Newscasting: Medium over Tedium

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ABC, historically No. 3 in news budget and ratings, tried the most novel approach. Forsaking gavel-to-gavel coverage, it opted for a nightly 90-minute wrap-up of the day's proceedings. While the opposition networks were carrying the early hours of the convention, ABC viewers saw Rat Patrol, Garrison's Gorillas, or an old Jerry Lewis movie. Simultaneously, of course, ABC cameramen were taping the minute-by-minute events on the floor and around town. This footage was quickly edited into an "instant special," which went on at 9:30 p.m. local time. The opening night's 90 minutes, for example, were culled from some 24 hours of film and videotape. In general ABC's unconventional coverage did not evoke the flavor of the convention or impart any sense of urgency. And on the two balloting nights, of course, ABC had no choice but to go overtime. Still, the ABC experiment cut to the very nature of the TV medium. Unlike print, television does not lend itself readily to organizing, tabulating and editing. In trying to substitute these disciplines for TV's usually half-formed rush of life, ABC failed—but further experimentation may be instructive.

One of the year's major departures was the sideshow. CBS hired Columnist Art Buchwald in hopes of bringing humor to the proceedings, but during most of his appearances he seemed much less effective than in print. In one sketch, though, while playing an uncommitted delegate wooed by party girls at a hotel pool, Art got off his best line: "If you can't stand the heat, get out of the cabana." ABC scheduled nightly debates between the self-styled "Odd Couple," Conservative Editor William Buckley Jr. and Novelist Gore Vidal, whose latest book is the sex farce, Myra Breckinridge. The confrontation was diverting as an exhibition of personal antagonism, but the political issues were almost entirely lost in the scuffle. A sample exchange:

Buckley: I don't think it is right to present Mr. Gore Vidal as a political commentator of any consequence, since he is nothing more than a literary producer of perverted Hollywood-minded prose.

Vidal: Mr. Buckley, with his enormous and thrilling charm, manages to get away from the issues. You certainly must maintain yourself, Bill, to be the Marie Antoinette of the right wing.

Feeding on Themselves. What ultimately separated the networks, of course, was the performance of their regulars. ABC staffers were the least authoritative and articulate. NBC, with its emphasis on the machinations of the floor, played down Anchormen Chet Huntley and David Brinkley and gave the ball to its fearsome foursome of floor reporters: John Chancellor, Frank McGee, Edwin Newman and Sander Vanocur. In the continuing absence of actual news, they desperately darted from delegation to delegation, chasing down the rumors that are always the prime medium of convention exchange. TV in general not only enabled rumors to feed on themselves but tended to make much of flurries that had subsided by the time TV got around to reporting them. Of all the floor men, CBS's Mike Wallace was the fastest on his feet, beating his rivals to the right politician time after time.