Years ago, I found an amateur documentary called “Spin”. The 600MB movie file took hours and hours to download over my modem connection at the time. The film focused on television network feeds during the 1992 US Presidential election. Producer Brian Springer captured the live via satellite network feeds (the ones the networks in between segments to set up) and recorded countless hours of them. He presents an interesting look into the emergence (at that time) of cable network news in news coverage, and the spin of it by both the network brass and by competing politicians.
I’ve found the documentary in full flash-streaming form at Google Video and I encourage everyone that’s interested in the interplay between politics and media to watch it.
The documentary is also interesting if we consider the context of blogging as the present emerging medium. The ubiquity of blogs and those that write them are certainly changing politics again and we still haven’t seen the full effect. Politicians who embrace blogging and use it intelligently are sure to attain better control over their messaging and “spin”.