Following up on Clint’s scene-setting description of reporters disgruntled that MSNBC commentators chatted over former Republican congressman Jim Leach’s speech Monday night, here are a few more call-outs on broadcast decisions to cut away from speeches in order to provide some pundit talk (and a not so shabby reason to consider watching uncut streaming video):
Steve Bennen over at the Washington Monthly, writing about Leach: “Maybe if he’d challenged Chris Matthews to a duel, news outlets would have taken his remarks more seriously.”
From TPM’s Josh Marshall: “At the moment, Fox News has cut away from Mark Warner’s keynote address to show Sean Hannity and Rudy Giuliani talking about Bill Ayers.”
And from Ta-Nehisi Coates, over at The Atlantic, some live blogging during Montana governor Schweitzer’s energetic speech last night:
sounds excited. And he’s tackling McCain.
UPDATE: Also, nice note on “American wind and sunshine.” Even if it is a little jingoistic. Even the sun is American!
UPDATE #2: OK, he kinda killed it. And MSNBC missed the whole thing.
(This last, by the by, works as a simple example of Micah Sifry’s big picture interactivity, which I wrote about earlier: Coates was by his computer and presumably watching a couple of broadcasts at once; from his stakeout (at home?), he could simultaneously hear Schweitzer speak, criticize MSNBC’s cut-away, and inject some humor into his live blogging. Comprehensive? No, but most readers who would be reading Coates’s blog during the speech itself would be watching a broadcast or feed too.)
MediaMatters has a round-up of the broadcasts’ missed Leach Moments here.
Jane Kim is a writer in New York.