, based on the issues driving this election cycle and historical moment, why does black reaction to an Obama loss matter?

What are other ways for journalists to cover the “What if Obama loses?” question?

Is the “children of slaves” angle the only way to cover race while answering that question?

If you’re gassy from the hot air that’s Blimping out a super long election season, last night’s SNL skit offered much-needed relief.  (Tell me that Tina Fey’s nasal north-of-Fargo accent isn’t a dead-ringer for Sarah Palin’s Alaskan drone?)

As I was cracking up on my couch though, it struck me that conservatives weren’t.  Or at least, that’s the impression given if you watched the RNC in St. Paul and if you listen to this guy, dese guys, and that guy.

But liberals aren’t the only folks disturbed by Palin’s half-a-page resume.  Some conservatives are grinning and bearing it.

David Frum, diary-ing (er, not blogging?) for the National Review Online, asks many of the same questions that I have of Sarah Palin.  Best lines: “We have no idea whether [Sarah Palin] is decisive or vacillating, prompt or procrastinating, curious or incurious. These things matter enormously in a president. Yet they do not matter much to [conservatives]. And that’s a big problem.”

Frum continues to express wariness after (cue the Monday Night Football music) The Interview.

HuffPo columnist Thomas B. Edsall’s pull-quotes of conservative dissent are so great, you’ve got to read them on his page.

Another National Review columnist, Byron York, quoted in today’s Frank Rich column in the NYT expressed an opinion on many lib minds: “If the Obamas had a 17 year-old daughter who was unmarried and pregnant by a tough-talking black kid, my guess is if that they all appeared onstage at a Democratic convention and the delegates were cheering wildly, a number of conservatives might be discussing the issue of dysfunctional black families.”

And Charles Krauthammer at The Washington Post states it plain: just like Obama, Sarah’s not ready.

Taking one for the team (again) must be tough for the right–especially after the last four years of Bush.