Campaign Story Lines, All Knotted Up

The most frequently replayed sound bite from the last Clinton-Obama debate was of Blitzer asking them the same premature question: whether they would run on the same ticket. Time did a poll last week showing that a majority of Democrats approve of the idea. Never mind whether such an awkward marriage would be realistic; campaign chroniclers were casting a movie in which the quarreling couple kiss and make up at the end.

And therein lies the key to the way news organizations have framed this campaign. Whether it's cleavage, cackling or crying, as in Clinton's case, the personal trumps the political. Tackling what is actually happening -- the candidates clashing on the issues, making speeches, piling up delegates -- is insufficiently exciting compared with speculation about what might happen down the road. Minutes after Romney dropped out Thursday, the pundits started handicapping his chances in 2012.

Even as McCain was winning nine states on Super Tuesday, much of the television chatter was about whether he could persuade Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham and other conservative radio talkers to stop beating up on him. Although that is a significant story, it's not quite in the same league as the Arizona senator amassing nearly two-thirds of the delegates needed for nomination. But it's more fun to kick around.

By the same token, far more media scrutiny was applied to the "snub" story -- whether Obama had deliberately turned his back on Clinton at the State of the Union address -- than to the details of their dueling health-care plans.

What the media apparently wanted -- and kept forecasting -- was a short, bloody, two-person fight that would be resolved with a knockout blow. Instead, in the wake of Obama's four-state weekend sweep, the Democratic race may drag on for weeks or months and ultimately be resolved by superdelegates. Can that keep pace with Britney's latest release from the psych ward, Heath Ledger's overdose death and the latest twist in the three-year-old Natalee Holloway case?

Perhaps only if the ultimate journalistic fantasy -- a brokered convention -- comes to pass. And that, not surprisingly, is the latest torrid topic on the talk circuit.

'Pimped Out' Fallout

NBC is done apologizing to Hillary Clinton's campaign.

NBC News President Steve Capus is the highest-ranking official to have personally expressed his regret to the campaign for MSNBC correspondent David Shuster's crack that Chelsea Clinton was being "pimped out" for political work. But after the apologies from Capus, Shuster and others -- and the suspension of Shuster for an undetermined period -- the campaign released a stinging letter to Capus over the weekend.

"Nothing justifies the kind of debasing language that David Shuster used and no temporary suspension or half-hearted apology is sufficient," Hillary Clinton wrote. The escalation is reminiscent of Clinton putting out a fundraising letter last summer based on a column about her cleavage by Washington Post fashion writer Robin Givhan.

NBC executives say privately that they have acted appropriately to deal with a bad choice of words and are waiting to see whether the Clinton camp follows through on a threat to withdraw from an MSNBC debate in Cleveland on Feb. 26. A spokeswoman yesterday said only that the network stands by its previous comments.

Digging for Support

What may become the biggest investigative team in journalism is getting a major boost today.

ProPublica, a nonprofit newsroom that plans to launch online this spring, is announcing an advisory board that includes five top newspaper editors. And that boosts the chances that some major papers may run the group's investigative pieces, which otherwise would appear only on its Web site.

"It certainly doesn't hurt," says Paul Steiger, the Wall Street Journal's former top editor, who is running the operation. "Most everyone I talked to about it in the abstract said, 'Bring it on.' That's in the abstract. It will come down to a specific story."

The board includes New York Times Managing Editor Jill Abramson, Boston Globe Editor Martin Baron, Denver Post Editor Gregory Moore, Seattle Times Editor David Boardman, and Cynthia Tucker, editorial page editor of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Others include U.S. News & World Report editor at large David Gergen, former Los Angeles Times editor John Carroll, Fortune columnist Allan Sloan and historian Robert Caro.

ProPublica is in the process of hiring 25 journalists -- Steiger has already gotten 850 r¿sum¿s -- to do what he calls "the deep-dive stuff." Much of its $10 million annual budget has been donated by Herbert and Marion Sandler, former owners of a California savings and loan, and Herbert Sandler chairs the board of directors. They have given hundreds of thousands of dollars to Democratic Party campaigns.

Steiger says ProPublica will fill a void left by cutbacks in the newspaper business that have reduced investigative staffs. He says he may offer some of his stories exclusively to one newspaper or television show and that, thanks to his sizable budget, "we don't have to ask for any money in return."

Howard Kurtz hosts CNN's weekly media program, "Reliable Sources."