Used to be, journalists went looking for stories instead of waiting around for them to be presented on a camera-ready plate.

But, judging from the U.S. network coverage of this week's Democratic National Convention, where the people and policies that may dominate the world for the next four years are being showcased, there's no story.

The star anchors — Dan Rather, Tom Brokaw, Peter Jennings — complain that the conventions are so "tightly scripted," "so managed" and so "not interesting," it's not worth devoting more than three hours over four days of prime time to them.

Yet, in the wake of the horrible events of 9/11, the networks vowed they'd kick their junk news habit. Never again would Americans be caught so unaware of the world around them.

Which is why last week's report by the 9/11 commission had harsh words for the media.

But, according to the Vanishing Voter Project at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, convention coverage, like other serious news, continues to shrink.

In 1992, NBC, CBS and ABC each gave 15 hours to the conventions. In 1996, they devoted 12 hours, dropping to 8 1/2 hours in 2000.

No wonder voters are "vanishing."

As NBC's Jay Leno put it the other night: "Three hours total ... To pick a president. All right? That's about 1/10th of the time we devote to finding an American Idol, okay?"

"The networks have decided that our democracy is bad for their business, which is why this week viewers were treated to worm munching ( NBC's Fear Factor), puking (CBS's Big Brother) and snack room hijinks (ABC's Less Than Perfect) instead of convention coverage," say the critics at http://www.mediachannel.org.

Admittedly, ratings for Monday coverage are not good. Each of the networks was down at least 20 per cent from their numbers in 2000.

Programmers will probably use the figures to justify their decisions, as if there can be any justification.

But then, why should the networks, which squat on the public airwaves, be interested in the public interest?

Never mind that political advertising is expected to hit $1.3 billion U.S. worth of TV time this year, up from $910 million in 2000.

Forget how candidates spend so much of their time raising funds — in a process that surely has a corrupting effect — just so that they can buy that time.

Turns out that windfall is a mere drop in the corporate bucket.

In a release this week, the Washington-based Center for Digital Democracy noted that network owners are forecasting "double digit" growth this year, with "record" second quarters.

"It's greed on the part of the Big Three that is keeping convention coverage off the air," says the center's Jeff Chester.

Sure, there are cable news networks. But not everybody can afford them. And if you think our cable bills are ridiculous, you should see what those U.S. guys charge.

Even if subscription fees were not an issue, networks, which have skimmed squillions of dollars from the public airwaves, should have to give something back.

But hey, it's a free country, and nobody should regulate the networks into losing money.

So it's noteworthy that, in a supposedly competitive free market, the networks all chose the exact same three hours of the convention to cover live.

Coincidence, or collusion?

Even more interesting is how they all gave a pass to Tuesday night that featured a speech by Ron Reagan, son of the former Republican president Ronald Reagan, whose funeral this year dominated the airwaves for a week.

Probably the most egregious omission was how, despite excoriating her for three days for her ill-considered "shove it" remark to a right-wing editorial writer, the networks then neglected to air Theresa Heinz Kerry's speech.

The "shove it" coverage, not only on the networks but all over the dial, was both sexist, as if Kerry had to be the Crawford Wife that Laura Bush is, and unfair.

Most reporters neglected to put the remark in context, to show the complete video of the incident or to tell viewers that the target of her ire, Colin McNickle, is promoted by his paper with lines such as, "It's a dirty job dealing with liberals, but somebody's gotta do it ..."

Is this incident the best journalism the networks' multi-million dollar hairdos can muster?

If so, you can be sure that it's only a matter of time before their bosses tell them to take their contracts, and to eat the sort of stuff they're serving up on reality TV.

In short, to take their jobs and "shove it."

Copyright Toronto Star Newspapers Limited

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