Between the Democratic and Republican national conventions this year, some 30,000 reporters are going to make use of their employers' travel budget to attend. Except are they really heading to Denver and St. Paul to get an Obama or McCain scoop, or just to party at network? What is this, the Beijing Olympics?
Political conventions are to the media what happy hour — or 11am — is to Don Draper. Here's JackShaf on why reporters waste their time and their media companies' dwindling budgets:
They fight their colleagues for the honor to attend because a political convention is a gas to cover. It's like a vacation, only no spouses! There's free food, plenty of booze, nice hotels, lots of pals in the press and politics dishing gossip, and the assignment is easy to report. Ferguson concludes that political conventions exist only to make the second convention—the "journalists' convention"—possible. "The parasite has consumed the host," he wrote.
So … see you there, Shafer?
Editorial Director
Actually, Jack Shafer is 100 percent right. The political conventions are, and have been, a huge waste of time, money and resources. They should be one day–yes, one, single day–for the official nomination, and that can be done via conference call and video-teleconferencing. And if you know any single journalist who has gone to these stinking-piece-of-crap things, they will tell you they are there just for the party. That's it–it's a big party. Screw journalism or hard news, because there is none. Most of the so-called speeches are crap. If you want to see the partying first-hand, just go to the big parties and bars–and you'll see journalists drinking and eating it up with the politicians who they are supposed to be the watchdogs on. The conventions are huge messes, huge wastes of time, and just plain piles of crap.