The quote in the headline above is from Elizabeth Wilner, the former political director for NBC News, found in a
fascinating article, "Cable's Clout," published in The American Journalism Review by Paul Farhi.
Farhi, a Washington Post reporter, analyzes the impact of cable on the political race. The bottom line: cable news sets the campaign political agenda.
Describing "the cable news effect," Farhi observes:
In recent years, and particularly during the current presidential campaign, stories become much bigger deals as a result of the repetition and prominence given to them by cable's big three: CNN, Fox News and MSNBC. The cable networks rarely break news themselves – they tend to rely on newspapers and Web sites for that – but few campaign stories have much impact or become an important part of the campaign narrative until they get heavy play on cable.
Farhi might be neglecting the fact that cable does sometimes break stories--The Cable Gamer still recalls Fox breaking the story about George W. Bush's drunk-driving bust--but Farhi is definitely correct in his observation that cable news has the capacity to really sit on a story, and burn it into the American political consciousness.
