Last night, like a lot of Americans, I watched Senator Barack Obama accept the Democratic Party's nomination for 2008 presidential candidacy - the first black person ever to do so. As a woman whose grandparents met on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala. and whose family lived through much of the struggle of the civil rights movement in this country, I was greatly moved by the occasion. Not only did he make a great speech in front of thousands of people in Denver; he also made it on such an auspicious day - the 45th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech. For me, this will definitely be a mark in the history of my generation: right along side 9/11. I'll remember it always, and tell my children about it as my mother told me about watching the first moon landing on TV.Ok, enough waxing poetic. Down to my review of CNN's* convention coverage:
- Great use of multimedia
As a person whose laptop is an extension of her arm, I appreciated that viewers could follow the coverage on TV and online simultaneously. CNN.com was streaming the event while the channel had to cut to commercial break, which was great for political junkies who didn't want to miss a minute but couldn't afford a plane ticket to Colorado.
- There's a researcher who did their job, but could've done better
During each night of the coverage there was a fact graphic scrolling in the bottom left corner of the screen. While it was neat to find out that 12 presidential candidates in history were younger than Obama at the time of candidacy and that the main stage stadium could seat 76,000 people according to fire marshal code, there were not enough facts presented to warrant a continous scroll for four days! I understand, it's CNN, creator and expert of the 24-hour news update. But, is it really an update if your audience is likely the same group of people four nights in a row? Maybe I'm far off base; maybe the channels viewership research for the event says differently. But I would venture to say that a significant portion of viewers watched a little bit every night and would've appreciated a greater assorment of tidbits. But kudos on the scroll concept :o )
- Questionable ethical treatment of news event
So, by now you might've guessed that CNN is my favorite TV news station. In fact, it states that at the bottom of this post (see asterik*). But, in all fairness, I have to call out something that is questionable in my opinion. One of the points that the commentators kept noting is the large number of people engaged in the historic event. A neat thing they did was show footage of self-organized viewing parties around the country. That was fine, in fact, it was smart. It made me feel connected to my fellow countrymen in a way that just seeing on-site footage could not. However, they also showed footage of people gathered in Times Square, NYC to watch the channel's coverage on the humongo screens there. One commentator said that CNN had gathered them there, which leads me to believe that it was not an organic event. Now, you might say, "But I've been to Times Square. Tourist stand around and stop to look at anything with flashing lights!" Yeh, I know, I've been one of those tourists. But, this was different. This was planned news coverage, partially of an event that the news channel created...I don''t know, maybe I'm asking too much of TV news. But I'm tired of "straight news" channels creating their own news. (And I want to be in media marketing? I know, it's crazy.)
- Possible liberal biasis
So, it's no secreat that CNN has some liberal ideals. But, an interesting thing that I didn't notice that was pointed out to me was the choice of commentators used. Most of them were stated or evident Democrats. I assume that its commentators next week will include Lou Dobbs. Plus, CNN seemed to really do a great job of playing up the grandiose setting of the event...I'm not going to pass judgement on this issue yet. It'd be unfair. However, I do hope that the channel's coverage of the GOP's convention will be as spectacular. Let's hope so. If not, I may have to turn to Fox News to get the best from that side :o /
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