The Failed Twitter Stunt of Ron DeSantis Was An ‘Inside Baseball’ Error

The phrase “inside baseball” has been in common use since the 1890’s, according to a posting by Merriam-Webster. And unlike today, it actually referred to a “style of play which relied on bunts, stealing bases, and minor hits, rather than on flashier techniques, such as home runs.”

Today the term is used in various situations to describe actions that are understood by a largely insular population. 

An example: Sports  announcers assuming that everyone tuning into a game is familiar with “inside baseball” talk and use expressions like “squaring up the baseball,” “the nickel defense” and describing a baseball player being in the Major Leagues because of Rule 5. (Long gone are the days when announcers would describe the action so a person tuning in for the first time would understand what was being said.)

Today, cable news political broadcasters are arguably the primary user of “inside baseball,” terminology, the most recent major example being on May 24, when an overload of twitter users made the site crash, derailing Gov. Ron DeSantis’s announcement that he was officially running for president (which was not surprising to me because anyone who pays attention to the political scene was aware that he’s been running for president for years, so why make such a big deal of an announcement that everyone knew was coming? Oh, I get it. Cable news has to fill its time slots). 

Everyone who relies on cable for their political news should know three things: 1) Their reports are like an iceberg. Only the small top portion of a happening is showing; the details of a story are underwater. 2) Cable news reporting is the successor to “yellow journalism.” 3) More “inside baseball” commentary is used by cable political reporters in one week than by major league baseball team commentators during their 162 game season, excluding the playoffs. (But that’s not exonerating sports broadcasters from the crime of using “inside baseball” jargon, which they do during almost 

every game.) Among the most common used political “inside baseball” terms are “bad optics,” “coattails,” “silent majority,” “green new deal,” “dark money,” “swing state,” “stump speech,” “push polling,” “expanding the map,” and “spin.”

On his May 28 Fox Media Buzz program, Howard Kurtz led the telecast with the “inside baseball” story of the week – the twitter crash that disrupted Gov. DeSantis’s obvious political stunt. 

It’s not surprising that the story was covered extensively by political reporters, because they, as do the politicians they cover, live in a largely insular cocoon, where they think that every person in the United States is eagerly waiting for the next political news report, when reality shows that the general public only gets worked up over a few issues – birth control, health care and the economy usually topping the list. 

So it did not come as a shock to me that Kurtz led with the DeSantis story, because his program, like those on CNN, MSNBC and others on Fox News have a largely  dogmatic, narrow-minded audience. Political subjects that are discussed and analyzed ad nauseam on cable most often receive a scant few seconds on the non-cable news shows. If the extended reports on the cable shows would provide detailed information they would be worth a viewer’s attention. But they don’t.  Instead of information, what the cable’s offer is opinions from various guests, many of whose names are not recognizable as credible experts on the subjects, probably because they are not. (More on this later.)

The ridiculousness of spending so much time on the DeSantis/Twitter fiasco is evident to anyone who knows anything about politics:

• DeSantis has made hundreds of “presidential” speeches before his “official announcement.” 

• He will make hundreds more speeches during his campaign.

• His every action has been to appeal to the hard-right primary GOP voters.

• His failed twitter stunt will have no bearing on whether he will get the GOP nomination for president.

And more important:

• Do the voters care about the failed twitter stunt?

The answer to the above question is that when voters cast their ballot the success or failure of the twitter announcement will not matter.   Just as the disastrous CNN Town Hall with former President Donald Trump will not change the opinion of pro or anti-Trump voters, a successful twitter announcement wouldn’t have changed voters about their opinion of the Florida governor.

At best a successful twitter announcement should be a two day story, as its failure deserves to be.  The extended coverage it has received on the cable political reports is a prime example of “inside baseball” reporting – the coverage of a subject that appeals to a small segment of the general population but is of interest to an overwhelming number of political and tech junkies.

Another example of “inside baseball” programming on cable political telecasts are the number of largely unknown or little known analysts that are offered up as experts. Day after day, sometime hour after hour, guest analysts who are known only to their followers, (the number of which are never revealed) or the program’s producers are asked to give their opinions on all sorts on subjects. (Good advice: Disregard all opinions given on cable political programs unless they are expressed by guests who have a proven background on the topic being discussed, and their qualifications are announced by the program’s hosts before opinions are given.)

The hosts of the programs never explain what qualifications these largely unknown guest analysts have, except to say that they have their own website or podcast. It’s as if the program’s producers are desperately searching for new faces, when using the old faces who have a known background on the subjects would be more creditable.

As readers of this essay, who are much more technically knowledgeable than I, know that anyone can create their own website or podcast on any subject and claim to be an expert, when in reality they are just expressing their own opinions. 

For decades, “inside baseball” talk has referred to none baseball subjects. While its use is universal, it’s never used as much as on cable TV political programs.

In some ways, the use of “inside baseball” expressions by cable political reporters is similar to the use of “inside baseball” terminology used by baseball and other sports play-by-play announcers and analysts: It’s a coded language to all but the fanatics.

(When I was a novice print sports reporter, a kindly old editor asked me to rewrite a story so that a person who knows nothing about the subject of the article would understand it. “Is your mother a sports fan,” he asked. “No,” I replied. “Rewrite it without the sports jargon so that your mother would understand every word you write,” I was told. 

I’ve tried to follow that advice ever since. Unfortunately many broadcast political and sports commentators don’t.

The Very Important PR Lesson

There’s also an important PR lessons that practitioners should learn from the twitter failure situation:  When a client is going to make an 

important announcement, always have a back-up plan because things always don’t go smoothly.

An example from my personal experience: I was honchoing a major press conference, the subject of which I knew would attract many, many 

dozens of reporters because of its uniqueness and international implications. (Which it did.)

Before the program’s details were announced, I planned to have a short introductory video to set the stage explaining the need for the program. The video machine failed, but I had a second one nearby, so except for a few minutes delay the program proceeded without a hitch.

So remember, as Robert Burns wrote in his poem To a Mouse, “The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men Gang aft agley.”