User:Beejamjam/sandbox6
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Flooding the zone is a and political strategy in which media is overwhelmed with information.
Originally from sports strategy and describing a tactic to defeat zone defense, the strategy was imported to journalism by the New York Times executive editor Howell Raines and the phrase then spread in politics among conservative bloggers—particularly Glenn Reynolds—from 2002. The phrase was later popularized by Steve Bannon who advocated for the right to "flood the zone with shit" to overwhelm the media in 2019. The strategy was used during both of Donald Trump's presidencies.
History
The phrase "flood the zone" originates from sports strategy, where flooding the zone is a tactic to defeat zone defense. Journalist Howell Raines, as a reporter for the The Tuscaloosa News in Alabama, picked up the strategy from University of Alabama football coach Paul "Bear" Bryant who made use of it on the football field. During the collapse of Enron, as editor of The New York Times Raines assigned numerous reporters to cover the scandal from many angles, hoping to overwhelm competitors for viewers' attention with this output. The strategy burned out the Times's reporters.[1]
Use in the blogosphere
The use of the phrase "flood the zone" in political strategy originated in the blogosphere in December 2002, after US Senator Trent Lott made remarks which were widely interpreted as sympathetic to racial segregation in a birthday toast to former Dixiecrat 1948 presidential candidate Strom Thurmond. Following this, several prominent bloggers used moments from Lott's past to portray him as an outward advocate for racial discrimination. Glenn Reynolds, who ran the conservative blog Instapundit in all caps titled the first of his posts about Lott on December 8; "Flood the Zone!" This signalled that he would saturate Instapundit and the blogs that linked to it with stories about Lott. Following this, Reynolds posted about Lott ten times on 8 December, and 90 times in the 20 days following Lott's toast, with the term "flood the zone" appearing in his post titles for several days. Reynolds interpreted the phrase to mean "covering a story to the extent that other outlets can't ignore it."[1]
The concept quickly began to become part of the public grammar; an early piece of feedback to Reynolds's original December 8 post, reposted by Reynolds, said that "I'm glad that you are 'flooding the zone' with this one." Other bloggers such as Josh Marshall used a similar strategy to that of Reynolds, Marshall himself stating that he "just started hitting it and basically hitting it and hitting it and hitting it", though he did not use the 'flood the zone' term.[1]
Institutional media picked up on the story and eventually caused Lott's resignation as senator.[1]
Steve Bannon
On March 25, 2019, in an interview with journalist Michael Lewis, Steve Bannon said; "The Democrats don’t matter, The real opposition is the media. And the way to deal with them is to flood the zone with shit."[2][3]
Second presidency of Donald Trump
From the beginning of the second presidency of Donald Trump in January 2025, The New York Times reported that Donald Trump was using the flood the zone strategy, and that "flood is bigger, wider and more brutally efficient," as the administration was enacting initiatives at a high speed and frequency.[4] Stephen Miller was particularly noted for believing in this strategy, having stated that the goal was to overwhelm the opposition with activity.[5] Trump's administration continued this policy into July.[6]