Who Really Needs Dan Rather, Anyway? - Industry Trend or Event

While the networks cut back on their convention coverage, online media sites are filling the void.

TALK ABOUT convergence. This week, 16,000 members of the media are swarming on Philadelphia, hundreds of them devoted to making the Republican National Convention the first interactive event of its kind. Internet media companies -- from ABCNews.com to America Online -- are there in force, in the skyboxes alongside the TV network veterans or out in the back lot appropriately referred to as Internet Alley. With around-the-clock coverage and interactive tricks galore, this will be the first convention fine-tuned for an Internet audience.

There's just one question: Will anybody watch?

The networks, after all, have scaled back their coverage because the conventions are short on anything resembling real news. Most Americans will hardly suffer from the loss; a recent poll by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press found that just 46 percent of people have given "a lot" of thought to the election, down from an already apathetic 63 percent in 1992.

"People are paying less attention to politics, they've thought less about the candidates and more people are saying it's not too important who gets elected president," says Andrew Kohut, the center's director. "It's not a pretty picture."

But that's not discouraging online media players. Many of them are playing the conventions like the Super Bowl -- it's their chance to make it big. ABCNews.com, America Online, CNN.com and MSNBC.com each have at least 20 staffers at the Republican convention -- and their sites are loaded with features that include gavel-to-gavel streaming video, daily polls and talk shows produced for the Web.

Call it politics on demand: If you forget to watch George W. Bush's acceptance speech on TV (and neglect to set your VCR), you can watch a replay of it on the Web. Talk show hosts will pepper their guests with questions posed by chat-room participants.

"Television really interposes itself between you and the event," says David Bohrman, CEO of New York-based online broadcaster Pseudo.com, who ran floor coverage at four conventions when he was a producer for ABC News. "A lot of people may not want to sit back and be spoon-fed the convention from C-Span or CNN."

One of the niftiest technological gadgets being trotted out is a 360-degree streaming-video camera that Pseudo and CNN.com are using. Positioned in various spots on and outside the convention floor, the Web cameras capture the action from every angle, 24 hours a day. Viewers can select the view they want, or check out the scene in any direction. Pseudo's cameras will take in all aspects of the convention, from the balloon drop during the candidate's send-off to "what it's like to stand in the Texas delegation," Bohrman says, although he admits that watching Texans up close may be pretty boring.

For Pseudo, the big bet on the convention comes at a critical juncture. Launched in 1994, the site was one of the first to offer streaming-video entertainment, with an eclectic mix of programs about hip-hop music, Hollywood and computer games. But while Pseudo was one of the first to spot the Web's promise, it hasn't avoided some of the recent dot-com woes; earlier this summer the company laid off 16 percent of its staff as part of a reorganization and stopped producing new shows.

Last week it relaunched with 10 hours a day of live programming and an eye toward making its mark in Philadelphia. Pseudo sent about 40 staffers to the GOP bash -- more than bigger outfits like ABCNews.com and CNN.com -- and shelled out $20,000 for a skybox (as did AOL). While Bohrman won't say how much Pseudo is spending on the conventions, he admits "it's a lot for a little Web company.

As the networks have already made clear, fancy camera views won't make up for a dearth of spontaneous news. So what's a dot-com to do for drama? Manufacture it. Live, instant polls will be all over the Web -- taking the temperature on everything from whether Dick Cheney helps the ticket to whether Colin Powell's speech outshone George W's.

"We're very excited about this technology and think it's cool," says MSNBC.com Executive Editor Michael Silberman about the site's ability to conduct instant polls online. "On the other hand, we don't want to mislead folks into thinking, 'Hey, this is what America thinks of George Bush when in fact this is what a group of people on the Internet thinks of George Bush' he acknowledges. Accordingly, MSNBC.com is supplementing its Internet polls with results from traditional focus groups.

Will there be an audience for all this interactive, gavel-to-gavel reporting? Some political experts think not. "The American public is going to shift [its attention] from Monday Night Football to the Internet to find out what's going on on these sites about the convention?" asks Kohut of the Pew Research Center. "I just don't think so."

And is the smaller political-junky audience really hungry for all this technological wizardry? Probably not. Cameras that let you select from a 360-degree view are a fun novelty, but conventions have become so stage-managed that streaming video seems one of the least useful ways to cut through the party choreography. It will take intelligent, in-depth reporting to do that. Of course, all the sites claim they have plenty of that, too.

Two of the leading Web magazines, Salon and Slate, are making less fuss over the conventions, with each sending just a few reporters. Both have alliances to provide their viewers with Webcasts and video clips of the convention. (Salon is pairing up with Pseudo, Slate with MSNBC.) "We're certainly not going in for all those bells and whistles," says David Plotz, Slate's Washington bureau chief. "If you want raw, streaming video, you can go to a bunch of other sites. What we can bring is excellent analysis from a bunch of good, smart writers."

But for all the talk about how the Internet coverage will be unlike traditional TV broadcasts, the sites are doing Webcasts that look a lot like TV.

Pseudo's "interactive political yackathon" promises irreverence, with hosts interrupting guests to ask them questions from chat rooms. AOL, ABCNews.com and MSNBC.com also have Web talk shows on tap.

But these Webcasts won't only be longer than their television counterparts -- they'll also be a lot more difficult to watch. "At the moment, the picture's bad," says the ever candid Sam Donaldson, who reports primarily for ABCNews.com these days, taping five 20-minute Webcasts a week. "But we know that, and it's OK. The first television sets were pretty poor.

Donaldson will be hosting two Webcasts a day -- but he doesn't anticipate having lots of work on his hands. "I'm going to go to a lot of parties, because what else am I going to do?" he asks. Other than protesters being tear-gassed, he adds, "Can you think of a single thing at these conventions that requires gathering news?"

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