Gingrich Pre-Announces His Presidential Run Announcement

It can be a good thing to seed a story with reporters and the public. But Newt Gingrich totally took the bite out of his big Wednesday announcement about running for President by announcing it repeatedly yesterday.

Gingrich’s spokesman Rick Tyler told everyone yesterday that they would be making the big announcement on Twitter and Facebook tomorrow. Then Gingrich will be on Fox News‘ Sean Hannity program that night to talk about it some more. But Gingrich already wrote a post on Facebook yesterday saying: “Be sure to watch Hannity this Wednesday at 9pm ET/8pm CT. I will be on to talk about my run for President of the United States.” Also, the AP has done a whole segment about it, which we’ve attached above.

Then Gingrich will be further announcing his announcement on Friday with an appearance at the Georgia Republican Party Convention on Friday. This strategy makes no sense.

The whole point of announcing that there will be an announcement is to build so much anticipation that people will be clamoring to tune in and find out what the big scoop is, no? Drum up some big headlines and top-notch coverage?

“He is planning to make the official announcement Wednesday on Facebook and Twitter, although that seems sure to be anticlimactic given that his staff is forecasting the news nearly 48 hours in advance,” wrote the Boston Globe.

 

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