Hillarygate

Editors too often demand sizzle even when there is no steak.

   The latest rant making the media rounds is the revelation that Hillary Clinton used a personal email account for communication when she was Secretary of State, rather than posting her official correspondence on a government system. The New York Times broke the story, which immediately set off a firestorm of criticism of the former government official and likely presidential candidate.
   It makes for a sizzling story and a lively debate among political types about rule-breaking. However, it seems that no such rule was in place until a year and a half after she left the State Department. So what rule was it she broke?
   That has not stopped political opponents from jumping up and down for headlines, slamming Clinton for the error of her ways, even though they do similar things themselves.
   From this corner comes a question: Is the story being overplayed, emphasizing the sizzle when there is very little steak?
   And our resident cynic, Dinty Ramble, wonders who tipped off the New York Times to the story. Was it a political opponent, eager to sully her reputation and damage her credibility as a candidate? The revelation is certainly a worthwhile news story, but ignoring the point that there was no rule to break emphasizes one part of the story -- the sizzle -- and ignores what little steak there was.
   It's also possible that the NYT wanted to show some balance in its coverage by beating up on a Democrat in addition to printing negative stories about Republicans. And the TV pundits lapped up the story as something new to yammer about until the next sizzler comes along. But that's the cynic speaking again.
   In any case, it reminded us of the worldwide flap about the Millennium Bug, the story that warned incessantly that every computer in the world would shut down at the stroke of midnight when the year 1999 ended and the year 2000 began. The warning was based on the idea that early computer systems dated their programs with just two digits for a year, rather than four. Therefore, when the calendar year ending 99 closed and the computers turned to 00, the entire system would collapse in confusion.
   It didn't happen. Reason: Computer programmers, especially those in the finance industry dealing with bond issues and mortgages with a 30-year term, noted decades ahead of time that a two-digit year code would be a problem. So they fixed it.
   That didn't stop some folks, however, from marketing "special computer programs" to fix a problem that didn't really exist, and fanning the flames of fearmongering as part of their marketing plan.
   And the media mavens saw the light of a blazing story with lots of sizzle, warning that the sky would fall and computers worldwide would crash at the stroke of midnight.
   
   Nobody bothered to ask whether that would be Eastern Standard Time, Greenwich Mean Time, or any of the 22 other time zones around the planet.