What was the major theme of the coverage coming out of the San Diego convention? The triumph of party over press. How the slick, media-savvy scripters of the Republican convention, led by legendary spinmeister Mike Deaver, bamboozled TV into carrying almost unedited their Republican Party infomercial. How the lap-dog networks transmitted the Republican message intact in the biggest betrayal of journalism since . . . well, since Joe Klein told a fib.
If you doubt how much the press was lathered about being taken, then you missed the Wednesday New York Times, which sported no fewer than three stories on the theme.
Now, let’s concede: The scripted speeches, the sappy videos, the choreographed sentimentality on that San Diego stage set were not an infomercial but a flat-out commercial. The 10-11 p.m. EDT slot that the Republicans captured on the networks was a nightly one-hour show produced by the Party for the Party.
And what’s wrong with that? For years there has been enormous agitation by every goo-goo good-government type (and by me) for television to be a good citizen and give free time to the parties, a practice routine in all other Western democracies.
Well, finally, in San Diego we had the real thing: a sustained, hour-long, nightly opportunity for a major political party at the kickoff of its campaign to speak directly to the American people in whatever way it wanted. Finally, a bit of free political air time. Hurrah. No?
No. Instead, we get grousing from the journalistic establishment about the hijacking of this nightly hour. We get whining that the networks did not provide enough analysis–by which they mean rebuttal, though rebuttal is properly the role of the opposition, which will have its nationally broadcast show in Chicago (“The Man from Hope, Part II”) in a few days. We get grumbling that there hadn’t been enough reporting–by which they mean sticking a mike in the face of some state delegation, shouting the word “abortion,” and hoping that a fight breaks out.
With all the pious laments about the reduction of American politics to the 30-second sound bite–in fact, as political analyst Karlyn Bowman points out, the average sound bite accorded Republican candidates during the primaries was 7.2 seconds!–one would have expected praise for a process that allows the American electorate an unmediated, uninterrupted 10 or 20 minutes of Colin Powell or Susan Molinari or John McCain.
Let the Republicans speak their piece.
It is refreshing that the networks, for one brief moment at convention time, become a mere conduit for the political parties. Let the Republicans speak their piece. Let the Democrats speak theirs. And let the campaign begin.
The media, who have their opportunity to report, analyze and slant the news as they wish for hours every night of every week of every year, are now scandalized that the political parties each have effectively appropriated for themselves all of four prime-time hours every four years.
One should, I suppose, be used to such displays of journalistic arrogance. But they are particularly hard to get used to when they pose as assertions of journalistic integrity.