Gov. Deval Patrick is speaking right now — quite effectively, too. I did a quick channel flip, and discovered that he’s being carried only by New England Cable News and C-SPAN. The folks at PBS, ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, Fox News and MSNBC all think they have more important things to talk about.
Instant correction: Boston’s WFXT-TV (Channel 25) and WLVI-TV (Channel 56) also broadcast Patrick live. They’re local stations that aren’t stuck with carrying the network feed.
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Aaron Read
What, no love for NPR? 🙂
Matt
I watched Patrick on my laptop while MSNBC and CNN just had talking heads. I thought he was one of the better speakers of the night, it’s a shame the networks didn’t show him.
Dan Kennedy
Aaron: What can I say? At moments like these, it’s all about the pictures.
Aaron Read
So get one of these little buggers…http://motron.info/shop/product_info.php/products_id/133…and use it to sync WBUR’s audio with your preferred TV channel’s video.It’s also handy for watching Red Sox games and listening to WEEI at the same time. Little tougher for the Patriots; WBCN usually is behind the TV (WEEI is usually ahead of NESN).There’s also freeware program on Download.com (I forget the name, but I can look it up if you want) that can delay the audio coming into your computer’s mic/line input by up to 10 seconds. Not quite as simple as the RadioTVSync, but hey, it’s free.
rozzie
Aaron Barnhart has an excellent post asking why cable and other news nets insist on covering the conventions by ignoring what is happening there. “I don’t get it,” he writes. “These channels (not just CNN) spend millions of dollars schlepping people and resources to an event and then spend 95 percent of their time not airing it. If someone tried that during the Oscars, they’d never work in that town again.”I like watching the action on C-SPAN or listening to XM’s POTUS and NPR, but I know most people can hardly find these stations. The cable channels have 24 hours a day to yammer about horse races and those split-screen spin debates. Why can’t they just shut up for a few hours and let us hear it from the source?
Steve Brown
For whatever reason, I watched the convention on Monday night on CNN. On Tuesday night, when there was a glitch in the cable, and CNN literally froze for about 5 minutes… with brief bursts of audio, I hit the “up” channel button once and landed on C-SPAN. I’m glad I did. Watching the speeches in real time, and sans pontification was refreshing. I’ll probably watch the remainder of the festivities that way.
Brian
WGBH 44 ran Patrick on a delay, after the PBS talking heads were done talking over him. But they had to axe Schweitzer’s fun, furniture commercial version of a convention speech.
Jimbo
PBS, on WGBX, Ch 44 locally, showed Patrick’s remarks with a slight tape delay, as they’d been discussing a previous speaker when the governor first took the podium.I’ve been watching mostly on that station, with Jim Lehrer hosting, and then after 11 pm on Ch 2, WGBH, Charlie Rose has been on with pretty good discussions among the pundits.
acf
He was probably kept off the national network broadcasts because they felt he was not important enough for them. After all, he’s only the governor of a state not considered important in anyone’s calculus for electoral victory. Also, he was not discussed (at least openly) as a veep possibility. You would think that his similar history to Obama, right up to his campaign for MA governor, arguably a model for Obama’s national one for president, would generate more interest from the media moguls, but it didn’t. It’s an example why they are losing viewers by the car load.