Art Machine
Just another former infatuation junkie

It’s time to fire up those e-mailing fingers, people: CBS News won’t air Ron Reagan Jr’s speech at the Democratic convention.

None of the broadcast networks plans to carry the speech live. Heyward acknowledged that the very fact the son of a Republican president and GOP icon was going to give a speech at the Democratic convention was newsworthy. But, he said, he thinks it is sufficient for CBS to handle it on “The Early Show” and the evening news.

“To take another hour of coverage for an eight-minute speech, I don’t think is justified,” he said.

Asked if it was possible to cover an eight-minute speech in under an hour, Heyward responded, “You mean to break in for eight minutes and come out again? The problem with that is you open yourself up to almost unmanageable sets of debates.

“In other words, to say, ‘We’re interrupting now, here’s a bulletin, so listen to the eight minutes,’ I just don’t feel it’s justified,” he continued, noting there are “so many places where people can hear Ron Reagan in his entirety.”

Excuse me?

Excuse me?

The son of a prominent (recently deceased) conservative President is speaking at the Democratic Convention, which is newsworthy – but it’s not worth broadcasting because it’s only going to be eight minutes long?

CBS News has dedicated entire hours to brief statements from the President. It’s dedicated thirty minutes at a time to Michael Jackson leaving a courthouse. Martha Stewart issues a brief statement, and the analysis alone is six times longer than the statement itself.

This is one of the reasons I don’t like network convention coverage – the networks decide for you what’s important and what’s not. And as the average American, I have to say – I happen to think Ron Reagan’s speaking at the Democratic convention is damned important.

CBS deserves to get hit hard for this. It’s a good thing for us that they provide a feedback form so we can let them know how we feel.

You know, if CBS doesn’t want to cover it because there are “so many places where people can hear Ron Reagan in his entirety,” maybe CBS doesn’t need a news division, period.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 21st, 2004 at 2:35 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.