smokerblog

My politics are showing

I've been watching the coverage Democratic National Convention pretty closely this week and what I've been struck by is the influence of FOX News all over the place.

First off, a disclaimer: it should be clear by my wine-tasting, jazz-listening, Michael-Moore-watching habits that I am a li...liber...lib...left-leaning moderate.

So but here's the thing: FOX is so successful not (just) because they are offering a right-of-center slant to the news, but because they offer the news in an entertaining way. MSNBC has followed suit. CNN is trying, madly, to follow suit and is mostly failing miserably. The major network news divisions have given up long ago, relying on "hard-hitting" prime-time news magazines to provide their "edgier" news coverage. Cable shows like The O'Reilly Factor, Hannity and Colmes, Hardball with Chris Matthews, and Scarborough Country provide their entertainment by thriving on controversy; nothing new of course, but these shows actively fan the flames or kick up the dying embers when necessary.

The Republicans have had this figured out for some time (the lessons of Nixon, perhaps), but the Democrats are just now learning how to deal with it. This year's convention so well scripted and "on-messagge" that many of these shows have had to focus on trivia for their entertainment. For three days, the only controversial stories revolved around Theresa Heinz Kerry's "shove it" comment and Michael Moore's ubiquitous and ponderous presence in front of the cameras. Oh, except for Reverend Al. Commentators thirsty for some juicy "red meat" from the convention's speeches had to content themselves with Al Sharpton. Even then, controversy is nothing new with Al, so the big news became, "Why did Al stray from the prepared text? Did DNC officials see Sharpton's speech beforehand? Did the extended speech throw off convention's schedule?" *Yaaawn*

Sean Hannity, anxious to sink his teeth into something at the convention, had to settle on a Alec Baldwin, who referred to the Republican party as "fundamentalist wackos" while speaking at a DNC-sponsored forum. Whoa, stop the presses! Hannity then had to resort to an interview with comedian and AirAmerica Radio host Janeane Garafalo to provide his biggest fireworks. (Janeane held her own quite well, I think.) Meanwhile, Bill O'Reilly took great pleasure in interviewing Michael Moore, and linking him with the Democratic mainstream at every opportunity. MSNBC spent much of their post-acceptance-speech analysis heatedly arguing whether Kerry had stepped on his applause lines rather than analyzing what Kerry actually said. Poor, sad CNN spent the first minutes after the speech covering the shocking controversy of why the celebratory balloons failed to fall in a timely fashion. Before they had even begun analyzing Kerry's speech, their microphones picked up an event coordinator cursing in frustration. Crack journalism, that.

In the unlikely event that Kerry builds up enough of a lead to threaten Bush, we might see some fireworks later this month at the Republican National Convention. In all likelihood; however, we'll see more of the same: pundits talking to pundits about other pundits, spinning the spin, while the only voters paying attention to the actual speeches are the ones who have already made up their minds. Maybe the networks aren't so stupid after all...