Framing to Win vs. Framing for Understanding

"Hamilton continues Broadway dominance with 11 Tonys" read today's headline in the Washington Post, along with the subheading "The blockbuster musical about the Founding Fathers fell short of the record for most Tony Awards held by "The Producers".



(Source: USAToday)
OK, so it is an awards show and therefore a competition among this year's nominees, which never feels quite right in the creative arts as opposed to athletic competition. Still, in this 2015-2016 Broadway season , best described as the blowout year of Hamilton, for the headline to say that Hamilton in any way"falls short" seems like a failure of framing. Even "second only to The Producers all-time" would have been more accurate, but still not quite faithfully represent the completely positive night and year for Hamilton.

So why does that matter? Seems like a small quibble, but it illustrates the problem of framing in the news media - the gravitation toward the horse race in the elections as well as the most tantalizing tidbit,  which can mean setting records or not, or a candidate making the most outrageous statements with not enough treatment of the issue "What is really going on here?" More to come on this framing topic in the next post.