Necessity fades for network faces at conventions

No one could have predicted that network news anchors would become largely irrelevant in political convention coverage, but it's happened in 2004.

When the Democratic Convention opened Monday night, CNN was all over the event, with coverage from the floor, analysis, interviews and coverage of the speeches.

The three old-style networks, by contrast, didn't join the convention until the event's last hour. By that time, President Clinton was about to speak, introduced by his wife, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton. Put those two speakers together and Peter Jennings, Tom Brokaw and Dan Rather barely had time to say hello before they had to say goodbye.

It's a sad turn of events for three stellar broadcast journalists. The decision to collapse coverage of the convention was not theirs. Higher-ups at each network who have watched the plummeting ratings of conventions decided to follow the money to each network's regular fare of reality TV show, sitcoms and dramas.

According to Nielsen Media Research, the conventions in 2000 got only a 15.3 rating for the Democrats and 13.9 for the Republicans.

It's no surprise that people don't watch conventions any more. There's no suspense left in the process of selecting a presidential candidate.

There's probably room to consider ditching conventions altogether and saving the time, considerable expense and inconvenience to the host city.

Until then, political coverage of conventions will be left to CNN, CSPAN and the networks' auxiliary cable channels.

Brokaw is taking advantage of NBC's cable channel, MSNBC. Jennings has the less-palatable option of ABC's new digital channels and the ABC News broadband news service. He's not sure how many people will be watching, but it's better than nothing, which is what Rather has. CBS has no cable outlets.

Should viewers protest the lack of convention coverage? Even the anchors concede there's not much to watch. As Brokaw put it in a Wall Street Journal article: "Can I go and make a strong editorial argument for the necessity of having more time? It's a pretty homogenized process at this point."