On The Media

As an Independent, I need to watch both parties' conventions. I found that CSPAN was superior to all the others during the Democratic National Convention. Next was PBS, with good coverage and less interference. Third was CNN---still too much personality interference. Forget about Fox and MSNBC unless you need propaganda to help your decision making.

Thank you for this segment! I expect the yammering of the MSNBC, Fox, and CNN pundits, but could not believe they chose to keep talking instead of showing speeches by significant figures at the convention. After having to track down speeches from the first day on the internet, I watched the rest on PBS, which provided a reasonable amount of commentary about what was actually happening at the convention.

you neglected to mention one news source - NPR. NPR commentators were dedicated to yammering and subjectively deciding what speakers were worth covering.

I have to thank you for this segment. I find political commentary to be insulting, undermining my ability to think and feel about what is being said. I found the coverage on PBS to be the best of all. They did not talk over the speeches and more recapped events that give personal spins. Thank you for reflecting my thoughts and annoyances that I have been feeling all political season.

I enjoyed Brooke's piece because it told me what the outlets I did not bother to watch (or could not watch, as I don't have cable) covered, and it sounds like the MSNBC inter-commentator spats were worth missing. I was disappointed, however, that Brooke did not report on the PBS coverage. I was pleasantly surprised by the PBS coverage for the same reason other commenters here have mentioned. I enjoyed the historians, but I would have liked to see more women political and/or historical commentators.

I was concerned that you didn't mention CSPAN or PBS as alternatives to CNN, etc. CSPAN ran everything live, gavel-to gavel, with no commentary, and later ran the speeches again. CSPAN is often presented as only for policy wonks, but I find that attitude condescending. Since CSPAN won't advertise itself, it's up to the rest of us to let others know that there is an alternative to cable's endless pundit analysis.

Well Brooke, you should have watched it on C-SPAN "where all the crap is eliminated," my words not theirs. You might also want to start including BBC America in your comments since they've become the CNN with British accents (even though CNN International is already CNN with British accents). I add this because I always though BBC was an excellent and fairer organization and covered the world unlike any in this country but since BBC America they've Americanized quite a bit, even though the global stories have remained. For chrissake I get more news in one hour on BBC on global issues than one gets from CNN in 24 hours of rehashed and not all that interesting stories.

Boy, I found it funny that while your story was devoted to the media's gross incestuous banter and narcissistic posturing glossing over the actual story it claimed to cover, you did the same thing. I would have been so delighted if you had followed your story up by playing, in their entirety, the speeches that no else played. While your critique was accurate and welcome, you were guilty of the crime you condemned. If you're job as responsible reporters is to inform the public of the convention, why didn't you let us hear any of it?

BRAVO TO BROOK!

That was one of the most damning, and accurate, critiques of the corporate media I have ever heard.

CSPAN and, to a lesser extent PBS, provided decent coverate of the speeches, although PBS didn't air those which happened before 8:00 PM EDT. At least the DNC has put ALL the speeches up online for viewing.

Thank you Brook. Your commentary again confirmed for me why OTM is the best show on NPR.*

I must confess that I didn't pay a whole lot of attention the first couple of days. I did tune in to PBS for Hillary Clinton's speech on day two.

But day three I listened to NPR's coverage, and was generally pleased. They didn't talk over most of the speeches, anyway. I could have done without Mo Rocca's annoyingly...annoying cuteness. And I could have done without Andrea egging him on. I much prefer he stick to "Wait, Wait" and "Iron Chef America."

On day four, I found a HD feed provided by DishNetwork, and it was delicious. No talking heads. Not even during the wave. Just raw footage.

I'll watch whatever I watch of the GOP convention the same way.

* Apologies to Tom and Ray.

It's too bad Brooke lost an opportunity to suggest a remedy to her cable-news, convention-induced headache. We happily watched hours of daily coverage of the convention, lead by the Lehrer team on PBS, without any editing or ego-centric empty chatter. If you want quality coverage, with an emphasis on information, I recommend a good dose of Lehrer for that cable head-ache.

Here goes Brooke again, much ado about nothing. As detailed above, convention watchers could get their convention however they wanted it. Lots of analysis of a variety of flavors or none or something in between. Personally I prefer a little analysis, or story behind the story, with my convention so it was PBS for me. I don't have the patience to main-line the stuff like it's provided on C-Span.

Brooke seems to think limiting our choices is better, I don't get her concern.

It's no secret that MSNBC, CNN and FOX yammer on endlessly about trivialities. The question is why people watch when there is far superior coverage on PBS? They air the speeches, and give a fair and mostly evenhanded analysis. Too bad you didn't mention that in your piece.

Right on, Nell! C-SPAN is the way to go!

I saw Dennis Kucinich and it was the highlight of the convention, from what I saw. May have been the speech of his life. Apparently the "cable news networks" were afraid to touch it.

Wake up, America!

Thank you for voicing what many people felt about the coverage.

Like others who have commented though, I think C-Span was overlooked. They're still a media outlet and they invite plenty of journalists to speak about current events. I have found the journalists there to be professional and insightful and true to their responsibility for being neutral, even when callers try to goad them into siding with one party or another.