Big Speech, Tiny Crowd

On Friday, Mitt Romney intended to give a moving speech, speaking about ways to revive the American economy. Sadly, what he gave instead was "an unintended lesson about how poor visuals and errant words can derail a candidate’s message in this modern political news culture."

Romney gave his speech in Ford Field, a football stadium equipped to seat 65,000 seats, to a group of 1200 people. Romney's campaign staff states that they did not even choose the venue; the Detroit Economic Club did. However, this fact mattered little to the media, as they posted pictures portraying the empty stadium before Romney had even uttered a word.

Furthermore, despite the fact that this speech was supposed to be about policy, the media focused largely on the aesthetics of his presentation, leaving only one sentence about his actual policies.

Personally, I think it ties very well with our recent chapter, supporting the fact that the media gives little attention to actual policy and instead focuses on the material that will sell. A headline that could hurt Romney's campaign would catch more eyes than an article about his policies.

What are your thoughts on the media's portrayal? Do you think that this will impact Romney's campaign heavily?