When we needed substance, TV brought us irrelevance

Sacramento Bee ^ | 10-07-03 | Rick Kushman

[formercalifornian]

You expected something more dramatic at the end. A vote going deep into the night, a sudden twist from early results, maybe Indiana Jones swinging in on a rope.

But instead, this singular, Hollywood-colored election ended Tuesday night at the opening credits with a blowout, and you could almost see the disappointment on the faces of some reporters who were hoping for an all-night thriller. Instead, at 8:01 p.m. California time, everybody, I mean everybody, all the way to Comedy Central's "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart," called it for Arnold Schwarzenegger.

And while the easy win may have been a big statement by California voters, it left all those TV news operations -- networks and stations that had hunkered down for a big night -- holding hours of less-than-thrilling airtime.

Or put another way, live by the thin Hollywood plotline, die by the thin plotline.

Since Schwarzenegger jumped into the race in early August, the international press corps, mesmerized by the California recall story, had been gearing up for election night drama, and even during the day Tuesday, people like CNN's Bill Schneider -- who seemed incapable of reporting on the race without a show biz reference -- told viewers to "bring lots of popcorn."

Well, actually, no. The air was gone from the drama balloon before election watchers had settled into their chairs. And, really, that was a good thing.

Despite the frenzied, California-is-a-circus coverage from much of the national press, the election has serious consequences, starting with an instant change in the governor's chair of this vast, multifaceted nation-state.

Arnold Schwarzenegger now faces the massive complexities of a Legislature and Capitol culture as intricate and entrenched as Washington, D.C., a spectacular budget mess, and the lingering expectations of a voter revolution. It would have been nice to hear a little of that on a hugely unconventional election night.

Instead, most reporting Tuesday night seemed frozen in convention that seemed suddenly archaic. The local stations -- particularly channels 3 and 10, which went with election coverage all night -- were thorough and measured, but they followed a what-were-the-numbers approach that was irrelevant by 8:02.

Just as off point were the usual political suspects, lined up by reporters at the campaign parties to answer the immaterial question, "How do you feel," while what we really wanted to know was, what now?

That is a perennial problem in political coverage, particularly on television. You find a storyline -- an entertaining storyline if you're lucky -- and you go with it. Explaining the issues, the repercussions, the gray areas and the lingering questions, is too hard, especially on the fly.

And when the story involves a movie star married into the Kennedy family facing late allegations of groping vs. possibly the most unpopular personality in California political history, who needs to bother with substance?

That criticism, by the way, goes mostly to the national networks who couldn't resist constant circus metaphors, and the cable news networks who took every development as a chance to scream. The cable channels by late Tuesday were back to the left vs. right analysts yelling about everything they always yell about.

The worst of the bunch was MSNBC. The people who brought us the countdown clock in March for President Bush's 48-hour ultimatum to Saddam Hussein and Iraq, had another countdown clock running until California's polls closed.

In contrast, local TV news throughout California, and certainly in Sacramento, was solid through most of the recall campaign, trying to sort out the candidates and their stands on issues. By late Tuesday night, they all at least tried to talk a bit about what California faces.

And now, it all turns toward governing California -- a task often called impossible -- and Gov.-elect Schwar-zenegger said Tuesday night he wants to make changes from "business as usual."

If we're going to learn what he means by that and if he's successful, then political coverage, television coverage, has to change, too. This was not a Hollywood story, it was real politics and real life, and it needs to be covered as if it matters.

[formercalifornian]

No popcorn needed all right.

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