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"JohnH" wrote in message
...
TV swamps convention with blather
By Robert Bianco, USA TODAY
As President Bush's acceptance speech tonight closes the Republican
convention
and sends us full speed into the final electoral push, would it be too
much to
ask one tiny favor of TV's anchors, analysts and pundits?
\

Kerry is TOAST, burnt.
g

Does anyone actually watch MSNBC????

"JohnH" wrote in message
...
TV swamps convention with blather
By Robert Bianco, USA TODAY
As President Bush's acceptance speech tonight closes the Republican
convention
and sends us full speed into the final electoral push, would it be too
much to
ask one tiny favor of TV's anchors, analysts and pundits?

Talking head: MSNBC's gabby Chris Matthews takes the phrase to heart.
MSNBC

In the name of all that's holy, shut up.

When exactly did the primary goal of journalists become not talking to
news-makers, but talking over them? CNN, MSNBC and Fox News boast that
they're
covering an event the broadcast networks are ignoring. But they're not so
much
covering it as smothering it, using the convention as fodder for a 24-hour
run
of radio-talk-with-pictures. Unless you're one of the privileged big-draw
speakers in the show's final hour, you're not just ignored - you're
treated as
an annoyance.

This rejection of gavel-to-gavel coverage, which survives on C-SPAN alone,
might
be defensible if real reporting had taken its place. But it's rare when
anyone
conducts an actual news-making interview - the kind where a reporter gets
someone to reveal something we didn't already know. What passes for
interviewing
today is conversation - unchallenged speculation combined with the
repetition of
rock-hard "talking point" positions we all know by heart.

No one is less interested in the proceedings around him than Fox News'
Bill
O'Reilly, but at least his disinterest crosses party lines: He has given
no more
time to the Republican speeches than he did to the Democrats. Nothing
anyone had
to say from the podium Wednesday could distract O'Reilly from the
evening's
appointed tasks: flattering Rudy Giuliani, patronizing Bono, attacking
"left-wing" New York Magazine and dismissing New York protestors as
"loons."

Still, when it comes to luxuriating in the sound of your own voice, even
O'Reilly must bow to MSNBC's Chris Matthews. In one of the convention's
more
bizarre exchanges, Matthews interrupted a Joe Scarborough screed about
immigration Tuesday to ask, "Who are your favorite immigrants?" Luckily
for a
seemingly nonplused Scarborough, he didn't have to answer, as the question
was
merely an excuse for Matthews to tell us, "Mine are the West Africans." No
doubt
they were thrilled to hear it.

While it's shameful that the broadcast networks can only be bothered to
devote
an hour tonight to the Republican convention, the cutback does have
advantages.
The compressed time frame means you'll hear nothing but the speech and, at
most,
some quick snatches of instant analysis. Anyway, if this is what
convention
coverage looks like in the new age, better the networks stick to
entertainment.

Entertainment, after all, is what the cable channels are really doing.
They're
just not doing it well.

John H

On the 'Poco Loco' out of Deale, MD,
on the beautiful Chesapeake Bay!

Does anyone actually watch MSNBC????

Yes.

Not as many as watch FAUX NEWS, however. But then again, more people read the
National Inquirer than the Harvard Review.


MSNBC beats CNN in Thursday ratings
00:58 BST, Saturday 28th August 2004 -- by James Welsh
CNN was left trailing in third place on Thursday night in yet another twist to
the ongoing cable news ratings war in America.

Numbers posted by MediaBistro's TVNewser blog show MSNBC holding a lead over
CNN from 7pm onwards. By 1am, TVNewser's stats show 180,000 households tuned
into MSNBC and only 76,000 watching CNN.

MSNBC's 7pm political show, Hardball, has been nipping at the heels of - and
occasionally beating - CNN's Anderson Cooper 360 for some time, likely due to
an uptick in political interest during the convention season in the US. These
numbers, however, show Countdown beating Paula Zahn at 8pm, Deborah Norville
Tonight unusually placing ahead of Larry King Live, and Scarborough Country
taking the lead over NewsNight with Aaron Brown. As TVNewser goes on to point
out, whether or not this is a fluke remains to be seen.

Fox News Channel continues to place first, however, with ratings for both total
day and primetime far ahead of those posted by either of its rivals.