Bob Kuttner intros the convention, and spends a lot of time previewing the potential for conflict between Clinton diehards and Obama supporters. "With not much else to cover, this is likely to become the story," he writes. I'd reformulate that a bit: With not much else to cover, this is likely to be made the story. Shortly after I arrived in Denver, a family member asked me what I was hearing at the convention. "Nothing," I said. There was nothing to be told. The convention, after all, isn't answering any questions. We know who the nominee will be, who the vice presidential nominee will be. We know who the speakers are, when the keynotes addresses will happen, what the theme of each day is. This is an event that doesn't need journalists so much as it needs camera crews, but since it has both, the journalists feel they've got to spend their days doing some journalism, which means answering some questions, and if the questions don't present themselves, then by god, they'll have to be concocted. Thus we get the Clinton v. Obama storyline, an intrigue-filled narrative rich with characters and anger that few believe will have any actual effect on the convention or the election, but will get tremendous amounts of coverage because, frankly, the assembled journalists need some way to convince corporate that it's worth covering the whole political team's airfare and hotels every four years. And who knows: Maybe the amount of coverage the tensions get will serve to amplify their impact and make the rift more meaningful, and thus the media will have managed to retroactively legitimize their coverage of the story. But I doubt it.
