The plot against Obama

I was curious to see how this story got played last night on the local and national evening news. (WLNE and its national counterpart got the balance right, IMHO, mentioning the plot, with a general lack of sensation.)

Dan Kennedy has an interesting post on the basically same subject.

In a news environment dominated by television and the Internet, I suppose it doesn't make a whole lot of difference whether any given newspaper plays up or plays down the alleged skinhead plot to murder black schoolchildren and assassinate Barack Obama.

Will playing it on the front page trigger a copycat response? Can burying it inside somehow be justified as more responsible? Regardless, I suspect the impact is quite a bit less than seeing it on TV.

Still, it's interesting to look at the different ways that newspapers are playing it today. I'll start with Boston: the Globe runs a small tease on the front, below the fold; the Herald gives over two-thirds of page one to a headline that reads "NUTZIES TARGET OBAMA."

The contrast is even greater in New York. There's not even a mention of the story anywhere on the front of the Times; the story itself is relegated to page A14. The tabloid New York Post, by contrast, leads with a giant "WHACK JOB," driving home the point with this: "Loony skinheads in Obama murder plot." The entire front consists of a photo of suspect Daniel Cowart posing with a gun that looks like it could launch a nuclear missile.

New York's slightly more restrained tabloid, the Daily News, makes no mention of the plot on its front page, going with the death of Jennifer Hudson's nephew and the state's $12 billion budget deficit.

In Washington, the alleged plot gets the silent treatment on the front pages of both the Post and the Times. Ditto in Obama's hometown, Chicago, which also happens to be where Hudson lives, and whose tragedy occupies the front pages of the Tribune and the Sun-Times. . . . .