The NYT's
Room for Debate section
poses the question, asking whether the press focuses too much on gaffes in presidential campaign coverage.
Maria Popova wins in my opinion. She writes:
The real danger in how such newsiness is framed lies in conflating controversy with shock value – when we do that, controversy becomes the currency of sensationalism, not journalism. But controversy is really about context – about a newly surfaced data point that stands au contraire to a previously established fact or position. It creates a kind of cognitive dissonance between what we previously believed and what we're currently being presented with. A great story doesn't merely trigger this dissonance, it helps us resolve the tension. And that requires context, analysis and reflection.
She concludes:
In a bout of extreme prescience or extreme irony or both, David Carr pointed out less than a day before exactly what transpired in the Romney video: "Keep in mind that when public figures get in trouble for something they said, it is usually not because they misspoke, but because they accidentally told the truth."
br /> A powerful story transcends the shock value to help the reader reconcile the cognitive dissonance of controversy and emerge closer to the "truth," if only just a little bit.
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