I didn't see this one posted yet. Sorry if it's a dupe. Came across it this afternoon, but just got back to finish reading it.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2006/06/09/BL2006060900448.htmlsnip>
What was fascinating was the way the administration handled the media rollout yesterday, after ABC's Martha Raddatz broke the story at 2:30 a.m. The president goes before the cameras at 7:30--pretty unusual, but prime time for the morning show audience. Then the General Casey briefing, and the Rummy comments, and the Tony Snow Show, and Bush addressing his Cabinet. It was all-purpose programming that kept the cable nets busy for hours.
The Snow briefing was fascinating because he was providing a tick-tock and lots of color, and doing it on camera. Usually this is done on background in private chats with reporters, who gobble up such material for their reconstruction pieces. This guy understands how the beast behaves. (Of course, he won't be quite so voluble on bad-news days for the White House.)
And an administration that has gone out of its way to discourage pictures of American casualties in Iraq, or even the returning coffins, rushed out two photos of a very dead al-Zarqawi. The networks, putting aside their usual squeamishness, were happy to air them, along with the irresistible aerial photos of the bombing.
Are we in the media pumping this up? The Washington Post had this to say in April:
snip to page 4>
"We noted the bizarre reactions of most of the Democrats who post at Democratic Underground to the news of Zarqawi's death. It would be easy to dismiss those comments as the ravings of a few fringe lunatics, except that there are so many of them. Actually, though, the DU posters aren't too far out of sync with some of their party's elected leaders, as the Washington Times notes in 'Democrats call Zarqawi killing a stunt':
more...