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The battle for the DFL endorsement

Posted at 5:18 PM on June 6, 2008 by Tom Scheck (1 Comments)

Al Franken and Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer will battle for the DFL endorsement for the U.S. Senate on Saturday. There's also some suspicion that other names could be in the mix.

We won't be blogging the event. Why? Because we'll be airing the convention live on our News and Information Stations.

That means you can listen while you're driving in the car, doing some yard work or doing some spring cleaning. If your computer is chained to your leg, you can listen to the livestream provided at MPR's main site.

Why is this better? You'll get first hand accounts from the delegates, you'll hear Franken and Nelson-Pallmeyer make their pitch to the delegates. And you'll also get Gary Eichten.

Comments (1)

Don't get me wrong, I love MPR, but--live blogging, by an MPR reporter is superior to live broadcasting by MPR of the same event.

Why? Well, the object of reporter writing a story is to cut the "talking a lot of b***s" out of his reporting, ab initio.

The broadcaster covering the same live event is to "talk as much b***s as possible.* They must do this, to avoid the one unforgivable sin of broadcasting: dead air. Consequently, a person listening to a live broadcast of an event where a critical decision is going to be made is going to respond like this to what he or she hears: "who cares--who cares--who cares, that's not news, that's just spin, b**ls during an interview with someone who doesn't really influence the outcome--who cares--" and then, every five minutes or so: "aha, there's an actual development in the story that's worth reporting or hearing--a change in the totals or a statement by someone who really counts."

The live blogging by a competent reporter is soooo much better. The reporter doing the live blogging--if she's competent at all--has a little imaginary editor sitting on her shoulder, telling her: "don't bother including time-filling paragraphs of b**ls in your written, real time coverage--nobody wants to read or HEAR all that b***s, just stick to the most important developments, reported as they happen. That's what the reader is interested in."

So perhaps the best solution is to do both the live blogging and the live broadcast, and let the people who like listening to all the b***s get their fill from the radio, and let people who avoid b***s like the plague get the news--the new information that actually matters.

I hope I make myself clear.

Posted by Bill Prendergast | June 7, 2008 1:26 PM

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