Comments on: a plea to the press: Please just cover the convention(s)

By: Joe

Joe — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 23:20:13 +0000

While this might throw off some of you liberals, I know it suprised me, but the Economist's online coverage of the DNC see has been pretty great. Though it's not live, they've put alot interviews in their Audio/Video section; most of them are with fairly normal attendees. There's also some of the editorialising you might expect (it is still the ECONOMIST), but for the most part they're just letting the people speak for themselves. Whlle they don't have the speeches, the fireworks, roman orgies, etc., these can be found on a number of online outlets. There is something more human about this coverage; which is strange come from what I like to think of as a pack of soulless, freemarketing, social darwinistic, demagogues.

PS: shout out to NPR and TheAtlantic bloggers' online coverage which I've also been following.

By: Beth

Beth — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 18:52:41 +0000

Those lucky enough to be Dish network satellite subscribers are getting the direct HD feed nonstop on a special channel. The picture and sound quality are excellent, and there are NO PUNDITS and NO STUPID NETWORK "BUGS" to junk things up.

By: Steve Baba

Steve Baba — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 06:58:08 +0000

"t is ridiculous that the only people who actually get to see what each party believes it should say are those who are at the Convention"

I think both parties give the not-ready-for-prime time hours to extremists and fringe elements of their own party and when running to the middle don’t want most voters to see all the groups they made promises to.

By: David Dooling

David Dooling — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 19:26:48 +0000

PBS (Jim Lehrer and team) has a nice balance. They show all the speeches and add rational commentary and interviews.

By: Miles Archer

Miles Archer — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 09:51:38 +0000

Are you kidding? The public side of conventions is pure theater. There is no politics left. There hasn't been a convention in a generation where anything significant was debated in public.

Not only that, the main stream media treats the presidential race exactly the same way they treat a sporting event. Forget it. I'll read what I can and vote in November (not likely for either of the major party clowns).

By: Rick

Rick — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 03:56:39 +0000

Nice rant; to no avail, I suspect.
The convention has become entertainment just as this election process (going on what, two years now?) has become some bizarre side show to keep us distracted from the fact that the business of government has all but ground to a halt for some time now. We're treated to “Democratic Days of Our Lives” with political personalities and celebrities to suit every taste. Just what WILL Hillary do? “We'll examine the possibilities with our team of political experts right after the break..... “ Indeed, John Kerry even referred to Ted Kennedy's gutsy, heroic speech as a great “performance.” (CNN interview)
So, the kids are MySpace'in and YouTube'in, I'm trying to get Amy Goodman's two hours of DemoNow dl'd, and I've always got my torrents going just to antagonize Comcast. I just don't have the bandwidth to go for streaming coverage on the off-chance that somebody will say something meaningful. It ain't gonna happen. Even if it did, MSM would pick it up and regurgitate it over... and over.... and over.... again.
LOL, you're taking this much too seriously, Lessig. Just kick back and enjoy the show. Check your intellect at the door else you'll just get angry and frustrated. Have a few beers or white wine and play a few rounds of “Grand Theft Auto” between speeches.
Barack is black. Historic. Hillary is female. Historic. (Note that we at last are able to retire the word “presumptive” only to be beaten to a pulp with “historic.”) Will Hillary rally her disciples to support Barack? Of course. Will she mean it? Of course not. Will Bill, aka DemoGod (self-appointed) rally the Demos around Barack? Sure, yeah, kinda, pretty much. Do Hillary and Bill know that we know that they don't really mean it. Absolutely. No doubt countless hours have been spent refining their performa... (oops) speeches to convey that subtlety.
For me, in the end, there's this: If Obama is able to overcome both the Republicans and his own party to attain the presidency he surely will have earned it.

By: Adam Nelson

Adam Nelson — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 01:31:07 +0000

And just so you don't have to get the adware version of Real Player, get it here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/webwise/categories/plug/real/newreal.shtml?intro2

The BBC forced Real Networks to put out this version since the BBC is ad-free. If you get the player anywhere else it will have ads (maybe not in the embedded link, but whenever you use the main console).

By: W.R. Chambers

W.R. Chambers — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 00:41:44 +0000

Excellent point. More data, less celebrity chit-chat please.

By: lessig

lessig — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 00:05:51 +0000

LeAnne: thanks. Corrected.

By: Victor Agreda Jr

Victor Agreda Jr — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 23:36:39 +0000

Couldn't agree more on all points. It reminds me of the Orwell phrase "some animals are more equal than others." Only the technorati matter, eh?

A lot of the "talking head" or "arguing bobble heads" issue in MSM is that it's way cheaper to throw Carville and O'Reilly up on the screen than do the research needed to analyze the proposed platforms. Also, Americans only want facts and figures in a convenient, USAToday-style pie chart (on screen for less than 30 seconds please).

So instead of coverage, we get a lot of pseudo-analysis. The tech snobbery is just another vector of profiteering, IMHO.