Tag: US Senate

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Santorum Brings Instant "fact check: to Web

The best Santorum/Casey debate may be on their web pages.

The post debate spin following this mornings Meet the Press "debate" between Santorum and Casey shows considerable sophistication. There are predicatable blog defenses and attacks; the spin you expect campaign to provide reporters. But these sites do more, and do it quickly.

Rick Santorum's web site has a page of "debate facts", "documenting" the background of issues raised in the debate. If one were not skeptical the page could be seen as a way of introducing the evidence the candidates would like to bring up in an debate, but time precludes. Of course, the fact page is more likely the campaign way of speaking to reporters (and others). Some research may make harried reporters life easier . . .

An interesting question is: does posting the "facts" on the web page invite an opponent or others to "fact check the fact check?" The Campaign's  opposition research is, in part, made transparent. Is there a special political risk in defending your truth telling when critiquing the opponent's "truths?"

Bob Casey's web team appears less active in correcting the "facts" but does some internally in the "debate story."  What they do that is interesting is provide selected video "documenting" their debate story of Santorum's stagnation.

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Meet the Press Amplifies Media Narratives

Philadelphia InquirerTribune-ReviewRick Santorum and Bob Casey met for the first of a series of Senate debates September 3, 2006 on Meet the Press. The lively forty minute exchange was punctuated by pointed questions from host Tim Russert framed with visualized quotations from news sources and clips from current and past-campaign political ads. The program is, of course, the embodiment of media intersecting with politics. Media asks the questions, utilizes the media as authoritative source framing questions advanced, and encapsulated the media narratives for "what matters." Russert controls the converstion with visual "gotcha."(Watch the program)