On Thursday, Sam Stein wrote a piece at HuffPo, "'Professional Left' Saga Says More About Media Than Obama". I think that headline overstated it--or perhaps, oversimplified it--but the article had a very good point: The media environement is continuing to shift and that shift is getting away from Obama. Here's how Stein put it in his lede:
Last week's feud between White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs and the so-called "professional left" did more than just open a window into the fraying relations between the president and his base. It provided one of the sharpest illustrations to date as to how an ever-changing news culture has challenged even the most press-savvy of operations.
As Stein lays it out, the cable is becoming increasingly more like the internet, and the Obama Administration is falling behind the curve. I think it's pretty good narrative, but I would argue that there's a good more depth that could be added.
As part of his story setup, Stein notes that the Obama campaign posture of pretending to ignore the media was a ruse. What's new now is not that they're suddenly breaking character and paying attention, but that they're so clumsy and behind the curve:
Increasingly, press veterans say, the content aired on cable resembles material traditionally found online. No longer is the focus on securing interviews with top officials or reading the day's top stories. Rather, value is found in breaking news and hosting debates that draw an audience.
"Cable has traditionally been talent-driven," explained MSNBC's Dylan Ratigan, a chief purveyor of the new news structure. "Fuck the talent, pardon my language. But if you have the audience you win. I'm not talking about economics even. I'm talking about the soul of the show."
....
What's resulted from this orderless environment is the type of news coverage that has drawn the White House's ire, whether it consists of horse-race chatter or rumor-mongering. On Thursday, Pew Research produced a poll showing that of the 20 percent of the public who think the president is a Muslim, 60 percent said they learned as much from the media....
Even at MSNBC -- a network ostensibly more aligned with the administration on philosophical matters than its two competitors -- the story lines have been difficult for the administration to take. Over the past few weeks, there has been a consistent drumbeat of progressive displeasure over the job the president is doing. The topics and tone tend to reflect the type of copy published on the web and, not surprisingly, it has been an online story that often leads the news.
For the past few weeks, Cenk Uygur has played a pinch-hitter role for MSNBC, guest hosting for anchors and doing panels for daytime programs. Both he and others have described his style as "rants" -- the type of opinionated news reporting and analysis that is meant to entertain or infuriate viewers depending on their disposition. It's an approach that has pushed the envelope editorially. But it's also one that the brass seems comfortable with.
"We are getting great ratings," Uygur explained to the Huffington Post.
That's 100% in my book. And it dovetails with the substance of some critical things I've said in the past about improving MSNBC (more on that below). But as a dyed-in-the-wool believer in overdetermination and multiple causation, I'd go even farther: The liberal blow-back he's getting right now is not only a product of a shifting media landscape--though it most certainly is that, in part. But it's also a direct result of Obama's decision to play the left from the beginning. He could have genuinely embraced the progressive online community, instead he opted for a very clever strategy of co-option. Whether by temperament, ideology, sociology or simple calculation of political power, Obama decided to ditch his whole transformation change shtick, as Larry Lessig so perfectly nailed it (and as I quoted him previously in Why Gibbs' hippy-punching incident is pivotal, not trivial):
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