A Case Study In Media Management

By Big Tent Democrat, Section Other Politics
Posted on Wed Jun 01, 2011 at 10:01:14 AM EST
Tags: (all tags)

Share This: Digg!

No More Mister Nice Blog thinks Anthony Weiner is doing it all wrong:

The point is, [Weiner]'s trying to get people to back down by being as aggressive and self-righteous as he thinks a Republican would be in the same situation -- and no one's backing down. He's trying to rally the sympathies of non-wingnuts -- and (as you see from the TPM link above) it's not working all that well. (Also see this post from New York magazine, which generally leans left of center: it's titled "Anthony Weiner Is Not Doing Himself Any Favors.") [. . .] It's not working. Maybe it isn't working because a Democrat simply can't get away with this, but I'd say it isn't because he's misreading how Republicans and right-wingers win.

Not much interested in this story and I do not think I am alone. Sure Fox and the Right Wing Media won't let this go, but they wouldn't under any circumstances. The rest of the world is what interests Weiner. His "moving on" strategy may work there. It is way too early to judge his media strategy it seems to me. If a month from now this is big news, then it will have failed. If it isn't, then it will have succeeded. Judging Weiner's strategy at this point is silly. Nothing is going to happen in the next few days. More . .

An interesting contrast is the Jim Tressel situation. Tressel was blessed with a sympathetic Media and a sweater vest image. But there were many skeletons in his closet. He tried to brazen it out. But he had a major problem. The NCAA.

If the NCAA was prepared to whitewash the situation, then Tressel could have gotten away with it. The problem was Tressel lied. And then got caught. Once that happened it was over.

For Weiner, there is nothing good in the story so he wants it to go away. And I think it will. UNLESS, he has lied about something or he has something to hide that is discovered.

Weiner doesn't have a sweater vest image, but he also doesn't have an investigation ongoing against him.

Right now, I can't criticize Weiner's Media Strategy. Maybe in a month I will. But not now.

Speaking for me only

< Tuesday Night Open Thread | The Jobs Crisis >

Legal

Nothing on this site should be construed as legal advice. TalkLeft does not give legal advice.

TalkLeft is not responsible for and often disagrees with material posted in the comments section. Read at your own risk.

A Case Study In Media Management | 33 comments (33 topical)

Readers Must Login or Create an Account to Comment

My inclination is to ask (5.00 / 1) (#4)
by andgarden on Wed Jun 01, 2011 at 12:29:21 PM EST

"so what if it is a picture of him?" That alone proves nothing. There is no serious accusation of, e.g., sexual harassment, and there is no charge to be made of hypocrisy.

Today... (5.00 / 1) (#5)
by kdog on Wed Jun 01, 2011 at 01:01:19 PM EST

Rupert's rag makes some hay of how Weiner has a habit of following pretty young ladies on twitter. Shocking! lol

Weiner's problems have only just begun...Rupert and Ailes over at FNC are gonna have a field day. The saner wing of the media will be onto the next salicous non-story within a few days.

Eh (5.00 / 1) (#12)
by lilburro on Wed Jun 01, 2011 at 02:54:24 PM EST

it seems like every other person on Twitter is some fake, very commercially hot woman. Is that what they're talking about? That's nothing.

You'd think celebrities would've learned to be a bit more careful with d*ck pics by now. And as we learned from the Tiger Woods case, spousal attractiveness seems to have little or nothing to do with infidelity.


And if you look through his twitter (none / 0) (#13)
by nycstray on Wed Jun 01, 2011 at 03:04:51 PM EST

followers, "pretty young ladies" seem to be in the distinct minority . . . I'd hardly call that a "habit".


The Post was... (none / 0) (#14)
by kdog on Wed Jun 01, 2011 at 03:14:23 PM EST

referring to the twitter posters Weiner follows, not followers of Weiner...apparently quite a few pretty ladies who have nothing to do with politics have Weiner as a follower. Also claim he used to follow/send messages to a pron star.

Why that is shocking or scandalous I can't tell ya...then again I don't get the whole twitter thing, or the whole puritan thing.

Here's the article if you're interested. As a former local ya know the Post is a glorified National Enquirer, so strictly fwiw.


I typed that wrong (none / 0) (#20)
by nycstray on Wed Jun 01, 2011 at 04:38:55 PM EST

I meant the ones he follows. Not that many 'young pretty ladies', imo. And who knows, they could be relations, friends of family, offspring of friends, friends/acquaintances or heck, people he happens to think post interesting, funny or whatever tweets. Some may be staffers? If you cruise through his list, they really don't stand out any more than some guys who don't seem to be related to politics either ;)

I'd say the source of this 'scandal' is more suspect than who he follows on twitter ;)


: And I'd say... (none / 0) (#26)
by kdog on Wed Jun 01, 2011 at 06:43:24 PM EST

you'd be right.
Even the FNC smear version, I don't get what is suspect or scandalous...with any luck Weiner can turn this around and put the gotcha media on trial, though I'm sure he wouldn't wanna be too successful, they might start asking the hard questions about issues instead of "did you have tweet with that woman!?".

My husband was laughing (none / 0) (#29)
by Militarytracy on Thu Jun 02, 2011 at 07:09:11 AM EST

listening to him not be able to say for certain that it wasn't him. He says Anthony has photos of his own peenie. What is with everyone's naked or semi naked photographing of themselves. It is tiresome in a way. Everyone's doing it. Everyone is turned on my their own hottie self lately or something, just flip through their cell phone images :) It's your stuff. It isn't likely going anyplace, it will most likely be there tomorrow too so are personal photos really needed? And we are all more than just our genitals and nudity aren't we, well....maybe not, we are Americans with the rounded group sexual identity of 14 year olds.


Yeah (5.00 / 2) (#30)
by lilburro on Thu Jun 02, 2011 at 08:59:44 AM EST

it's kind of funny. I can imagine the staffer or whomever found these on Weiner's phone or computer...just laughing their @sses off. If you're going to take such pictures you have to be aware that someone else might find them. I await the "Today Show" segment "are YOUR kids taking pictures of their genitalia??" and the subsequent call from my mother...(I hope that won't happen, but you never know).


Maybe I'm in the minority (5.00 / 2) (#31)
by jbindc on Thu Jun 02, 2011 at 09:04:38 AM EST

But I don't know any woman who finds these kinds of pictures sexy.

Advice to men: No one wants to see a close up picture of your junk (I'm looking at you Brett Favre and Kanye West). You wanna send me a sexy picture? One with your shirt off - maybe. Or how about you just wait until I see you in person?


NO KIDDING (none / 0) (#33)
by Militarytracy on Thu Jun 02, 2011 at 09:24:26 AM EST

It goes both ways (none / 0) (#34)
by lilburro on Thu Jun 02, 2011 at 09:29:51 AM EST

women send pictures too, usually not totally nude. Why do I know this? Because for some reason people feel compelled to show me "self-portraits" other people have sent them. So word to the wise, your sexxxxy pictures may get around a little more than you think!


: Yes (none / 0) (#35)
by jbindc on Thu Jun 02, 2011 at 10:03:02 AM EST

They are dumb - who knows where those pictures will end up? Might as well stand naked on the street corner....
But men are generally more visual creatures than women, so I get that most of them would enjoy a sexy picture of a woman being emailed or texted to them.

I await... (none / 0) (#36)
by kdog on Thu Jun 02, 2011 at 01:54:18 PM EST

the congress 50 years from now, when most every member has a junk pic floating around the internet, or something equally embarassing.

These kids today are not exactly flush with modesty.


Have they seen his wife? (none / 0) (#6)
by jbindc on Wed Jun 01, 2011 at 01:11:51 PM EST

She's gorgeous. And powerful in her own right. So what if he "follows pretty girls" on Twitter?


Exactly... (5.00 / 1) (#7)
by kdog on Wed Jun 01, 2011 at 01:26:52 PM EST

So what...but Rupert and Ailes will make it into Monica-Gate if at all possible. Put nothing past them, they made Obama into a manchurian muslim in the eyes of their viewers.

And you're right about his wife....intelligent & smoking. Weiner is doing something right:)


I tell my wife all the (5.00 / 1) (#8)
by Wile ECoyote on Wed Jun 01, 2011 at 02:39:23 PM EST

time it is absolutely normal for a 47 yo man to follow a 21 yo hottie on twitter.


Totally normal... (5.00 / 1) (#9)
by kdog on Wed Jun 01, 2011 at 02:44:07 PM EST

you're married Wile, not dead:)

Now if following the ladies on twitter leads to following the ladies up the stairs to their apartment, then you may have a wee problem with your old lady:)


I briefly met his wife (none / 0) (#10)
by jbindc on Wed Jun 01, 2011 at 02:47:54 PM EST

If there's any following the ladies up the stairs to their apartments, Houma will deftly take care of it!


: If that were the case... (none / 0) (#11)
by kdog on Wed Jun 01, 2011 at 02:53:51 PM EST

Rupert and Roger would be the least of Rep. Weiner's concerns.
Even the hateful fury of a hateful dirty trickster like Roger Ailes pales in comparison to any of that mess.

My mother-in-law (5.00 / 2) (#21)
by Zorba on Wed Jun 01, 2011 at 05:02:43 PM EST

used to say that sex only lasts a short time- of course, YMMV ;-). You have to have something to talk about, some other connection, when you're not in bed (or wherever.......), at least for a long-term relationship. There is, as you point out, no accounting for tastes or behavior.


Front page of NYT above the fold. (none / 0) (#27)
by oculus on Wed Jun 01, 2011 at 06:52:09 PM EST

No, I didn't waste one of my 20 clicks for June. Did mistakenly click on "Rocky, the Musical"!


And "non-story" (none / 0) (#28)
by Nemi on Thu Jun 02, 2011 at 06:35:19 AM EST

being the key word. [rolling eyes]


I'm not much interested either (none / 0) (#1)
by ruffian on Wed Jun 01, 2011 at 10:55:53 AM EST

but in general Dems trying to be

as aggressive and self-righteous as he thinks a Republican would be in the same situation

just to make a point usually irritate me. You can't make Repubs look at themselves in the mirror. They just don't care how they look.

I Don't Care Either (none / 0) (#2)
by ScottW714 on Wed Jun 01, 2011 at 11:15:27 AM EST

Even if it was him, big deal. Nothing we haven't seen in every Calvin Klein ad since the 80's.

IMO the story here is his decision to attack the press. They don't forget and they don't like being treated like loathsome creatures.

I disagree about this playing out in a month. I think the real ramifications of his strategy, if one can even call it that, will surface when he needs good press and it's not there.

The press is no (none / 0) (#3)
by sj on Wed Jun 01, 2011 at 11:17:34 AM EST

particular friend to him now as it is.


: Good Point (none / 0) (#17)
by ScottW714 on Wed Jun 01, 2011 at 03:46:27 PM EST

Weiner speaks (none / 0) (#15)
by jbindc on Wed Jun 01, 2011 at 03:23:34 PM EST

Even inserts a pun into his comments.

"This was a circumstance where someone committed a prank on the internet," he told MSNBC's Luke Russert. "I didn't send [that] picture out" the congressman said, though he does not know who did. Is the photo of him? "I can't say with certitude" he told Russert. (sidebar: EWWW - he doesn't know if it's him???)
"It was a prank," Weiner reiterated. "This is not a national security matter. We're not making a federal cases out of this."
"I'm not sure it rises -- no pun intended -- to that level," he continued.

Every time today I have walked through (none / 0) (#16)
by Anne on Wed Jun 01, 2011 at 03:32:04 PM EST

our reception area, past the flat-screen TV that seems to be permanently set on CNN, I see coverage of the Weiner story; admittedly, I've only been by three times, and we know CNN is on a perpetual loop, but, still: this thing just isn't going to die. For one thing, the media have grown used to covering the foibles, peccadilloes, and assignations of Republicans, so there's something infinitely more exciting in "catching" any Democrat in anything that can be spun, twisted, taken out of context, or blown up into a scandal or cover-up. They are eating it up with a spoon.

Whatever Weiner's doing isn't helping him, but he got into politics knowing the long knives are never far from being drawn, so I can't get too worked up about his situation. If the smoke is really smoke, and there's a fire burning somewhere, I hope he figures out how to deal with it before he goes up in flames, too.

I don't care what people are tweeting about, but if Weiner hasn't seen enough of others getting into trouble when reduced to having to use 140 characters to express themselves, he ought not to have taken up Twitter in the first place.

Some day, I hope I find out why it is that most people think they are smarter than they really are....

I agree, but isn't the problem (none / 0) (#22)
by observed on Wed Jun 01, 2011 at 05:38:33 PM EST

that it wasn't flaccid?

So glad TalkLeft has finally addressed (none / 0) (#23)
by oculus on Wed Jun 01, 2011 at 05:50:07 PM EST

this story, although I did not anticipate BTD would be posting re it.

No segue: I can't find the Representative's explanation (which I previously read on line) as to why he is following anyone else on Twitter to begin with.

: TL finally offers the full package (5.00 / 2) (#24)
by observed on Wed Jun 01, 2011 at 06:01:11 PM EST

in political coverage.

: One explanation I've seen (none / 0) (#32)
by brodie on Thu Jun 02, 2011 at 09:09:21 AM EST

AW offer, yesterday on CNN, was that his "following" others on Twitter might constitute nothing more than an automatic follow up boiler-plate response by his office to those who've tweeted him.
I suspect he's probably telling the truth on that one, or at least seemed convincing and credible as he explained it the other day. Of course, it's always possible someone, maybe the original hacker, was also hacking through to follow and reply to others.
Whatever, I tend to give him the benefit on this part of the story.
Not sure however about the part where he says he can't be certain the image sent out isn't of himself, at least in part. That's an odd response which only tends to keep the story alive. Confusing.
That said, his sit down with CNN and Blitzer yesterday did him far more good re getting this thing behind him, than his bizarre presser of the previous day.