Duh! Award

CNN Says It Overplayed Dean's Iowa Scream

New York (AP, February 8) - It probably means little now to Howard Dean, but CNN's top executive believes his network overplayed the infamous clip of Dean's "scream" after the Iowa caucuses.

Cable and broadcast news played the tape 633 times over the following four days - an average of once every nine minutes - according to the Washington-based newsletter Hotline.

Yeah, I think "overplayed" describes it.

Footnote: ABC's Diane Sawyer reported that Dean was using a special microphone that filters out crowd noise. She showed a tape taken from the audience; the "scream" was barely audible inside the room.

That report was aired precisely once.