https://www.newstimes.com/opinion/article/Paul-Janensch-Is-Comey-book-worth-media-12838892.php
Paul Janensch: Is Comey book worth media ‘swoonfest?’
Published 12:00 am, Tuesday, April 17, 2018
Back on March 31, Margaret Sullivan, media columnist for The Washington Post, warned her readers to get ready for “a full-on media swoonfest” that would greet the memoir by James Comey, who was fired as FBI director by President Donald Trump.
If Sullivan defines “swoonfest” as obsession with a subject, that doesn’t bother me in this case. What Comey has to say in the book and in person is news. So is the reaction of those who disagree with him.
“The conflict-addicted media love a high-profile fight, and Comey vs. Trump continues to be a classic steel-cage match,” wrote Sullivan.
Even before “A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies and Leadership” went on sale Tuesday, it competed with the U.S.-led airstrikes against Syria for the attention of national news outlets — print, television, radio and online.
The airstrikes were the main course. Comey’s book was a side dish, which I think deserved to be on the table.
Reporters obtained copies of the book in advance and looked for headline-making statements. Many stories quoted Comey’s description of Trump as “unethical and untethered to truth.”
In response to these early reports, Trump tweeted that Comey is an “untruthful slime ball.”
No doubt about it. Comey vs. Trump is “a classic steel-cage match.”
After lots of buildup, we finally saw and heard Comey talk about his book Sunday night on ABC in an interview with chief anchor George Stephanopoulos, recorded last week.
This was followed Monday morning by a story in USA Today. Reporters Susan Page and Kevin Johnson interviewed Comey on Friday. Their session with Comey and Stephanopoulos’ took place at Comey’s home in a Virginia suburb outside Washington.
In both interviews, Comey called Trump “morally unfit” to hold office.
In both, Comey expanded on a provocative segment of his book in which he likens Trump to a Mafia don, demanding personal loyalty from those around him.
“Never before in American history has a current or former director of the FBI, the nation’s principal law enforcement agency, publicly described a president in such a scathing manner,” Page and Johnson wrote in USA Today.
You can learn what else Comey said from news accounts. I’m focusing on the media blitz.
Follow-up interviews were scheduled with Fox News’ Bret Baier, CNN’s Jake Tapper and PBS’s Judy Woodruff.
Comey also planned to visit opinion and entertainment programs, such as ABC’s “The View,” CBS’s “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” and MSNBC’s “The Rachel Maddow Show.”
On April 25, Comey will join a town hall on CNN hosted by Anderson Cooper at William & Mary College in Virginia, the author’s alma mater.
“It is an irresistible story, all right, and suggestions for across-the-board restraint and skepticism are probably pointless,” wrote Sullivan in The Washington Post.
“Perhaps it is best to yield to the inevitable, pop some corn and watch the show,” she added.
Paul Janensch was a newspaper editor and taught journalism at Quinnipiac University. Email: paul.janensch@quinnipiac.edu.
