Random thoughts on TV's coverage of the Democratic conventon Monday

Some random thoughts which came while consuming media coverage of the Democratic National  Convention's first night Monday:

-- Enough with the grousing about how the networks should cover the conventions more. This election cycle should make it obvious -- media outlets are doing what they do most effectively. Cable TV is filling great chunks of airtime with opinionating and speculation, public broadcasting is either presenting what happened unfiltered (C-SPAN) or wonking it up big time (NPR, PBS), the networks are capturing the big ticket stuff and summarizing and 50,000 different pieces of the puzzle are available online for anyone who cares to wade through it all. How exactly does all this information equal any kind of loss for consumers -- especially compared to the days when you had to count on four information providers to tell you everything?   

-- As you might expect, public broadcasting offered the wonkiest coverage, with National Public Radio digging deep into policy issues during it's special coverage broadcasts and PBS' NewsHour offering a panel of three historians dissecting the significance of Jimmy Carter, Ted Kennedy, Barack Obama and The Clintons. Wondering what it means that I found that stuff so satisfying amid the cable networks' blather?

  -- As much as I loved seeing Michelle Obama take center stage for an evening, it felt a lot like watching Hillary Clinton stagger back from her derisive comments about "baking cookies" when Bill was running for president. As much as as some voters may admire a strong woman, it seems our first ladies still can't afford to appear onstage as the fully independent women they clearly are in life.

-- What genius leaned on the wrong button to give us a candid faceful of Charlie Gibson for a long second right in the middle of Michelle Obama's speech?

-- What genius left the bottom quarter of the TV screen obscured on CNN during the tribute video to Ted Kennedy, ensuring that we would not see the names of anyone appearing in the video?

-- Didn't bother me so much, but a friend makes the excellent point that a Democratic party trying to win over working class voters maybe shouldn't have featured a rich guy like Ted Kennedy hanging out on his block-long yacht so much in the tribute video.

-- Fox News and MSNBC lived down to their partisan roots Monday, with Keith Olbermann extolling the virtues of Ted Kennedy on one channel, while Sean Hannity was lobbing softballs at McCain campaign official Nicole Wallace on the other.

-- Predictably, McCain went on Jay Leno's Tonight Show to make an age joke -- "I'm so old, my Social Security number is eight." -- and pushed back on criticism on how many houses he owns by referring to his prisoner of war experience. He better have a better answer by the time the debates come around.

-- CBS seemed to be the only network which offered an early report on the guys arrested and suspected of plotting against Obama's life. The report had the effect of making CBS' first 15-minutes of coverage look a lot more newsy than the competition, though subsequent revelations that these guys were probably just drug-addled yahoos, makes the decision not to highlight their arrest on national TV a valid one. I've always wondered if CBS wasn't a little more aggressive about jumping on news because of their sensitivity to criticism that anchor Katie Couric is a lightweight.

-- Coverage found its own level last night. Much as people complain about the blizzard of information, it seems the type of media ecosystem you'd want at a time like this. And how anyone would expect big media to ignore an event this big -- or present continuous coverage on network TV when so many other TV outlets are doing the same thing -- remains a mystery to me.

Comments

[Tigergator]

Trouble is, convention coverage is obsolete. It is not needed, there is no news....just staged events and speeches. For cable, it's easy and fills time and makes them think they are really doing something. PBS is really not doing much of substance---i mean shields and what's his name giving post mortems on warner's speech...it was banal, not it wasn't.....yes it was, etc. Save the money on convention converage and put into real reporting that do find out differences, etc

[Lin Young]

You are right when you say that America's first ladies still can't show themselves onstage as "the fully independent women they clearly are in life." But that is true for the average American woman who isn't the first lady, or aspiring to become that.

That's why strong, capable, independent women became so angry over the constant sexism aimed at Hillary Clinton as she campaigned. We are sick of being boxed in by rampant sexism and discrimination and being marginalized when we complain of it, or being branded trouble-makers and further discriminated against. And most of all, we are sick of remaining silent over the constant abuse we face in society.

That said, Michelle Obama did the job American society has conscripted her to do as the wife of a presidential nominee. And she did it well - and while wearing heels. She did a smashing job of giving America a peek into her all-American family and her personal American success story. Her daughters were absolutely adorable. She presented a picture of a family any American can visualize living in the White House and greeting guests there on behalf of our nation, or accompanying the president on visits to foreign heads of state around the world and doing a good job of representing us.

Ah, the "little woman" and the kids roles.

But it is what it is, and Michelle proved she can do it.

She also delivered her speech in a totally relaxed manner. The kids were relaxed and the video feed of Barack showed him relaxed as well. It was a great job by all. The whole family presented themselves as folks that will fit into the White House, as well as the kind of next door neighbor family everyone could enjoy having around, unless they were Ku Klux Klan members or something.

I only watched the Convention on PBS and CNN, and then the ABC news nightly news, so thanks Eric for filling us in on how the other stations covered it. And I think you liked the wonky NPR and PBS Newshour stuff because it had substance. The blather on the cable stations is rather like filling up on cotton candy, you get sick of all that airy stuff after awhile and need some substance, a little meat and veggies, so to speak, and that's what NPR and PBS give - substance and sustenance.