Is the media blowing the impeachment hearings?

[BloombergOpinion]( [Early Returns]( [Jonathan Bernstein]( Get Jonathan Bernstein’s newsletter every morning in your inbox. [Click here to subscribe](hash=b9b2681361bede0e1069ca238efb1ec2). One flare-up after the first public impeachment hearing Wednesday was a [heavy]( [dose]( of [anger]( at “theater criticism.” The media’s job, we’re told, is to cover the facts of the hearing, especially the accusations against the president and the evidence supporting them, not to speculate about how the event will play politically or how the public might react. I’m certainly not against factual reporting, but I will defend “theater criticism” analysis of live events, including important hearings, candidate debates, political speeches and other such spectacles. It certainly shouldn’t be the only kind of coverage, but it’s appropriate and helpful to readers and viewers. Why? Because while these events aren’t mere entertainment, they are attempts to affect public opinion, and they’re staged (the word choice is deliberate, and accurate) to generate maximum effect. How politicians go about that job, whether they’re any good at it, and what they’re really trying to achieve is important to know. One of the big stories of the year has been the House majority’s gradual improvement at conducting these hearings: They were awful at it early on, but seem to have figured it out by now. And that matters: It means that they’re better at conveying information, impressing the audiences they’re playing to, and advancing their goals. To ignore all that is to miss a crucial part of what’s happening. So the problem usually isn’t theater criticism in itself, but rather bad theater criticism. Sometimes that happens when an analyst misunderstands the politics involved. Often, they’re looking for a [Sorkin fiction]( or [Capra film]( rather than reality. They come to expect dramatic individual confrontations between heroes and villains, with clear winners and losers, changing the course of history with the perfect line. But real politics almost never works like that, and some theater criticism reads as if we’ve been robbed by getting the real thing and not the fiction. Sometimes it’s just a misreading of the situation. Did Wednesday’s hearing have plenty of “[fireworks and explosive moments](”? Did it have “[pizazz](”? It doesn’t matter. What Democrats needed to do was convey to viewers the seriousness of President Donald Trump’s misconduct and their intention to treat it as a threat to the Constitution rather than to conduct a partisan exercise. To complain about a lack of fireworks is like judging a symphony by the standards of a monster-truck rally. It also gets the audience wrong. Democrats of course know that most people won’t watch hours of congressional hearings. What they can do is lay out the story clearly, so that the media can melt it down into broadcast segments and front-page articles that less-attentive citizens will see. Those media decisions will be driven as much by the perceived importance of these events as by the ratings they get. And pizazz isn’t always the way to convey that. Other political actors in other events will have other priorities. Long-shot presidential candidates in early-cycle debates really can benefit from certain lines or moments going viral. On the other hand, a nominee giving an acceptance speech at a convention doesn’t care about that at all, since drawing attention is the least of his or her worries. The best critique of theater criticism is, as the political scientist Brendan Nyhan says, that even when it’s good it can be [self-fulfilling](; that is, journalists speculating about how the public will perceive these events may in fact shape those perceptions. That’s something analysts should watch out for. But of course every kind of political coverage has that problem, since choosing which events to cover and which stories to tell about them can influence subsequent events. As long as the choices are good ones, then I think theater criticism has quite a bit to add to other forms of coverage. 1. Jessica Pisano at the Monkey Cage on [Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy](. 2. Alan Abramowitz on [Medicare for All as a campaign issue](. 3. Laura K. Field on Republican nihilism and the [attacks on the whistle-blower](. 4. Ariel Edwards-Levy on how seriously we should take the [current preferences of Democratic primary voters](. 5. Kate Ackley on the continuation of the [modernization of Congress committee](. Good news. 6. Philip Klein on how Trump could help himself (but won’t) by [emulating President Ronald Reagan](. I’m not even sure Trump would need to apologize, as Klein suggests; if he simply hired a competent chief of staff, turned off his Twitter account and otherwise kept quiet for a couple of weeks, the president’s prospects (and likely his polling numbers) would improve quite a bit. Not going to happen. 7. Josh Rogin tries to make sense of [U.S. policy in Syria](. 8. And the Economist on [musical preferences and voting for Trump](. Get Early Returns every morning in your inbox. [Click here to subscribe](hash=b9b2681361bede0e1069ca238efb1ec2). Also subscribe to [Bloomberg All Access]( and get much, much more. You’ll receive our unmatched global news coverage and two in-depth daily newsletters, the Bloomberg Open and the Bloomberg Close. Bloomberg L.P. ● 731 Lexington Avenue, New York, NY 10022 [Web]( ● [Facebook]( ● [Twitter]( [Feedback]( ● [Unsubscribe](