“HP” - How Will The Beltway Media Cope With A Government Shutdown?
April 11, 2011 Huffington Post
April 8, 2011
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/08/media-government-shutdown_n_846681.html
It's looking more and more as if we're heading for a complete shutdown of the federal government tonight, because of $5 billion in spending and the way some lawmakers don't like women to have access to affordable pap smears and whatnot. If it comes to that, the shutdown will go into effect at midnight tonight and the city will ride an emotional high and their well-worn sense of cynical wryness through the weekend. And there will likely be lots of debauchery!
But there has to be a morning after. And when it comes, your heroic Beltway media will have to transition from the state of uncertainty about a pending government shutdown to the state of uncertainty about an actual and ongoing government shutdown. As our own Sam Stein recently quipped, "[I]f this week has taught me anything, it's how to write a news story about a lack of news." Pro tip: Don't do what the media did last August and elevate a Quran burning preacher to celebrity status because you are bored. Instead, fall back on some predictable tropes, which we shall render in headline/sub-hed form for your benefit.