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Covering the Republican National Convention According
to the Pennsylvania paper the TIMES LEADER, this year's Republican
convention in New York
City was the most elaborate and costly of all presidential conventions in
history. It's unlikely that living in America, however far from New York you
might be, you could have missed media coverage this week of the big show, both
inside and outside Madison Square Garden. The media has emphasized the notion
that New
York City isn't a typical Republican town. According to the OREGONIAN,
Democrats outnumber Republicans by more than 5 to 1.
But that fact was probably not the force responsible for early media
speculation that the moderate stance of the primetime speakers was not
representative of the Republican party as a whole. The chairman of the
Republican National Committee criticized such coverage for focusing on moderate
speakers, insisting that the mix of speakers was broad and the party united.
While the chants and cheers of delegates within Madison Square Garden may have
shown the world a united party, critics of the Bush administration took this
week's convention as an opportunity to show that the country as a whole is not
united. Protests were staged in many locations around New York City... and the
media was there. Those
tuning in to television coverage of the protest march around Madison Square
Garden the day before the convention began probably caught as many glimpses of
television crews as protestors.
In an effort to avoid being limited by mainstream media coverage,
protestor-friendly independent media sources such as Indy
Media and TruthOut provided their own ongoing coverage of the
activity outside the convention in New York this week. Meanwhile, the
conservative FRONTPAGE magazine was angered by the protestors presence,
stating:
"Valuable prime time national airtime is the prize in these
carefully-planned leftist attempts to grab network attention. Every primetime
minute they can steal by seizing the eye of network TV cameras — worth
perhaps $100,000 per minute in equivalent advertising — is a minute that
the networks would otherwise have provided to Republican speakers or
spokespeople."
The value of airtime has indeed been an issue for those analyzing media
coverage in this election season. Major networks ABC, CBS, and NBC all showed a
decline in coverage of the
conventions this year, as was widely reported around the time of the
Democratic National Convention. But viewers had ample opportunity to follow the
events in Boston and New York. William Powers, media critic for the
NATIONAL JOURNAL, told NPR's Melissa Block:
"I think the media are, by and large, doing really well. There's an incredible
sort of cafeteria of coverage to choose from now. Remember the other night I
went at one point from C-SPAN live coverage in the hall to C-SPAN2, with
historic speeches — they had Eisenhower speaking to a convention in the
1950s — to Bob Woodward on LARRY KING talking about whether John Kerry is
qualified to be commander in chief vs. George Bush. And I don't find myself
missing the networks at all... There's not much to miss about the network
coverage because we've got so much else replacing it."
One of the things replacing it is what the SACRAMENTO BEE calls
"alternative
media," suggesting that young people looking for news about the conventions
turned to political blogs and Comedy Central's THE DAILY SHOW WITH JON STEWART instead of
traditional news networks. As the Online Journalism Review sums it up,
"Polls,
ratings and media watchers show that youth want news that reinforces their
point of view and encourages interactivity — all with a healthy dose of
irony."
On the other end of the coverage spectrum was the controversial introduction of
"convention jockeys" to this year's GOP convention. As the BOSTON GLOBE
describes these new players, they are a group of "media-savvy staff members
— some with journalism backgrounds — who are producing interviews and
stories shown inside Madison Square Garden as part of the convention pageantry
and propaganda." While some complain that this is a dishonest attempt to pass
off
party priorities as news, C-SPAN and ABC have been showing some
of these reports as part of their full convention coverage, careful to identify
the segments as RNC-produced. Matthew
Felling of the Center for Media and Public Affairs wasn't surprised by
the use
of convention
jockeys, seeing them as part of the administration's ongoing "media
management." Alex Jones of
Harvard's Center on the Press, Politics, and Public Policy found
the jockeys
"mildly disturbing," warning that "people would be confused" by the blurred
lines between journalism and spin.
Also under attack was Fox News. Often criticized for bias toward the Republican
party and the Bush administration, the
network was under close scrutiny during the course of the conventions. Media
analysts were interested to see if
the network would devote equal time to covering the Democrats in Boston and the
Republicans in New York, as Fox's Cal
Thomas said they should in the interest
of fairness. Media Matters for America monitored FOX News Channel's
live speech coverage and produced a daily chart comparing the coverage,
"holding FNC accountable for its hosts' comments and its motto of being 'fair
and balanced.'" After the third day of the convention, MMFA's tracking chart
showed that Fox had aired more of the Republicans' speeches than the
Democrats'. Fox reporters and anchors deny any bias, and say that they are "traditional journalists who don't buy into attempts to spin the news." In a related story, the Associated Press reported on ratings and an earlier poll
that show that Republicans prefer to get their news from Fox News Channel.
Commentators on many networks took the start of the Republican convention as
their cue to look forward to the 2008 election season. Speeches by former New
York City mayor
Rudy Giuliani and Senator John McCain prompted reporters to start making
predictions as to who is "heir apparent" to George Bush. THE HILL's Jim Snyder
comments, "reporters and analysts seemed more inclined to judge the speeches
for political points scored than for substance."
Read more about media coverage of
the conventions.
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