Dog bites man…
I consider this a very strange statement: Columnist Tim Goodman claims that gavel-to-gavel coverage of political conventions is “ridiculous because no news whatsoever gets made there.” Now I agree that the gavel-to-gavel thing is a bit much even for cable. But no news at all is made?
A president and presidential candidate make news almost every time they flap their gums. And important politicians who support these candidates make news when they deliver speeches to a mass audience for the purpose of persuading the public to vote a certain way. All of these speeches have complex intent and content.
Perhaps Goodman is guilty merely of bad kairos regarding his hyperbole. But I doubt it. Journalists of all kinds (reporters, editors, editorialists) have a difficult time analyzing texts beyond rooting out the political contention in the white space between the lines. And, well, that’s really an inevitable thing to do when you approach any political statement with a narrative bias, i.e. assume the drama of contention between protagonist and antagonist is the primary plot.
Goodman takes the obligatory shot at the convention bloggers, conveniently ignoring who they are (for example, a prominent political magazine journalist and a noted journalism professor–both Ph.D.s). But these bloggers may be the ones who show journalists what they could and should be doing as custodians of fact: Assume the intention of a politician to do the job of governance and analyze the content of a speech based on that intention first. I am not suggesting journalists ignore political contention; I am suggesting that such contention is secondary to the lives of citizens who must live with the policies that politicians talk about and eventually enact into law.
Covering contention is easy. It’s always there. It’s easy to find. It’s dog-bites-man stuff. In other words, much of the time it isn’t news.
Nothing to See Here - 9/11 24-7 edition
Why is the “Justice Department ordering”:http://www.thememoryblog.org/archives/000215.html documents with titles such as “Civil and Criminal Forfeiture Procedure” and “Select Federal Asset Forfeiture Statutes” to be destroyed?
For anyone interested, here is the URL for the convention bloggers, including the delegates http://www.conventionbloggers.com/ Personally, I’m hoping for another Paul Wellstone “Memorial” moment, when the wacky wing of the Democratic Party lets it’s freak flag fly.
What reports and editors don’t like to admit is that voters learn more from watching and listening to politicians than from reading and hearing journalistic reports and interpretations of speeches and meetings.
Political and news junkies form their opinions of players and news by watching and listening to talk shows and C-span and reading instantly downloaded copies of reports such as the 9/11 report or even news releases. Yes, they also take in the reports by professional journalists, but there is nothing like being there, unless you’re a bored, cynical reporter who’s hearing something disagreeable.