Jay Rosen and the coverage of conventions
Jay Rosen, chair of Journalism at NYU, will be covering the convention here in Boston in a couple of weeks — as a blogger. He gives an interesting history of convention coverage and shares his thoughts on the future, what bloggers can bring to the party. Here are more bloggers covering the convention.
First, the obvious, how things work now:
Nothing happens except the unfolding of a promotional plot. This created a crisis in narration, as well as information– to which the press accommodated itself by means of hyper-informed irony. The eclipse of dramatic content was summed up in the word “scripted,” as in: the conventions have become scripted affairs, an observation made many thousands of times from the 1970s on.
How can journalists justify showing up to cover this thing where, almost by definition, *nothing* is going to happen.
Can bloggers save the day?
What’s the difference between a freewheeling blogger and a traditional journalist? Well, to me it’s obvious: we don’t buy the script. To [Washington Post writer Brian] Faler it’s also obvious: those webloggers don’t have standards! “Their authors mixing fact with opinion and under no obligation to be either fair or accurate.” Here he conflates the bloggers greater intellectual freedom with their right to be reckless.
So, it will be interesting to see for a couple of reasons:
1) This will be the first set of conventions where I really pay attention. 2004 is a critical election for this country, and I want to make sure I understand what I’m doing when I cast my vote.
2) This is the first set of conventions where I’ve been a member of the media. Even if I’m no longer credentialed through the Globe, I have JPButler.com. And that’s all the credential I need to espouse my crackpot theories.
