Tom Shales is the TV critic for The Washington Post, and one of the best.
Here he is criticizing the networks for giving only one hour of programming:
"The networks decided not to carry Carter's speech, Nobel Prize winner or not, and to limit opening-night convention coverage to one hour. One hour. The cable networks supposedly take up the slack but it's a system that still bespeaks irresponsibility and shirking of civic duty by the broadcast networks.
They're busy, of course, with their trifling, noisy, violent, demeaning, crass, corny and meaningless summer reruns. The networks complain that the conventions have become repetitious and predictable; and their own programming isn't?"
Here's Shales on some of the inane commentary that has given cable news its singularly stupid signature:
"Back down on the stage, another moving moment of peaceful contemplation: 16-year-old violinist Gabe Lefkowitz playing "Amazing Grace" in memoriam.
People in the crowded hall held up lights or candles or matches. This all made a mockery of Fox anchor Neal Cavuto's imbecilic statement earlier in the day, as he sat in the foreground of the hall, that 'there's a lot of hatred in this room behind me.' He said the convention would be 'predictably partisan.' Gosh! Does that mean the Democrats wouldn't give equal time to Republicans? Heaven help us if the November elections are partisan, too.
'Some of the prime-time lineup appears to be very partisan,' CNN pretty-boy Bill Hemmer told commentator Jeff Greenfield on the network's morning show. Insights like these are so dazzling you really have to step back from the set to avoid having your eyebrows singed."
And, finally, Shales defends the conventions, even if there is no drama like there was in 1968:
"Yes, the role of the political convention has changed, and television changed it years and years ago, and no, it's not likely major decisions will be made on live TV in front of the American people. But we've got enough 'reality TV' now. How about letting the parties put on their shows and sitting back to see which one does the better job? Like there's some insidious harm or danger in that or something."
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