Monday, August 25, 2008

Jack Shafer: Don't Cover the Conventions

The best thing about Slate, Jack Shafer, writes
A still better way to improve convention coverage would be to withdraw all reporters and force the curious to rely on a C-SPAN feed: Unless a brokered convention threatens to break out, these political gatherings tend to produce very little real news. Yet the networks, the newspapers, the magazines, and the Web sites continue to insist on sending battalions of reporters to sift for itsy specks of information.
And it's true. The issues that come out of conventions tend to be meta issues - dissection of the tone of speeches, that sort of thing. And, as much fun as that stuff can be to the committed junkies, it's just plain not news.

2 comments:

Ann said...

Also the fact that they're just going to give the same speeches that they've been giving for the past 2 years. There was one piece of news this weekend (Obama picking Biden), there will be one piece of news when McCain picks someone, and after that there will not be any more actual news - from the conventions or otherwise - until the actual election comes and finally brings this interminable sideshow to a close.

factory123 said...

It's all roiling in minutiae of speeches and polls right now. I want to be disinterested, but so far I've watched all the primetime speeches like an addict. It's ridiculous.