In light of recent political events during the democratic primaries, I wanted to point out more of an irrational, rather than rational, information cascade. You’ll often find pundits and the media searching for any opportunity to attack a candidate. For example, back in October of 2007, a reporter from ABC News asked Barack Obama why he wasn’t wearing an American flag lapel pin. Obama replied that he doesn’t wear one, believing that he can better express his true patriotism in other ways. He said in an interview: “Instead, I’m going to try to tell the American people what I believe will make this country great, and hopefully that will be a testament to my patriotism.” However, ABC News took this statement and ran with it, accusing him of being unpatriotic. In a cascade, other news mediums began reporting on the same incident, and even six months later, in the Philadelphia democratic debate this past Wednesday, moderators directed a video question about this same lapel pin issue.

Many of the other popular political topics relating to the democratic candidates have the same flavor, such as Hillary’s Bosnia comments or the drawn out Reverend Wright story. Why is it a cascade? Media networks are always competing, so as with any story, when ABC reported it, other news networks were compelled to latch onto the story as well in the effort to always appear to have the better news or more complete news story. As a result, the media appears ignorant of what are the pressing political issues of our time, like health care or the economy, and instead focus on distractions of little substance. Thus, we see how cascades can negatively affect the political culture and pollute the dialogue of debates. The title of the article, “A Political Rerun,” is indeed referring to the results of a cascade effect in politics.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/132462/page/1