Not Much News, but Journalists Can't Make Themselves Scarce

The media hordes will pronounce the convention a success or a flop, much as they gave a resounding thumbs-up to Obama's selection of Biden. "A lovable guy," said MSNBC's Joe Scarborough. "A real pro," said CNN's Bill Schneider. NBC's Brian Williams said that "I've been on Amtrak with Joe Biden. He goes car to car greeting employees by name." Since the senator from Delaware has longstanding relationships with so many journalists, he is being spared the kind of skepticism that most outsider candidates would have drawn.

Now that the week's only real surprise has passed, will that take all the fizz out of the Pepsi Center pageantry? Maybe, just maybe, the no-news assumption is wrong. A major question looming over the convention is whether Hillary Clinton's most ardent supporters will swing behind Obama with any enthusiasm. That can best be gauged, it seems, by interviewing as many of them as possible.

In fact, given the enormous interest in the first African American about to claim a major-party nomination -- as the gusher of media coverage during the primary campaign showed -- you could argue that this convention is both journalistically intriguing and historically unprecedented. Obama is that rare figure who is both a politician and a celebrity, whether the latter is defined as a plus (People and Us Weekly covers) or a minus (John McCain's charge of Paris Hilton-style fame).

Perhaps the definition of news is changing. From the opening gavel to the balloon drop, the Denver extravaganza isn't likely to exhibit much spontaneity. But that doesn't mean journalists, in between the schmoozing and socializing, can't shed a little light on the state of the Democratic campaign.

Sometimes news organizations miss the story right under their noses. The broadcast networks are again limiting themselves to just one hour a night. Four years ago in Boston, a young state senator named Barack Obama took the convention by storm with a rousing speech about unity and hope, an oration without which it is hard to imagine that he would be accepting the nomination this week. Neither ABC, NBC nor CBS carried it.

View From the Top

CNN struck an exclusive deal with the Democrats for what will undoubtedly be the money shot of the convention -- a skycam atop Invesco Field, where Barack Obama will deliver his acceptance speech.

A similar request by Fox News had been turned down, and angry executives at Fox and the other networks complained at a meeting that one outfit was getting preferential treatment. On Saturday CNN agreed to share the feed in exchange for splitting the roughly $75,000 cost. CNN Washington Bureau Chief David Bohrman says that his network showed "great initiative and persistence" in pursuing the idea but that he agreed to compromise when his rivals got "incredibly upset" because "the whole country should see it."

Chiding His Colleagues

Tom Brokaw said Sunday that MSNBC's premier anchors, Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews, have not always been fair in covering the campaign.

"I think Keith has gone too far. I think Chris has gone too far," the veteran NBC newsman said at a forum sponsored by Harvard's Shorenstein press center. But Brokaw said that they are "commentators" and "not the only voices" on MSNBC and that viewers could sort it out.

He was responding to criticism from Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, a Hillary Clinton supporter, who declared at the forum that "MSNBC was the official network of the Obama campaign."

CBS's Bob Schieffer defended the media's reluctance to cover John Edwards's extramarital affair, saying Edwards's candidacy was over and "I don't see that we have time to be fooling with this."

But ABC's George Stephanopoulos noted that "the level of the coverup here was kind of astonishing," and Brokaw expressed concern about this question: "What if it had been Mitt Romney? Would the press have gone after that story more aggressively?"

Howard Kurtz hosts CNN's weekly media program, "Reliable Sources."