Newt Gingrich rose from the dead by attacking the media in his crowd-pleasing debate performances. But now they?re his lifeline to staying in the race.
With no debates scheduled for nearly two weeks and just a fraction of the cash Mitt Romney has to buy television commercials, Gingrich?s fate is largely in the hands of political editors at the mainstream news organization he loves to rally his base by bashing. And he seems to know it.
Continue ReadingDuring his speech Friday at the Conservative Political Action Conference, usually a hotbed of ?liberal media? bashing, Gingrich mentioned his favorite rhetorical foil only once, and even then it was more playful teasing than base-rallying attack.
?Let me say to my friends in the news media that that was hyperbole and we don?t need a fact checker,? he said after joking that illegal immigrants could possibly be located by mailing them packages.
But his signature anger at the media was nowhere to be found. Last Saturday, during a press conference following his loss in Nevada, he suggested why this might by the case.
?I actually think we?re a national system in terms of information flow,? Gingrich said. ?So I think if I?m on ?Hannity? or if I happen to be in the Associated Press, to take an example, or if I?m on one of the networks or even in the New York Times, then in fact it reaches the whole country.?
But there?s a problem in this national-media based strategy: the national media?s interest has begun to wane.
Romney?s volume of news coverage has begun to far outstrip Gingrich?s this week, with 67 percent of news stories in the week leading up to Feb. 6 being at least a quarter about him, and just 48 percent being at least a quarter about Gingrich, according to the Pew Research Center?s Project for Excellence in Journalism. And, following Gingrich?s string of primary and caucus defeats, the tone of his coverage took a sharply negative turn ? 41 percent of it was negative in the past week, and just 24 percent was positive.
And if Gingrich is hoping that his CPAC speech will turn that trend around, he?ll likely be disappointed. Fox News carried Mitt Romney?s speech live earlier in the day, but not Gingrich?s. CNN was the only cable channel to do so.
The Gingrich press bus, once packed with newspaper, television, wire service, magazine and online reporters ? not to mention some foreign press ? as it crisscrossed Florida on the momentum of Gingrich?s big South Carolina win, was somewhat less packed this week. The magazine reporters, online reporters and many of the wire services have bailed, as well as the foreign press.
?I haven?t heard French on the bus since Florida,? said Trip Gabriel, who has been covering Gingrich for the New York Times.
Even the core group of network embeds and national newspaper reporters who have been following the former House speaker since October are beginning to wonder how much longer it can go on. Several dutifully wrote stories after his Nevada defeat tracing the complex math that would give Gingrich the delegates he would need to get him to the convention, but his poor showing on Tuesday night made that long shot even longer.
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