What We Missed in Boston

[Catt03]

The following at least addresses some of the cable coverage adding to the shame of the quality of information being broadcast to the American public about the the election of a president. Shame! Shame!

What We Missed in Boston

By ALESSANDRA STANLEY

Published: August 1, 2004


EOPLE, particularly network anchors, complain that conventions are too tailored to television. Actually, they are not tailored enough. If the parties really wanted the networks to give them gavel-to-gavel coverage, they would cut the event down to one night, not select a nominee in advance, and let viewers call in and, as they do on the Fox Network hit, vote for their favorite speaker - Convention Idol.

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So, are Americans getting the convention coverage they deserve? Or are the television networks shirking the civic responsibility that was implicit when the government gave them the airwaves and let them rake in billions off a public trust?

snip

Instead, viewers got the television equivalent of the modern paperback - from the Nicholson Baker-novel obsessiveness of "ABC News Now" to the fluffy, self-absorbed novellas of anchors interviewing each other on MSNBC and Fox News. The enlightened viewer could design do-it-yourself reportage - a little C-Span and PBS, some CNN and an hour on a network on prime time. (Most Americans chose to tune out completely.) Television is a passive medium. It would have been nice to have the option of letting a trusted network anchor make those choices.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/01/weekinreview/01stan.html?hp

[DebJ]

1. We watched all coverage on CSPAN, period, and taped it and

replayed it. To #ell with the talking heads.

We did tune in to Fox briefly, AFTERWORDS, for about 20 minutes on Monday and Thursday. It seemed to me they were struggling to find something to knock, and boy did I love that!

[holly73]

2. Have to love CSPAN :)

[candy]

3. Conventions and awards shows bore me to death.

I watched Edwards' and Kerry's speeches and that's it.That's all that mattered.

The rest was all theatre!!!