Coverage of Gustav tops politics on Day 1

0 Comments | Philadelphia Inquirer, The, September, 2008 | by John Timpane Inquirer Staff Writer

Coverage of the first day of the 2008 Republican National Convention was more meteorology than politics. Gustav/GOP gave the 24/7 news channels a chance to show what TV can do, and the result was both breathtaking and mind-numbing. Swirling red, blue, yellow and red, Gustav's TV image edged farther and farther northwest throughout the day, and MSNBC, CNN and Fox News made sure that image was usually either center-stage or tucked in the lower right-hand corner of the screen, even during commercials.

So what if the Republican Party decided Sunday to "scale down" the first day of the convention into a sort of hurricane-relief telethon? There was a hurricane (one disappointed reporter called it "not the mother of all storms after all") to overcover. CNN's John King, on the...