On the weekend before we left for the convention, I watched “Face the Nation."
One news personality said that conventions aren’t as exciting as they used to
be. All the other pundits agreed with her. I can’t speak for how they used to
be, but I want to tell you right now that this convention is very exciting.
Maybe that’s because this is my first national convention. Or maybe
it’s because time has enhanced the memories those reporters have of conventions.
While I’ve never had the opportunity to attend a national convention in person,
I’ve watched several on television. What these pundits recall nostalgically
are the conventions where the decisions were made in back rooms. In my younger
days, I watched conventions on TV with my father. (That was in the days when
the networks felt that the political conventions were more newsworthy than "Who
Wants to Be a Millionaire?") Someone told me that Ted Koppel walked out on the
Republican Convention of 1996 saying that he didn’t want to sit through an
infomercial. I don’t know if that’s true or not, but it does seem to capture
the perspective of some press people.
Before leaving for the convention, I was contacted by several reporters. One
from CBS was taking a survey. He had lots of multiple choice questions. On
some of the questions, such as private retirement accounts for Social Security,
I didn’t like any of the choices he offered. Yet, he didn’t want to hear my
answer because it didn’t fit into one of his boxes. I couldn’t help but
wonder, as I vainly tried to explain why the options he offered weren’t the
only ones, whether he was even listening. I also wonder just how he marked his
little boxes to make the statistics come out the way he expected. Sometimes, I
really do believe that the media would like the whole race to be decided by the
New Hampshire primary. Many of them seem to still be in a state of wonder that
the rest of the nation could have made a different decision than that of New
Hampshire.
The news people seem to regret that the conventions of today offer no surprise
since the candidate has been chosen. This year, even the mystery of the vice
presidential candidate is solved. Before I left home, some people
asked, “What’s the point of going? You don’t get to make the decision about
the Presidential candidate—or even the Vice Presidential candidate.”
It is true that many of the decisions were made before the convention even
started but that is because the delegates had already worked hard for over a
year. The convention is actually a celebration and culmination of that hard
work. In addition, it is also an important part of the remaining campaign.
It’s the jump start for the campaign.
The networks made the decision to limit coverage of the convention and,
although the cable and PBS outlets devoted more of their schedule to the
events, they all continuously broke away from the convention itself to give
their own impressions and interpretations of what was going on (I know this
because my husband went to the hall on some nights, but stayed at the hotel to
watch it on TV one night). The press seems more interested in making, shaping,
and, interpreting the news rather than simply reporting events. They want to
tell us what to think instead of showing us what happened so WE can decide what
WE think.
My experience at this convention has encouraged me to remain involved. It has
been exciting and has given me the opportunity to know my 36 fellow delegates
from WA state, and to meet delegates from other states. It has also
convinced me that the calls for campaign finance reform which are
whole-heartedly promoted by the press would only serve to empower the press to
shape opinion even more than they already do.
The press doesn’t report the news, they interpret it. They don’t even refer to
themselves as reporters anymore but commentators, pundits, journalists and
analysts. Since the press seems to define “freedom of the press” as a license
for THEM to tell US what to think, I will never be satisfied with the press as
the only source of information. We need to ensure that people have the right
to raise money to get their own message out.
