National Journal - Ted Koppel On The Days Of Gavel-To-Gavel Coverage

Monday, Nov. 23, 2009

FIRST PERSON

Ted Koppel On The Days Of Gavel-To-Gavel Coverage

As Told To Lisa Caruso

First PersonBroadcast journalists remember the days when they covered the conventions live from gavel to gavel--and they had real news to report and big scoops to score.
• Bob Schieffer
• Dan Rather
• Cokie Roberts
• Ted Koppel

My first convention was at the Cow Palace in San Francisco in 1964. It was the first sense we had about the rise of the conservative movement within the Republican Party, and the level of genuine acrimony there was for the moderate wing, personified by Nelson Rockefeller. It was also the first time I remember the media being denounced from the podium and being booed and hissed at by the delegates. It had never really occurred to me that we were the object of intense emotion in either direction. But it turned out to be the beginning of a very successful conservative movement and of the media as an adversary.

At the 1996 Republican convention in San Diego, most of my Nightline crew and I packed up and returned to Washington. I looked around and said, "This is a political sideshow. News is not going to be committed out here." It wasn't unique to that year. I think that's been building. Television producers and correspondents and anchors look at an event and decide how they're going to suck the juice out of it. Clearly, we're not always looking for what the Democratic or Republican Party wants to produce.