ftentimes in the past week, network anchors and correspondents seemed to chafe at the lack of news emanating from the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia.
But some analysts argued yesterday that the broadcast networks defined ''news'' so narrowly - and cut back on coverage so dramatically - that they missed the deeper stories behind the GOP gathering.
''They're trapped in a model of reporters on the floor interviewing delegates about their reaction to speeches,'' said Tom Rosenstiel, executive director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism. ''It is an utterly outdated way to cover an event that is a different event now.''
The big difference from the networks' perspective is the decline in viewers. Nielsen ratings for Thursday night's speech by Republican nominee George W. Bush showed declines for NBC, CNN, and CBS from viewing levels when Bob Dole accepted the GOP nomination in 1996. Only ABC was up from four years ago, buoyed by a strong lead-in from ''Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.'' For ABC, CBS, and NBC, however, viewership Thursday represented a drop of at least one-fifth of the audience compared to 1992.
''It's very hard to justify increased coverage of the convention when clearly viewership is down,'' CBS spokeswoman Kim Akhtar said.
Whatever the ratings, Rosenstiel and others argued that the networks should have seized the opportunity for in-depth reporting on nominee George W. Bush, on what the Republican Party stands for, and on issues such as the role played by key fund-raisers and what shape Bush's general-election strategy against Democratic nominee Al Gore will take.
''There's real news going on, but it's not at the podium,'' Rosenstiel said.
To Al Tompkins of the Poynter Institute on Media Studies, part of the news was that network coverage focused so extensively on the importance of women and minorities to the GOP. ''This used to be a white man's game,'' said Tompkins. ''It's a relatively new conversation in their convention coverage.''
Everette Dennis, a professor of media management at Fordham University, said CNN and NBC performed ably. But in general, Dennis said, the networks engaged in a ''search for conflict and a scramble for meaning where not much was found.''
Robert Lichter of the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Media and Public Affairs was among several analysts yesterday who criticized the major broadcast networks - CBS, NBC, and ABC - for their relatively paltry allocation of airtime to the GOP convention. Moreover, he said, when they were on the air the networks delivered more commentary than coverage, harvesting opinions rather than broadcasting such convention moments as the GOP's biographical film about Bush.
''The networks used to regard the nomination of a president as a momentous event, as newsworthy,'' said Lichter. ''Now, they're more interested in what they have to say to each other than in what is being said at the platform. There's really an arrogance here.''
At NBC, which devoted the least airtime to the convention, spokeswoman Hilary Smith said ''it was very clear to NBC that viewers were not as interested,'' especially after viewership dropped 50 percent from the end of ''Dateline'' Tuesday and Senator John McCain's speech at the convention. Nonetheless, Smith said that between NBC and its cable outlet, MSNBC, the network covered many of the stories the analysts believed were vital. NBC plans no changes in the amount of airtime for the Democratic National Convention on Aug. 14, she said.
At ABC, which led in the ratings this week (followed by NBC and CBS), spokeswoman Sonya McNair said the network ''made a commitment to provide the important information in that amount of time as opposed to showing random highlights.''
Akhtar, of CBS, said reporters struggled to find news in a convention that was ''choreographed to the nth degree,'' forcing networks to resort to commentary in order to provide ''perspective to what's going on.'' Within the limited airtime networks gave to the conventions, Akhtar argued that it made sense to focus on major speeches because ''people want to know who the candidate is and the speeches provide those kinds of answers.''
When Democrats convene in Los Angeles in two weeks, she said, ''our coverage will follow exactly the same lines'' in terms of time alloted. The network does plan, however, to ensure that the content of programs like ''48 Hours'' - into which political coverage was folded this week - dovetails better with the conventions. CBS was criticized for declining to air a speech by Laura Bush, the nominee's wife, while airing a rerun of a medical story on ''48 Hours.''
For most of this week, the three broadcast networks devoted no more than an hour a night in prime time to the convention. Nonetheless, viewership generally was down. NBC drew 6.1 million viewers Thursday night, down 23 percent from 1996 levels and 39 percent from 1992. CBS attracted 4.2 million viewers, a decline of 6 percent from 1996 and 42 percent rom 1992. ABC was the winner with 7.6 million, a 28 percent increase from 1996 but still 21 percent fewer viewers than the network garnered eight years ago.
On the cable side, CNN won with 1.6 million viewers Thursday night, but still drew a rating 35 percent lower than in 1996. Fox News Channel was second with 1.1 million viewers, followed by MSNBC with 506,000 viewers. (Fox News Channel did not exist in 1996; MSNBC was in its infancy that year and was not measured by Nielsen Media Research).
