Why a 'manufactured story' is often in the eye of the beholder
鈥淢anufactured story.鈥� It's one of the most tried-and-true ways to disparage what鈥檚 regarded as an unfairly negative news account.
You could argue that most political journalism is manufactured, in the sense that it often involves formulating a premise and then expanding on 鈥� or having others expand on 鈥� that premise. The cry of 鈥渕anufactured story鈥� arises when one side is aggrieved that the other side is making a big deal out of something the former sees as trivial.
It happened this week when a Louisiana liberal blogger that Rep. , the House鈥檚 third-ranking Republican, spoke to a group of white supremacists and neo-Nazis in 2002, six years before he was elected to Congress. Scalise quickly distanced himself from the , the European-American Unity and American Rights Organization, and House GOP leaders, as well as other Republicans,聽
鈥淭his manufactured blogger story is simply an attempt to score political points by slandering the character of a good man,鈥� said Roger Villere Jr., chairman of Louisiana鈥檚 Republican Party.
The 鈥渕anufacturing鈥� mantra most often pops up during campaigns, when candidates and parties seek to tightly limit how they are portrayed. To them, anything straying beyond those limits can qualify as making a mountain out of a molehill.
During his 2012 trip to Israel, Republican Mitt Romney offended Palestinian leaders when he said that culture was among the chief reasons Israelis have been more economically prosperous than Palestinians. Romney鈥檚 chief strategist, Stuart Stevens, that the ex-Massachusetts governor had made the argument previously in speeches, as well as a book, and called the controversy 鈥渁 completely manufactured story.鈥�
Democrats, meanwhile, have raised the 鈥渕anufacturing鈥� flag whenever right-wing Republicans avid interest in the deadly 2012 attacks at US buildings in Benghazi, Libya. Or, more recently, over some conservative media鈥檚 with President Obama鈥檚 disclosure that he watches sports and not cable news while working out in the morning.
Stories occasionally do get manufactured, of course. Two of the most notorious examples in journalism history recently resurfaced in the news: The October death of longtime Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee included of the 1980 series 鈥淛immy鈥檚 World,鈥� about a fictional eight-year-old heroin addict. And the saga of New Republic reporter Stephen Glass鈥檚 made-up articles in the 1990s was revived in a lengthy November by one of his ex-colleagues.
Chuck McCutcheon and David Mark write their "Speaking Politics" blog exclusively for Decoder Voices.聽
