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Media create critical mass at convention

Control room
The Republican National Convention was controlled with network and cable control rooms in mind  

PHILADELPHIA (CNN) -- Here’s how it works, in theory: The news media observe what’s happening, then report and explain what’s happening.

In practice, it works a little differently because of the laws of physics. Anyone who took high school physics has heard of the Heisenberg Principle of Uncertainty, which deals in part with measuring how the very act of observing something disturbs and changes it.

And at the Republican National Convention, the media could not help but change the event they were there to cover.

“Just about everything that goes on here is not only changed by the presence of all these cameras and people with notebooks, but really is staged for their benefit,” said Howard Kurtz, who reports on media for The Washington Post.

Think the evening sessions of the convention were planned to rally the party faithful and the delegates? Think again.

“The delegates in the hall are stage-dressing for what is essentially a prime-time entertainment production,” said Tom Hannon, political director for CNN.

To see proof of the Heisenberg Principle, just do the math. “There are 4,000 delegates here and 15,000 media people,” Kurtz said during the convention. “The party understands that it’s the 15,000 media people who are going to carry the message.”

For Republican planners, the primary focus was on television, especially network television. All week, marquee and featured speakers -- Colin Powell, John McCain and Dick Cheney -- spoke during the prime-time hour of 10 p.m. to 11 p.m. EDT, the only hour when the convention was being carried by ABC, NBC, and CBS.

The convention was controlled with network and cable control rooms in mind. Television directors knew exactly when to expect entrances, exits, applause. At the session Thursday night, for example, they knew that when George W. Bush entered the hall at 10:07 p.m. EDT, the applause would last until 10:10 p.m. EDT.

The entire schedule was that precisely timed. “There’s time built in for commercials, and there’s time built in for the anchors to come on at the top of the hour,” said Kurtz. “It’s as carefully scripted an event as I have ever seen."

Not everything was geared to television. Convention planners made sure that reporters for key newspapers got access to key Republicans here -- which helped compensate for the fact that the evening session started after most newspapers had gone to press.

Newspapers compensated too -- by going online and posting stories on their own 24-hour Web sites.

The presence of new media -- the news dot-coms and e-journalists - also changed the convention. “The Republican Party recognizes that the Internet is not a trendy gimmick, it’s a medium reaching millions of people every day on their terms,” said Don Upson, whose title at the convention is “Director of New Media and E-Convention Manager.”

Upson and other convention planners set up a special section in the media pavilions called Internet Alley, and offered the news www’s logistical help in setting up online chats with party notables.

“The convention provided an Internet liaison to our Web site to help us do some of our bookings,” said Judith Coyne, the editor-in-chief of the Web site women.com. “It really helped us do the coverage we wanted to do.”

The Republican Party has gone further than trying to facilitate and shape media coverage of the convention: The GOP produced its own coverage of the event. “The party has become part of the media here,” said Steve Rohleder, the technology consultant for the convention.

Convention organizers set up their own cameras, and their own Web site -- gopconvention.com. The site carried streaming video of convention sessions and links to everything from delegate profiles to the full text of the party platform. “We can send a message to the media and to citizens simultaneously,” said Rohleder.

“What they are trying to do is get their own message out, through their own Web sites and their own cable feed, so they don’t have to worry about some carping anchorman coming on and making a satiric comment about the Republican Party,” said Kurtz. “What politicians love most is an unfiltered message.”

The news media -- whose job it is to filter the message - knew that the Republicans were playing to the cameras, angling for front-page headlines, and trying to get their line online.

“We’re here to cover a political event,” said Tom Hannon, CNN’s political director. “It’s their news story. They have an absolute right to do what they want to do, and I wouldn’t want to tell them how to do it.”

The Heisenberg Principle applies: The convention is an event the media are observing -- and one the media are, by their presence, changing and defining.


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