Early print deadlines meant that three of our national newspapers, The New York Times, The Washington Post and USA Today, have no coverage of President Biden’s keynote address. All of them, needless to say, go big with Biden’s speech online. It makes you wonder who’s still bothering with the legacy press’ shrinking print editions.
A fourth national paper, the business-focused Wall Street Journal, did manage to get Biden’s speech on page one, though it’s not the lead. Locally, The Boston Globe leads with the president as well. I have to assume that’s a late edition.
Biden was supposed to go on at about 10:30 p.m., but the Democrats veered off schedule and he didn’t start for another hour. They’d better fix that — the last thing the party wants is for Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz’s acceptance speech on Wednesday and Vice President Kamala Harris’ on Thursday to get pushed out of prime time.
Stop talking at me
God bless C-SPAN. We tuned in around 9 p.m. and chose PBS, figuring the “NewsHour” crew would strike a good balance between carrying the speeches and offering a little bit of commentary and analysis. We were wrong. We missed Texas Rep. Jasmine Crockett’s speech entirely. And when we finally switched over, we discovered that PBS had cut away from Georgia Sen. Raphael Warnock, a major figure in the party.
At least PBS carried New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, whose fiery populism was probably the highlight of the evening, though Hillary Clinton’s address conjured up all sorts of emotions. Yes, it should have been her.
I’m not going to try to assess Biden’s speech except to agree with other observers that I respect his successful presidency and am grateful that his deep sense of patriotism led him to step aside, even though it was evident that he’s still angry he was forced to make that move.
New Haven crew hits Chicago
Normally I like to see local news organizations stay mission-focused when big national events occur. But I’ll cut the New Haven Independent some slack. After all, founder Paul Bass is no longer the editor, and he’s as knowledgeable about politics as anyone I know.
Bass and staff reporter Nora Grace-Flood are in Chicago while Babz Rawls Ivy, the morning host at the Independent-affiliated radio station, WNHH-LP, is back in New Haven offering some commentary. Oakland-based cartoonist Fred Noland of the Independent Review Crew is in Chicago as well, though he hasn’t started drawing yet.
And it’s not all national. Here’s a funny story, with video and photos, about Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar squaring off with New Haven Democrats about the virtues of New Haven apizza versus Chicago-style deep-dish pizza.
