The broadcast networks, who interrupted our entire day to broadcast every ever-lovin’ moment of the funeral of Ronald Reagan, are now saying that they don’t have the time to broadcast Ron Reagan’s speech before the Democratic convention.
“We discussed [airing] it, but we don’t plan to do it as of now,” CBS News President Andrew Heyward told TV critics Monday. “It’s about an eight-minute speech.”
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.”
But when Ron’s father died, we got interminable coverage of such riveting moments as watching a street waiting for a hearse to come into view. Hours and hours of it.
Who says there’s no political motivation when it comes to covering the conventions? Let’s see what they broadcast during the GOP convention. How much you wanna bet there will be long, lingering crane shots of the World Trade Center site and the like?
