I'm glad someone else was thinking the same thing.

As you can tell, I've fallen off the wagon...
Terry | Homepage | 12.14.06 - 12:11 pm | #

Terry:

Well, glad to have you back, though.

Check your inbox later today--I have an idea for you.
Dale Price | Homepage | 12.14.06 - 12:14 pm | #

Amen.
Theocoid | Homepage | 12.14.06 - 1:38 pm | #

Second that Amen
Peter Sean Bradley | Homepage | 12.14.06 - 2:27 pm | #

Well, I guess I'll play the dissenting fool.

There may be other articles worthy of the Savanarola treatment, but the one linked to is not.

First of all, the article clearly plays the politics as the second element (it's in the subhead, not the head; it's the subordinate clause of the lead, not the main clause; it's backing material is lower in the story than the nuts-and-bolts). There are also sidebar video links BOTH to Tim Russert on politics and a Today show doctor about the medical facts.

Second, and this may be an ugly truth but it is the truth, a sitting senator's health matters because of politics. Other than the politics ... there is no reason "Tim Johnson's" death matters (to the point of being news) to anybody outside his circle of family, friends, associates, etc. Probably hundreds of men died yesterday because of heart attacks or strokes, but this man's death/potential-death/major-surgery/whatever is news in a way that the identical events happening to "Victor Morton" would not be.

Third, this seat (along with a few others, to be fair) matters even more than most because, owing to a unique set of circumstances, it has the potential to change control of the Senate. That is a huge deal and it would be blindness for a news outlet not to make prominent note of this fact. If the Dems had been 55-45 up, or the Republicans up, there would probably only be a single paragraph near the end stating South Dakota's law on replacements (as happened with the death of Paul Coverdell if memory serves).
Victor Morton | Homepage | 12.14.06 - 3:33 pm | #

Victor:

My dispute wasn't with this particular MSNBC article--it's the feeding frenzy in general that I find distasteful. Yeah, it's news, and yeah, the control of the Senate is important. But the way the story has been thumped lets you hear the flap of the vultures' wings as they hover overhead.
Dale Price | Homepage | 12.14.06 - 3:38 pm | #

Right. My disgust is more at the sensationalized television coverage than anything else.
Terry | Homepage | 12.14.06 - 4:09 pm | #

Right. Fox News might as well have put up a betting square on when control of the Senate would turn over.
Rich Leonardi | Homepage | 12.15.06 - 2:50 pm | #

so when do the left-wing conspiracy theorists start blaming the Senator's illness on the "right wing"?
Chris Parks | 12.15.06 - 7:53 pm | #

A - F'ing - men.
kath | 12.16.06 - 1:02 am | #