''The Note'' is a summary and analysis of political news stories and trends published every weekday morning by ABCNews.com. Begun as an internal staff e-mail by then Political Director

Mark Halperin Mark Evan Halperin (born January 11, 1965)Mark Halperin. ''Contemporary Authors Online''. Detroit: Gale, 2010. Gale Biography In Context. is an American journalist, currently a host and commentator for Newsmax TV. Halperin previously worked as ...

, it was first published on January 14, 2002. ''The Note'' was edited by Senior Political Reporter Rick Klein from 2007 through 2010, by Michael Falcone from 2010 through 2016, and is now written again by Klein and deputy political director MaryAlice Parks. In 2006 ''The Note'''s online

podcast A podcast is a program made available in digital format for download over the Internet. For example, an episodic series of digital audio or video files that a user can download to a personal device to listen to at a time of their choosing ...

counterpart, '' AfterNote'' was frequently hosted by ABC News field producer Teddy Davis. In April 2007, Halperin left his post as editor of ''The Note''. He was replaced by Rick Klein, who began writing ''The Note'' on May 2, 2007.

Criticisms

''The Note'' has been criticized for alleged pro-Republican bias. Left-wing journalist

Eric Boehlert Eric Boehlert (December 6, 1965 – April 4, 2022) was an American journalist, writer, and media critic. He was a senior fellow at Media Matters for America for ten years and a staff writer at both ''Salon'' and ''Billboard''. In 2020, Boehler ...

writes that "it never crosses over into actually being edgy. In fact, ''The Note'' doesn't mock

conventional wisdom The conventional wisdom or received opinion is the body of ideas or explanations generally accepted by the public and/or by experts in a field. In religion, this is known as orthodoxy. Etymology The term is often credited to the economist John K ...

so much as idolize it" and says it "is enamored of Republican Party

talking points A talking point, often used in the plural, is a pre-established message or formula used in the field of political communication, sales and commercial or advertising communication. The message is coordinated ''a priori'' to remain more or less inv ...

"

The Note has also been criticized for alleged anti-Republican bias. In a memo dated October 8, 2004, Mark Halperin instructed ABC employees that while both the Kerry campaign and the Bush campaign were guilty of distorting facts, they should be willing to say that distortions coming from the Bush campaign were worse when, in Halperin's estimation, they wer

Another frequent criticism is that despite its blog-like style and the increasing popularity of

feed reader In computing, a news aggregator, also termed a feed aggregator, feed reader, news reader, RSS reader or simply an aggregator, is client software or a web application that aggregates syndicated web content such as online newspapers, blogs, podc ...

s (especially in the political world), ''The Note'' does not publish its content via

RSS RSS ( RDF Site Summary or Really Simple Syndication) is a web feed that allows users and applications to access updates to websites in a standardized, computer-readable format. Subscribing to RSS feeds can allow a user to keep track of many di ...

(except for its podcast). ABCNews.com offers a single RSS feed for all of its political content, of which ''The Note'' is only one part. This feed does not contain the full text of ''The Note'', but instead only a headline and link.

Jargon

''The Note'' often employs jargon that may be incomprehensible to outsiders. Examples of this jargon include: * The Gang of 500 refers to political insiders and

journalists A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalism ...

who influence the daily

media narrative Media may refer to: Communication * Media (communication), tools used to deliver information or data ** Advertising media, various media, content, buying and placement for advertising ** Broadcast media, communications delivered over mass ...

U.S. politics The politics of the United States function within a framework of a constitutional federal republic and presidential system, with three distinct branches that Separation of powers, share powers. These are: the United States Congress, U.S. Congre ...

. About ten percent of the Gang of 500 is made up of political journalists. The term was coined by

as "campaign consultants, strategists, pollsters, pundits, and journalists who make up the modern-day political establishment". They are "the 500 people whose decisions matter to the political news and campaign narrative we get from the major media".
In November 2017, journalist Eve Fairbanks penned an essay in

BuzzFeed BuzzFeed, Inc. is an American Internet media, news and entertainment company with a focus on digital media. Based in New York City, BuzzFeed was founded in 2006 by Jonah Peretti and John S. Johnson III to focus on tracking viral content. Ken ...

claiming that the ''Gang of 500'' was a made up term designed to make Halperin seem like a bigger expert than he truly was. *

googling monkeys Owing to the dominance of the Google search engine, to ''google'' has become a transitive verb. The neologism commonly refers to searching for information on the World Wide Web using the Google search engine. The American Dialect Society chos ...

chattering classes The chattering classes is a politically active, socially concerned and highly educated section of the "metropolitan middle class",

* "Big Casino" refers to the federal budget and uncertainty around revenue and spending caused by changes in the economy, war, and other unpredictable circumstances that will affect the ability of politicians to change taxes or spending.

References

External links

Official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Note, The ABC News