Category: default || By jt3y

Terry Madonna
On the morning news
Giving just the first of this day's interviews

He's got opinions
On most every race
Helping hack reporters to save face

Monday quoted in the Trib-Review
Tuesday morning in the Post-Gazette
Wednesday lunchtime he's on Channel 2
And the week's not done yet

Terry Madonna
Giving it his best
Can't Pennsylvania media just let him rest?

. . .

Terry Madonna, professor of public affairs at Franklin & Marshall College, was just on the radio, analyzing the race between Bob "Bob" Casey Jr. and Sen. Rick Torquemada, R-Penn Hills, Va.

Says Dr. Madonna, Pennsylvania's most ubiquitous political pundit:

• The race between Tricky Ricky and The Real Bob Casey Pt. 2 is negative and has the potential to become more negative.



• The Santorum commercial that depicts Casey's "campaign team" in jail is untruthful. On the other hand, some of Casey's ads also have inaccuracies.



• President Bush's approval ratings are low. Those low approval ratings may hurt Santorum.



• On the other hand, Bush's approval ratings have gone up slightly. That may be in part due to the lower gas prices. But it's unclear whether that will help Santorum at all.

Thank you for that insightful analysis. But with all due respect to Dr. Madonna, he forgot to mention that the sun is going to rise in the east tomorrow, and that fluffy bunnies are cute.

I confess that during my undistinguished tenure as a reporter, I, too, called Terry Madonna for a quote on at least one occasion. Possibly more, but I don't think so.

All reporters in Pennsylvania love Terry Madonna, who also conducts the Keystone Poll, because he's remarkably well-informed on many, many aspects of state politics, and he's easy to reach. He's also a very nice guy.

You could wake Terry Madonna out of a sound sleep, with a 101-degree fever, and ask him to analyze the race for Recorder of Deeds in Potter County, and he'd give you a usable quote.

And that's the problem. Too many reporters don't want to dig for any information. Tracking down some other professor of public policy to comment on local politics would require work. They might even have to leave the office.

It's much easier to flip through the Rolodex, grab Madonna's phone number (though I'd be shocked if many reporters didn't have it memorized) and ask him the standard questions.

But if you're giving the same interviews, on the same topics, day after day, week after week, month after month, it obviously becomes more and more difficult to find something new and interesting to say.

Plus, since he's doing polling research for many different media organizations (among them the Philadelphia Daily News, the Harrisburg Patriot-News, the Tribune-Review, and several TV stations, including WTAE), he's got to be careful not to offend anyone.

. . .

The combination of over-exposure and well-placed caution would reduce even Winston Churchill to mouthing platitudes --- and that's what the media has Terry Madonna doing these days.

Thus begging the question: Why interview him at all?

Because it's easy. And it gives the impression that the local radio and TV stations and newspapers are covering politics, when what they're really doing is just dragging out the same old dead horses and beating them, one more time.

Surveys indicate that the American public finds politics "boring" and are uninterested with government news. The same surveys are used by newspapers and especially TV to justify reducing their coverage of politics and government.

Here's a thought. Maybe Americans aren't bored by politics. Maybe they're just bored by the hackneyed coverage being churned out daily by KDKA, WTAE, WPXI, the P-G, the Trib, the Associated Press, et. al.

Like, for example, constantly interviewing Terry Madonna.

. . .

Speaking of hackneyed: I notice that the distinguished editorialists at the Tribune-Review have adopted Tricky Ricky's belittling nickname for his opponent. Like Sen. Torquemada, they're now calling him "Bobby Casey Junior."

That's quite droll, you know, but of course, editorials in the Trib have always been the height of subtlety and incisive wit.

Since the Trib has adopted Santorum's nickname for Casey, I have decided to adopt a nickname for the Trib.

My friend, the late Larry Slaugh, always referred to it as "the Greensburg Astonisher" (because he was regularly "astonished" at the way certain news stories were reported) ... and until Election Day, I will, too.

By the way: Comments don't seem to be working for some reason, so I thought I'd add this "addendum" here. Everyone knows that I used to work for the Greensburg Astonisher, right? I even got mentioned in an editorial or two.

On the other hand, they were glad to be rid of me --- or so I'm told now.