Gearing Up--and Down--for the Democrats in Chicago

If covering politics is a balancing act between chasing the news and figuring out how to pay for it, consider the problems faced by local television stations in Los Angeles this summer.

With two political conventions designed to showcase the top two contenders for the presidency, organizers of both events would expect to get equal attention. But for news organizations, it’s not so easy.

One in is your backyard; the other, half a continent away. One, the Republican National Convention in San Diego, had local drama with familiar characters for Californians. The Democratic National Convention this week in Chicago, however, may not stir the same hometown passions. Moreover, it costs more to get there.

“San Diego we covered like the Super Bowl,” Patrick Casey, managing editor of KCBS-TV Channel 2, said last week. “And the mere fact that it’s in here, just two hours down the road, meant we put more resources down there. . . . Chicago, we will cover that like a normal convention.”

Casey, like other station officials contacted in Los Angeles on the eve of the Democratic gathering, said that in terms of hard news, the Democrats will get about as much air time as the Republicans. But instead of 10 staffers, KCBS-TV will send one reporter and a crew to cover the California angle in Chicago.

Similarly Jerry Matthews, political producer at KABC-TV Channel 7, said it will scale back its team going to Chicago from seven to five “primarily because of the cost of being there.” What will be lost, he said, will be some of the features about events in the city.

“But the hard news will be about the same,” Matthews added.

At KNBC-TV Channel 4, vice president and news director Bill Lord said that it will be “pretty much the same drill” in Chicago as in San Diego. Lord, who is sending six newscasters to Illinois for the Democrats, the same number as sent to cover the Republicans, said that “regardless of geography, we ought to make a real effort to cover these conventions.”

“I believe this is really a very important part of the democratic process,” he said, “even though they may not be as compelling to viewers as they once were.”

Independent stations will have a presence in Chicago as well, though most will scale back a bit--having sent larger contingents to the Republican convention because of San Diego’s proximity.

KCAL-TV Channel 9, for example, will dispatch a three-person team (compared to five in San Diego) composed of anchor Pat Harvey, political reporter Dave Bryan and commentator Sherry Bebitch Jeffe. Channels 5 and 13 will be represented at the convention in similar fashion.

KTTV-TV Channel 11 had a bigger news presence during the GOP convention because it represented its network in San Diego. News director Jose Rios said, “The Fox station there doesn’t do news, so if something happened, we needed to be there.”