Much ado about nothing at Democrat convention

By RUPERT CORNWELL

BOSTON - Rarely in the annals of journalism can so many have laboured so mightily in pursuit of so little.

Our modern age is littered with media spectaculars, but few have seen as much ado about nothing as last week's Democratic convention.

About 4500 delegates assembled in Boston to have a good time, listen to four evenings of minutely scripted speeches, all saying the same thing - and astonishingly confirming John Kerry as Democratic candidate for the White House.

To chronicle these momentous events, no less than 15,000 journalists were on hand.

Kerry's acceptance speech was, of course, a real story. Otherwise proceedings were dominated by the "shove it" uttered by the exotic Teresa Heinz Kerry to a tiresome reporter and heard around the world. The next day saw Bill Clinton's speech - a reminder of what a stunning political performer the old rascal remains.

For the rest, it was pretty thin gruel.

As usual on such occasions, the network and cable anchors strode around like demi-gods - even though ABC, NBC and CBS had cut their live coverage from 35 hours in convention heyday three decades ago to just three hours in all last week. The 24-hour cable channels, the favoured refuge of political junkies, have taken up some of the slack.

One has to ask, does the convention matter? Like its Republican counterpart, last week's exercise has been a colossal infomercial. News was in desperately short supply, what with intra-party dissent squelched and events orchestrated in a way that would have made the old Soviet Politburo proud.

Even so, the media coverage, however exaggerated, does matter. Forget the foreign press presence. The world cares desperately about this election, but the world doesn't vote in US elections. The judgment of the American media is something else entirely.

Fewer Americans these days may read about politics or watch it on television.

But their judgment will be largely formed by the headlines in the papers, and by opinions in Talk Show Row. In that sense, the reviews of last week's theatrics will matter.

For what it is worth, the initial consensus was that John Kerry Productions has a smash on his hands.

- INDEPENDENT