The media pundit's pundit. Written by NYC insider Jeff Jarvis, BuzzMachine covers news, media, journalism, and politics.
Not ready for prime time
: The Boston Herald says no Kerry acceptance speech could kill network coverage of the Democratic convention [via Lost Remote]. The truth is, the conventions — plural — have not deserved major TV coverage in decades. This is why God invented CSpan.
Even the Comedy Channel couldn’t make the conventions watchable.
Does anybody really watch em?
They are predictable and seem designed to NOT tell any story about the candidate, the party or where they wish to lead. I flip thru em out of some sense of loyalty, duty, patriotism. But never stop long enuff to remember what was happening.
Perhaps they have become predictable and boring. Or perhaps they have become unintelligible. NFL was gibberish to many many viewers til Madden came along and started explaining the strategy, the plays and the tactics being used. Maybe we just need some good ‘splainer to come along and ‘splain it to us.
TV is great at educating people. The medium is used mostly to evoke empathy, revulsion and sympathy. It can be used to teach us stuff (hence the popularity of the Discovery channels, the History channel, The Learning Channel, and the How-to’s on the Food, Home & Garden, Speed and even Spike channels)
Will we still be learning how to use the internet (as we ware with TV) 50 years from now?
Can Kerry make a speech while not officially accepting the nomination? Or does he actually need to not show up at the convention?