Don’t Tell This Anchor That Conventions Aren’t News

NASHVILLE —  To his rivals at the commercial broadcast networks who say the conventions are no longer worth gavel-to-gavel coverage because they have become staged events, PBS anchor Jim Lehrer has a tart reply: “C’mon, give me a break.”

A presidential address to the nation is a staged event, he says, yet networks interrupt their prime-time schedules for them all the time.

“There’s still a mentality in some news organizations that if it isn’t like it used to be, then somehow it isn’t news anymore. The world has changed, and these conventions and the political process are just one of the many things that have changed, and to say, ‘Oh, well, we already know the nominees, so what the hell’s the point, there aren’t going to be any floor fights.’ I just don’t buy into that.”

Some of his rivals, of course, insist that they have adapted, and that it is Lehrer, sole anchor of the Public Broadcasting Service’s nightly “NewsHour” since partner Robert MacNeil retired in 1995, who is out of touch. Indeed, Lehrer and his show, celebrating their 25th anniversary in the fall, have some decidedly contrarian views and approaches to journalism that seem to get only stronger in an era when television news is rapidly evolution.

For viewers who want full coverage of the conventions, no matter how highly scripted, PBS will be the only universal option, although households with cable will have numerous other choices. Given the continually declining ratings that conventions have shown on broadcast TV, it’s unclear how many viewers actually want that kind of detail. Lehrer worries that the network decisions themselves could cause tune-out.

“The people who run the networks are saying to the American people that these conventions aren’t important anymore. That’s a message that could have an effect on the way people view this whole process, this whole election.”

Four years ago, “NewsHour” collaborated with NBC News for the first two hours of its three-hour convention broadcasts. This year, PBS is on its own, NBC having opted to work with its MSNBC cable channel. Supplementing PBS’ extensive coverage of the official proceedings will be commentary and perspective by political analysts Mark Shields and Paul Gigot, presidential historians Michael Beschloss and Doris Kearns Goodwin, and author Haynes Johnson.

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Lehrer is a man of many set opinions and has no compunction about sharing them, when asked. When an executive of a major public television station queried him during a luncheon session at the June PBS annual meeting about the possibility of allowing a brief window for local news and weather during the national “NewsHour” broadcast, Lehrer brusquely said that it had been looked at over the years and was “a lousy idea.”

He is similarly firm in outlining his approach to convention coverage. And he has harsh words for his rivals who have cut back on their coverage or, in the case of NBC, moved much of their coverage to cable.

“We’re about to choose the leader of the world, not just the free world anymore, the whole world. And to say, ‘Oh, hey, that’s not important’--that somehow that’s not important enough for the networks to cover?”

Lehrer acknowledges what his competitors say, that the conventions themselves have become highly orchestrated affairs with little breaking-news value. What hasn’t changed, he says, is the fact that, historically, the conventions are the time when the majority of the American people begin to focus on the presidential elections, and that means PBS will cover the conventions “just the same way we did last time and the time before that.”

He calls the conventions an “easy, easy story to cover: These are the candidates for the presidency of the United States and the issues for which they stand. Rather than being an obligation, they are a glorious opportunity to help present their positions to the American people for the first time.”

His challenge, he says: “I’ve got to figure out a way to transmit my sense of the importance of this event to the audience,” through context and stories, “to make the speech itself come to life. It’s not just the words that are spoken, but what led to these particular words being spoken on this particular night.”

Convention coverage won’t change from past years, but Lehrer’s daily program has been updated. New faces including Gwen Ifill, formerly of NBC News, and Ray Suarez, previously of National Public Radio, have brought fresh perspective. The show has added a media correspondent and regular coverage of health issues. Poetry has become a quirky part of the arts coverage.

Still, governing the program’s coverage is a set of somewhat old-fashioned journalistic standards that Lehrer enumerated at the recent PBS meeting. Among them: “Private lives are a private matter” and “no anonymous sources.” His rule that “I am not in the entertainment business” brought applause.

Public television has underwriters, not advertisers, and isn’t solely focused on ratings, so it can afford to offer an alternative for viewers, no matter how dull some critics think it is. Lehrer’s approach to candidate interviews during a campaign season is similarly unfashionable in a day and age when tough questioning and “gotcha” moments run rampant.

Lehrer believes that, particularly early on in a campaign, candidates have the right to speak freely, to get their views across to the voters, relatively unchallenged.

Candidates, in his mind, start the campaign with “a clean slate,” and his first obligation early on is to let them tell viewers: “Who are you? What do you believe in?” The tough questions can come later. But, as critics have noted, that sometimes means candidates get away with delivering their standard stump speech or incorrect facts.

“If I wanted to prosecute people, I would have gone to law school,” Lehrer says, adding that “I really do believe the audience is as smart as I am.” The audience, he says, can judge for itself whether the candidate is saying anything new.

“I’m not defensive about it,” he says. “I’ve never done an interview yet that hasn’t been criticized.” And, he notes, hoping that what he says won’t sound arrogant: “I’ve been doing this a long time, and I am my own harshest critic.” Sometimes he looks back and agrees with his critics, he says, but adds that “all the criticism in the world is not going to get me to believe I’ve done poorly if I don’t believe I’ve done poorly.”