HOWARD ROSENBERG : Television Should Ignore Parties’ Newsless Conventions

The Clinton and Gore clans are strung across the television screen like Christmas lights for the rousing climax of the Democratic National Convention.

And you’re wondering: Is this news?

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Barbara Bush is on six channels simultaneously--in prime time across most of the nation--disclosing during Wednesday’s third act of the Republican National Convention that, in all their years of marriage and political service, what makes George proudest is, well . . . are you ready for this?

“His children still come home.”

Soon she is joined by her 16-year-old grandson, who reveals that his grandfather is “the greatest man I’ve ever known.” Ultimately, Barbara is joined on the podium by her five children and their spouses, all of her 12 grandchildren and, finally, smiling grandpop himself, who is hugged by all the little cherubs as if he were daddy Walton in his snowshoes and fur cap, having braved a blizzard to trudge to his mountain homestead on Christmas Eve.

And you’re wondering: Is this news?

No need to answer. Barring changes in the primary election method of picking presidential nominees, the Democratic and Republican conventions will continue ever-after being four days of partisan posturing. Television should stop surrendering thick slabs of air time to them, not because they generate poor ratings but because they generate--read these lips!--no news. At least no news worthy of substantial live television coverage.

If it’s a hot item when former California Gov. Edmund G. (Jerry) Brown Jr. isn’t endorsing Clinton, fine. Cover it separately on the evening news. If it’s true that the religious right has commandeered the Republican Party, set aside an hour to separately tell that story without becoming a captive to political rhetoric in Houston. It would be better journalism--and cheaper.

What did viewers get this week, for example? Networks that dwelt on speechmaking as if word craft and oratorical gifts were somehow relevant to presidential competency and accomplishment.

The week mimicked the Democratic Convention’s scenario. Viewers got Republican advance spin on partisan speech after partisan speech. Then the partisan speeches were followed by interviews with presidential surrogates who predictably raved about the partisan speeches. Then came interviews with Clinton surrogates who predictably found the Republican speeches just pathetic. And finally came the assembly line of profoundly tedious journalists--some of whom by Thursday appeared to be dozing themselves--commenting on both party’s surrogates. The next day, this second-by-second deja vu would all begin again.

Not only that, but so apparently guilt-ridden were the media about covering these conventions as if they were bona fide news events that they overcompensated in attempting to give the other side quality time to respond.

If the huggable Bushes won this latest sound bite shootout between the Hatfields and the McCoys, that other family was hardly going unnoticed. Did you catch Wednesday’s bloated TV coverage of the Clintons and Gores hammering nails alongside former President Jimmy Carter at a home being built for a poor family in Atlanta? This was newsworthy? It deserved not even 10 seconds, which is about what it probably would have gotten had not TV been attempting to balance the propaganda hemorrhaging from the GOP convention.

So, as Bush and Clinton have been saying, it’s time for change.

The Republicans are accusing the media of biased coverage? Easily fixed. How about no coverage? No more soggy hankie parties for either party. What could be more balanced?

The weaning could be accomplished in two steps. In 1996, ignore the first three nights but cover the acceptance speeches of the presidential nominees. In 2000, though, the parties get zip.

No free rides. Where is it written in stone that it’s television’s responsibility to provide “bounce” in the polls for presidential candidates by giving them and their minions carte blanche to spread their versions of the truth?

“What does Bush have to do tonight?” journalist after journalist asked Thursday. The bigger question is just why television had to help him do it.