New York Times Death Spiral Watch (Michael Falcone Edition)

Why oh why can't we have a better press corps? Shut it down today. And find journamalist Michael Falcone a job where he isn't hurting America--an animal testing subject for cosmetics comes to mind.

Michael Falcone:

McCain and the Green Screen: An image of Walter Reede Middle School in North Hollywood, Calif., appeared behind Senator John McCain during part of his acceptance speech.... [B]y Friday the consensus on many left-leaning sites was that the the Republicans committed an act of sloppy stagecraft, substituting Walter Reed, the school, for Walter Reed, the medical center. Not so, according to campaign spokesman Tucker Bounds, who said the campaign intended to showcase “images of Americana” during the Arizona senator’s remarks. “The changing image-screen was linked to the American thematics of the speech and the public school was simply part of it,” Mr. Bounds said, adding that during the speech, Mr. McCain “called for public education reforms that empower parents and students before bureaucrats and labor unions”...

Josh Micah Marshall:

Those of Us Who Are About to Tire Swing ...: McCain campaign manager Rick Davis was admitting it was a goof at party's after the speech and telling reporters that Fred Davis, McCain's ad man, was at fault. But you don't need the inside scoop to know what happened here.... Our crack analysts at TPM HQ pulled the tape. And what happened in McCains case was that the green screen was up for 5 or 6 minutes. Then it got pulled. It was replaced briefly by a cornfield. And then after a few moments of that it was the picture of the flag, which appeared as a blue screen to viewers on tv. That remained through McCain's entire speech. No more changes.... McCain's staff realized the goof a few minutes into the speech, cancelled the pre-programmed order of images and hurriedly slotted in flag image to save the day...

Comments

[howard]

people often (sorta) joke about "stenography" and the wapo. but here we see it in a kind of platonic ideal version.

[Neil B]

Unless this is BDL's own typo, note that Falcone said "Walter Reede Middle School" - see the extra "e"? Maybe the McCain people deliberately mispelled it that way to make people think, it couldn't have been a Google error?

And the "thrown away flags" story, rebutted on HuffPo, is another BS scam from the McCain crowd.

Defeat McBushlin!