My favorite media trick pulled out during sessions spent blatantly covering a story in a way that a large portion of the population doesn’t like, is to cover it by covering the coverage, here is what I mean. If you’ve tuned into any of the news networks this week you’ve seen Senator Obama on his “groundbreaking” and “historic” trip. Despite little real news the media is going berserk in Obamamania. They decided weeks before the visit would be historic before anything happened, now with massive resources devoted to the event, they have to deliver and are getting endlessly attacked from the right for their coverage. The solution?

After the coverage they continue the focus on Obama by covering the coverage, asking the question “is there too much coverage? Are we biased?” The beauty of this is that they use these quick segments to justify the previous unnecessary coverage and to give the impression that they might not be overplaying their hand but are actually concerned about viewers.

Asking the question almost always leads nowhere. Most of these segments pit someone who says it is too much coverage against someone who says it isn’t. They fight for a minute or two, no one agrees on anything, the moderator or anchor asks a few questions, the segment ends and the coverage goes on.

It isn’t just about Obama either. The media often picks up on stories, beats them to death despite a lack of new information or the continuation of events, then looks dumb for clinging for too long before moving onto the next thing. They fills the space between or around these bouts with the aforementioned coverage of the coverage to get even more millage out of something that has no momentum. This election has been filled with these moments, Jeremiah Wright, Clinton crying in New Hampshire, Obama’s win in Iowa being seen as the end of the primary, the endorsement of Teddy Kennedy, Obama Girl and so on and so on.

All followed by endless coverage of the coverage asking “did we go too far, was there too much emphasis, will you still like us tomorrow?”

I can make it all easy, yes it is too much coverage and the coverage of the coverage is too much. If Obama brokers a Middle East peace deal while he is on the media tour, great that’s news, if he is just taking a bunch of photo ops and spitting out the same policies he had before the trip, it probably shouldn’t be your lead. History really hasn’t been made on this trip so far and it doesn’t look like it is going to be. Time to calm down!