Narratives

I might not have a problem with traditional journalism avoiding the idea of "narrative" (aside: perhaps journalists who are offended at this should have a talk with Bob Woodward) if it weren't for the fact that traditional journalism has been more than happy to push Republican narratives about Democrats .

But what journalists understand, at least those that are successful, is that narrative is what makes a news story interesting. If there was no narrative in the story then it would just be a boring recitation of facts and a boring news story inevitably leads to low-paying or no-paying jobs for said journalists.

Journalists may be offended at the idea of narrative, but you can't get ahead in journalism if you DON'T push a narrative.

The brilliance of the Republican media strategy is that they understand this and spend millions developing off-the-shelf narratives for up-n-coming journalists to use. And they've gotten very good at passing them off to journalists in a way that allows those journalists to act offended at the idea that they are reporting narratives.