As President Bush's acceptance speech tonight closes the Republican convention and sends us full speed into the final electoral push, would it be too much to ask one tiny favor of TV's anchors, analysts and pundits?
In the name of all that's holy, shut up.
When exactly did the primary goal of journalists become not talking to news-makers, but talking over them? CNN, MSNBC and Fox News boast that they're covering an event the broadcast networks are ignoring. But they're not so much covering it as smothering it, using the convention as fodder for a 24-hour run of radio-talk-with-pictures. Unless you're one of the privileged big-draw speakers in the show's final hour, you're not just ignored -- you're treated as an annoyance...
No one is less interested in the proceedings around him than Fox News' Bill O'Reilly, but at least his disinterest crosses party lines: He has given no more time to the Republican speeches than he did to the Democrats. Nothing anyone had to say from the podium Wednesday could distract O'Reilly from the evening's appointed tasks: flattering Rudy Giuliani, patronizing Bono, attacking "left-wing" New York Magazine and dismissing New York protestors as "loons."
Still, when it comes to luxuriating in the sound of your own voice, even O'Reilly must bow to MSNBC's Chris Matthews. In one of the convention's more bizarre exchanges, Matthews interrupted a Joe Scarborough screed about immigration Tuesday to ask, "Who are your favorite immigrants?" Luckily for a seemingly nonplused Scarborough, he didn't have to answer, as the question was merely an excuse for Matthews to tell us, "Mine are the West Africans." No doubt they were thrilled to hear it.
I don't think that the interview tactics talked about in this article are specific to the RNC convention. They've existed in the media for some time now. Journalists are no longer looking to report news. Rather, they head into an event with a plot line already scripted out and they're only looking for soundbites and stories that support their plot.
Why else would two major media outlets have been caught reporting on convention speeches before the speeches even happened?
Why else would journalists ask questions that are two paragraphs long and then interrupt the subject of the interview while they're in the middle of answering?
Its because they're trying to bully the person being interviewed into replying with a certain answer said in a certain way. Its not about what the person is actually trying to say, its about what the journalists want the person to look like they're saying.
Welcome to the world of big media, where the truth is just a matter of how you look at it.