Political conventions as non-news events

In a year when the Democratic Party nominee is an African-American man, the first time in history that either major party will nominate a person of color, news networks are contemplating limiting coverage of the Democratic National Convention.

Network executives expect Obama’s relatively late-breaking decision to speak at Invesco Field at Mile High, a 76,000-seat football stadium, could add hundreds of thousands of dollars in costs to already cash-strapped news divisions. Each network has budgeted millions to cover the political conventions, but that spending is already accounted for in specific costs ranging from hotel rooms to staffing to building convention platforms.

For most networks, any additional outlays for the convention would come out of their 2008 campaign budget.

Obama’s decision “makes it enormously more expensive,” said Paul Friedman, senior vice president at CBS News. “It does add to the overall question of how the networks should cover what is a non-news event.” [emphasis mine]

Excuse me? Non-news event? Since when is the first time a major political party nominates a person of color a non-news event?

If the traditional media want to skip the DNC, that's just fine with me. NPI will have its team on the ground in Denver, and many other bloggers (both prominent and lesser-known) will be covering the convention. Although I don't agree with the assessment that the DNC is a "non-news event", bloggers will be happy to provide the coverage that people want. And we'll do it better and from angles the traditional media wouldn't dare cover.

It's attitudes like this that are the reason for the decline in newspaper readership and network news viewership, and why more people turn to online sources to get their news.