politics

They’re Singing Our Song

September 3, 2004

This morning, Campaign Desk was riffling through The New York Times‘ special convention section when we ran across a piece by Bill Carter, who covers the TV industry. Carter reveals much dismay and hand-wringing amongst the broadcast networks in the wake of the abysmal audiences they’ve pulled in all week long with their skimpy convention coverage.

Much of the piece focuses on how Fox News gave the Big Three, plus CNN and MSNBC as well, a sound thrashing on Wednesday night. (With 5.9 million viewers, Fox all by itself exceeded the combined audiences of CBS and ABC.) But the revealing part of Carter’s report came in two quotes — one from a Republican convention planner commenting on how the political parties have learned to play the networks like a trained dog, and one from a befuddled anchorman wondering how he and his colleagues had become trained dogs.

The former is Dorrance Smith, a former ABC news exec and current consultant Republican convention planner, who says the networks have no one to blame but themselves. “The way that we and the Democrats have programmed the 10 p.m. hour has reduced [the network’s] impact dramatically,” Smith crowed. “By limiting their coverage, [the networks] are forced to show what the conventions have programmed, and it has reduced to a bare minimum their ability to react and opine.” As an aside, he adds: “It never ceases to amaze me how the networks can continue to rationalize their ongoing decline in both numbers and relevancy.”

Next, Dan Rather, the CBS bigfoot, acknowledges that tightly-controlled stage managing by both political parties has indeed reduced the nets’ interest in the conventions. Rather complained that cutbacks by their own networks, combined with tight stage-managing by convention planners, had left journalists with little more to do than a sports producer at a prepackaged event, who basically shows up and turns on the cameras.

“Actually, in sports you can do more,” Rather sighed. “You can say the fullback missed a block. Here, we don’t even get to do that.”

What might the nets do differently?

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Hmmmmm. Pause. Insert furrowed brow.

Hey, here’s one idea! What if, Rather asked the Times, CBS were to actually start fact-checking convention and campaign rhetoric, vetting every assertion, every number and every charge tossed out by speechifying politicians?

Gee, Dan, good idea. In our country, we call it “reporting.”

–Steve Lovelady

Susan Q. Stranahan wrote for CJR.