Google Suggests NY Times Nov Surprise Falls Flat

If you recall Drudge's initial tease, the New York Times said their story was going to control the news cycle. That doesn't appear to be the case.

More than 12 hours after the New York Times dropped perhaps what they thought was a nuclear bomb on the Bush administration four days before the coming election, a look at Google News puts the story at second tier status with no more than 265 additional stories linked to the breaking news.

Unfortunately for the New York Times, that is not what October, or even November surprises are made of, particularly when the story of an evidently Gay and now disgraced Evangelical is tracking at close to 1,000. Perhaps next election the Times should dress up its big surprise in drag if it wants to make it a hit.

More likely, the general media, as with blogs, have reacted to the revelations with the same skepticism, head-scratching befuddlement and guffaws. Fausta also has a good round up here.

In a June Op-Ed at the Examiner, Long Live the Fourth Estate, I made the case that it has always been the people, or the mob, if you wish, who were entitled to the term Fourth Estate.

Between the NY Times own self-destructive behavior over the years, and the power of people through blogs to react to the news almost as it breaks, perhaps the bulk of the MSM has found a barometer, if not partly a guide, to how America is going to react to certain news.

There was a day when if the NY Times said it, not only was it true, but everyone else said it, as well. Given the play their big story is getting, those days may be coming to an end.

As a related aside, before midnight last night Drudge had taken the larger headline and moved it to secondary status behind some strong unemployment numbers. Heh! Perhaps he didn't like getting scammed?

While this latest evolution in media is certainly far from complete, as I optimistically said in the Op-ed linked above, the Fourth Estate is dead ... long live the fourth estate.

Update: Sensible Mom has more on why this might be the case.

Comments

[Sadly, No! Research Labs]

I hear a medium-loud rumbling. I wonder what it is.

[DanFool]

Dan Riehl, screaming at the sky.

[Sadly, No! Research Labs]

This rumbling seems to be increasing. It is certainly mysterious.

[turns on CNN]

[Dan Riehl]

turns on CNN

You mean the network no one watches? That isn't a rumble, it's a squeak. Besides, I'm not talking about what the inside media people get off on, I'm talking about what people in general that vote tune into. This ain't it.

[jaime]

"behind some strong unemployment numbers"

I see Drudge left out the 92,000 jobs created. 40, 000 less than predictions and 60,000 less than to catch up with population growth. Bravo!

And what, no sirens for Gay-Hater Haggard's gay prostitute fantasia? How many sirens would that merit if it were a Democrat?

[Phoenix]

Well, Dan,

At least now you're getting a nice transference going that will give you a much clearer insight into what Bush goes through with Bush-Hate leading the way to the exclusion of all reason and intellectual disputation.

[Manly GOP Man]

Hey Dan you're hot. Want to get together, watch Red Dawn and have enjoy some GOP MAN2MAN love?

[Dan Riehl]

"Want to get together"

No thanks. If I got off on bitch slapping silly little Queens I'd move to Europe and write about politics there.

[Sadly, No! Research Labs]

Besides, I'm not talking about what the inside media people get off on, I'm talking about what people in general that vote tune into.

Haggerty? Oh, that too.

[Sadly, No! Research Labs]

Sorry; 'Haggard.' Bit busy today, as you can imagine.

[Dan Riehl]

Haggard? LMAO You so misunderstand Reps. and Cons. I never heard of the guy until that story broke. You think that's going to keep evangelicals away from the polls?

hokay. lol How many of them do you know?

[jaime]

Nancy Grace, what you don't know could fill all of Aruba.

I'd point you to their website, but it is being scrubbed as we speak. However, the main page is cached.

http://72.14.209.104/search?q=cache:G84Wok9aRQoJ:www.nae.net/+National+Association+of+Evangelicals&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=1

[Ed Muntin]

"You mean the network no one watches?"

Fox News’s total audience fell 24 percent in the past year, to 1.3 million viewers from 1.7 million, and its key primetime audience, viewers ages 25-54, was down 7 percent in October on a year-to-year basis, to an average 363,000 viewers, according to Nielsen Media Research data.

[Sadly, No! Research Labs]

[turning on MSNBC]

Woo, look at that. It's footage of Haggard and Bush at the White House, with a screen-crawl on the nuclear fiasco.

But maybe no one watches either CNN or MSNBC, or however that argument goes.

[Dan Riehl]

no one watches either CNN or MSNBC

Uh, pretty much. MSNBC??? LMAO

As to the thing about Fox numbers, please, don't sell BS here, you forget where you are. I know the precise story you are talking about and it's BS. And party because of the Holloway story was so high profile the year before. Go look at the numbers for all three cable nets CNN, MSBCN, Fox - you'll find that they all exploded the year before then came back to the ground. I think it was actually MSNBC that lost viewers to Fox at the end of the bubble.

Every decent analyst knows that Fox is the only cable net creating viewers from outside. The rest are shifting back and forth, neither CNN nor MSNBC have grown a bit without taking viewers from the other for a short period of time.

Must all of you Libs be so dumb???? I'm getting bored here.

[jamie]

Fox has the loyal audience that it has purely because it has niched itself to appeal to those for whom "news" is fundamentally uninteresting. They want opinion masquerading as "news," because if they have to think too much their heads will explode.

Fox viewers are interested in "news" that pats them on the head, doesn't challenge their assumptions, and confirms that they are ALWAYS "right." I have never wondered about their "loyal viewers" or the reason for their loyalty. It's quite obvious.

[jaime]

I know personally that Fox is hemmoraging audience. When every politician and opinion maker tells you that everyone and everything is biased against you, you only watch or listen to or read what those same opinion makers say is "fair and balanced".

Katie Couric...failing in the evening news race...has twice the audience of Hannity and Colmes and Bill O'Reilly combined. Liberals don't have a news bunker mentality that says only Fox News, The Washington Times, Drudge, and Rush Limbaugh are telling me the truth. They don't have to watch Hannity and Colmes when they can watch CSPAN, CBS, Olbermann, CNN, and the BBC.