THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, August 26, 1996 TAG: 9608261222
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E2 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Larry Bonko
LENGTH: 70 lines
SO WHAT IF Ted Koppel of ``Nightline'' stays home and snubs the Democrats who convene in Chicago starting today. I won't miss him.
When 11:30 p.m. rolls around, I'll be watching Tabitha Soren and the MTV gang tie up the convention day in a neat little half-hour package with some laughs in it.
That's how MTV covered the Republican convention in San Diego. It was short and sweet. It was cool.
While ``Nightline'' was boring us with the ``ABC News Pulse'' - a bunch of lines and stuff on the screen reflecting what a small studio audience thought of the speeches - MTV was down on the convention floor digging out stories that make darn good TV.
The usually conservative, sedate Republicans were ripping the convention hall to pieces after the last gavel. They carried away red, white and blue bunting, ``Dole Rocks'' signs and everything else that wasn't bolted down. Shocking!
And there was the sequins story. You could have spent days watching CNN, C-SPAN, MSNBC or the broadcast networks and never seen or heard a thing about the explosion of sequins in San Diego. MTV brought it to us on ``Choose or Lose: The Party Pitch.''
The Texas delegation including alternates wore vests covered with sequins. ``Don't they sparkle and shine?'' one delegate asked the MTV reporter who caught up with her. The red, white and blue sequins covered vests, hats, skirts, shirts, almost everything in the convention hall except the podium and nominee Bob Dole's lapels.
And MTV found a guy selling Dole-on-black-velvet paintings.
Now don't get the idea that Tabitha - the Air Force brat who spent her high school years in Hampton - and her mates covered the convention as Beavis and Butt-head might do it. Soren and her colleagues (Alison Stewart, John Norris, Chris Connelly and Serena Altschul) were alert, competent TV journalists, picking up on almost everything that was or wasn't happening in the no-surprises convention.
MTV, for instance, kept count of how many times the speechmakers talked about crime on the streets and how to fight it. Ninety times.
That's serious TV journalism.
Two final thoughts on the Republicans' TV convention: Elizabeth Dole stole the show when she addressed the delegates on the convention floor as if she were Oprah doing a talk show. How about if she runs for president in 2000?
And I was surprised that the networks allowed their reporters to get in bed with the competition. Cokie Roberts of ABC appeared with Tom Snyder on CBS and Sam Donaldson of ABC was Larry King's guest on CNN.
Is network rivalry dead?
As for Koppel leaving San Diego because nothing much in the way of hard news was coming out of there, I could have predicted that after schmoozing with ABC News executives in Los Angeles last month. They seemed to be reluctant to be participants in the GOP infomercial.
``People are not watching these conventions in great numbers,'' said Jeff Gralnick, vice president and executive producer of ABC News special events. ``Take the audience watching the conventions on all three networks, throw in CNN, and you might cobble together an audience equal to what one network gets with a marginal prime-time program.''
Prediction: In 2000, convention coverage will be strictly cable.
Peter Jennings, anchor of ABC's ``World News Tonight,'' who will be in Chicago, parts company with his colleague Koppel when Koppel dismisses conventions as nothing but four-day, no-news lovefests.
``We have to be there to cover the conventions, to witness the symbolism, to listen to the parables and make sure we look at this story in a variety of ways so that the viewers get it all.''
If Jennings misses the sequins and paintings of Bill Clinton on black velvet, Soren and MTV will be there with their ``Choose or Lose'' bus to bring it all to you. by CNB