February 2, 2015

The unbloggable "Meet the Press."

I have something from yesterday's show I'd like to blog. I had something from last week's show too. I see that the transcript from last week's show was posted 2 days ago — that is, 6 days after the show aired. Meanwhile, yesterday, ABC had its "This Week" transcript posted on the very morning that the show aired. My usual routine has been to record 4 Sunday morning shows and watch them putting "Meet the Press" first and "This Week" last. I'd watch and make note of things I wanted to blog, jotting down a word to search for in the transcript. Actually, I rarely watched "This Week," because I got weary after "MTP," "Face the Nation," and "Fox News Sunday," but yesterday, I watched the Scott Walker segment of "This Week" first because I saw the transcript and video on line and bloggable before noon.

"Face the Nation" had its transcript up yesterday a little after 2 in the afternoon. Here. CBS news political correspondent John Dickerson was asked about the meaning of a new poll that put Scott Walker ahead in Iowa:
Scott Walker had a good performance in Iowa at the last weekend at the Steve King Cattle Call. He did well. That shows up in the polls. We saw this in 2012 when Michelle Bachmann had her moment; Herman Cain. It seemed every week, everybody had another moment. What Scott Walker has that those other candidates didn't have is he has a little bit of staying power. He has a quick elevator pitch, he can talk about being elected three times in a purple state and also that he took on the unions and he survived. That is what is -- you have slow burn candidates and fast burn candidates. You want to be a slow burn candidate, you want to be there at the end. What keeps him from being a fast burnout candidate is this record he's got. So that's good for him....
"Elevator pitch"? Is that an expression? Yes! (Could you sell yourself in the time you have someone stuck with you on an elevator?)

Does "Fox News Sunday" have yesterday's transcript up yet? Yes. Here. It's not a perfect transcript. Here's Chris Wallace inviting former U.S. Secretary of Education Bill Bennett to tell us why the presidential candidates who oppose common core are wrong:
Mr. Bennett, let me start with you. A number of Republicans considering Iran for president in 2016, have made opposition to common core a key issue....
Ha ha. But better an imperfect transcript than no transcript. Is it fear of a ludicrous mistake like "Iran for president" what keeps "Meet the Press" from putting words on the page? There was a time when "the press" meant putting words on the page.

14 comments:

Laslo Spatula said...

Flock of Seagulls:
Iran,
Iran so far away.

I am Laslo.

Hagar said...

Bill Bennett favors Jack Kemp for the Republican nomination.

David said...

They're careless and lazy, just like the rest of their reporting.

tds said...

So, speech recognition software used to generate transcripts. Now, let's just feed it to AI detecting nonsense in political talk and we'll catch all mistakes ... except there is none and will be none such AI, cause it would have to beep all the time.

MadisonMan said...

I have my students write elevator summaries. It forces them to condense their thoughts, and I don't have to read paragraphs of gibberish.

tim maguire said...

I didn't think "elevator pitch" was an obscure term. It's a good idea to have a 30 second sound bite to describe anything important to you, because you never know when you'll need to be able to sum it up quickly and succinctly.

Murph said...

Elevator pitch: obviously you've never been laid off with job placement benefits, 'cuz that's one of the first things they have you do. ...after making lists of your talents, accomplishments, and goals.

"Sell yourself in 60 seconds."

Pettifogger said...

Aspiring writers attending conventions are told to have an elevator pitch to give to agents.

Quaestor said...

It's a good idea to have a 30 second sound bite to describe anything important to you, because you never know when you'll need to be able to sum it up quickly and succinctly.

Phenomenology is evidently very unimportant.

Ann Althouse said...

I guess I don't read these business career articles and books. Business jargon rubs me the wrong way. But "elevator pitch" struck me as something I had never seen before. I thought it was a mistake in the transcript. Guessing, I would have imagined it meant something that would propel (pitch) you to a higher (elevated) position.

madAsHell said...

ABC had its "This Week" transcript posted on the very morning that the show aired.

They could have posted it before the show aired!!

Michael K said...

Bennett made a fool of himself on that show with his discussion of Common Core. He obviously has had no conversations with teachers. I don't care if the intentions were good. The implementation has all the marks of Ed School fumbling.

The Ed School types are bored by basic math and grammar. Repetition drives them crazy so they invent all these cute new ways of teaching basic subjects that don't work. We went through this with "New Math" and "See and Say" spelling 50 years ago. The method doesn't work and, before the word is out, they have gone to the next fad.

Dan Hossley said...

The reason MTP doesn't publish as transcript is that nothing said on that show is worth recording.

Sam L. said...

All four? Quite the masochist!