olitical conventions, as many have noted, are cases of too many people chasing too few stories. So when reporters find a convention story - any story - fit to print, they chew on it like rottweilers.
This year, it's The Revolutionary Impact Of Online Media On Convention Coverage. A lot of breathless prose has been devoted to the advent of Web cameras, interactivity and Internet skyboxes at the Republican and Democratic powwows this summer. Speculation abounds that the magic of wireless technology will provide an immediacy and informality desperately needed to stem the flagging interest of the American public in these affairs.
Maybe. But online outfits like America Online concede the hype could dwarf the product, and their predictions remain relatively modest. ''The conventions are important test cases for our medium to get the coverage and tools down pat before the debates,'' says Kathleen deLaski, AOL's director of political and governmental programming. ''We want to demonstrate what is possible in a fully wired world.''
If AOL is wary of the hype, other online content providers run for the door at the mere mention of it. They maintain that the quality of reporting still determines bragging rights at these affairs and that reporters will exhaust the novelty of a 360 degree Web camera by the end of the first day and move on to their next meal.
''The expectations for online media are way too high,'' says Jonah Goldberg, editor of the online version of The National Review. ''We're the antibodies, not the major organs, at these conventions. To pretend otherwise is a huge waste of time.''
Adds Michael Kinsley, editor of the online magazine Slate, ''We're not claiming anything novel or revolutionary about our coverage. We'll do what we do every day - file constantly and casually in Internet style.''
Neither Slate nor The National Review will have skyboxes, essential for Webcasting, because they're expensive and both organizations say that the visuals offered are as exciting as staring at a screen-saver.
''I think Webcasting is a dumb, dumb waste of resources,'' Goldberg says. ''Look at the number of people you're reaching. It's tiny - political junkies and reporters.''
While the exercise is aimed primarily at these hothouse orchids, the branding value of a skybox banner makes sense only to the few Web concerns who can afford it, like Yahoo! and AOL.
''A skybox is symbolic,'' Kinsley says. ''It means you're a grownup, and you get to hang a banner with your name on it. When the real grownups at the networks pan their cameras around the hall, they'll show your banner. I shudder to think what they cost.''
It costs about $50,000 at Philadelphia, payable to the various vendors who build and outfit the space.''
What will be new at the conventions is the interactivity that the online media will bring to them. Users will be able to pick and choose what they want to watch and, perhaps more important, when. There will be endless opportunities to chat with other users, political figures and talking heads.
''What's revolutionary is that, unlike TV or print, there are no time or space limitations on the net,'' says Michael Bustamante, communications director for voter.com, a political Web site that will provide 10 interactive ''kiosks'' at key convention locations at Philadelphia and a whopping 90 at Los Angeles. ''You can see at 3 a.m. on Thursday what happened on Monday without going through the trash for Monday's papers.''
The last word in convention Web cams belongs to pseudopolitics.com, a new offshoot of pseudo.com, which bills itself as the world's largest interactive Internet video network. Pseudopolitics will have a handful of Web cameras to maintain a 360-degree, 24-hour sweep of the convention hall. It has provided enough bandwidth to accommodate 100,000 viewers at a time.
Just what viewers will witness in the middle of the night is anyone's guess. Barring the unexpected, the scene in the small hours should make C-Span look like a Jerry Bruckheimer movie. Jacob Weisberg, Slate's chief political reporter, could not resist: ''The Web cam offers an unprecedented opportunity to see what janitors are doing at 3 a.m.''
Goldberg dismisses the video quality. ''RealPlayer sucks on a regular modem,'' he says. ''So why would you do it? Why not just turn on your TV?''
Because, says pseudopolitics managing editor Sam Hollander, viewers will be able to focus on any part of the 360-degree vista they choose when the convention is in session. ''No one else in Philadelphia will have these,'' says Hollander about the cameras. ''It will provide a much more immersive, interactive experience. You choose what you want to look at and listen to.''
Viewers could, for example, isolate the Massachusetts delegation and stare at it as long as they want - providing they are among the 100,000 people at any one time to get access.
Unlike the television networks, which historically have declined to pool resources, many online outfits are in cahoots to save money. Pseudopolitics, for example, will partner with Salon.com, George Magazine and The New York Observer for content. Each evening of the GOP convention, Salon will broadcast an hour-long show online from the pseudopolitics skybox.
Throughout the conventions, Yahoo! will provide updates from the floor to its Yahoo! FinanceVision service, which offers live coverage of the financial markets. For its video streams, it will rely on C-Span, which is also the pool television feed for the Republican convention.
C-Span will have 12 cameras there. Viewers will be able to choose from one of four angles to watch the proceedings. Perhaps the most interesting will be a view over the shoulder of C-Span producer Gary Ellenwood, who will orchestrate all of the pool cameras.
AOL, which also will use C-Span for video streaming, has formed content partnerships with CBS News, Time, The New York Times and the Associated Press. Like all of the online media, AOL will provide endless opportunities for members to rate speeches, endure pundits and palaver over events as they occur.
Slate will provide, among other things, a running conversation between Democratic and Republican speech writers throughout the convention. ''Half an hour after Bush's acceptance speech, there should be four or five takes on it on Slate,'' Kinsley says.
If he avoids the breathless, Kinsley believes nonetheless that the conventions offer online media the chance to strut their stuff for new audiences.
''It will only be better if you believe as I do that writing allows for more serious reflection than talking,'' he cautions. ''I'm not anticipating putting the talking heads out of business, but if we get 10-20 percent of their audience in addition to our own, that will be fine. But there will be no great spike for us.''
Ditto for Salon, whose online eclat has been overshadowed by recent financial woes. Kerry Lauerman, its Washington bureau chief, maintains that those online publications with existing audiences will fare much better than new ones who must create their own. ''We spent a year developing our political coverage,'' he says. ''It was baptism by fire for us in the primaries, but we established our name.''
Lauerman concedes online convention news would lose to a network sitcom. ''If it's `Will and Grace' versus Liddy Dole, people will choose `Will and Grace,''' he says. ''But if you're at work and you wonder what's happening at the convention, this is an appealing option.''
The arrival of online media certainly can't hurt the conventions. Television has already killed them, Weisberg notes.
''There is a huge amount of hype about the online media,'' he says. ''On the other hand, something interesting is bound to come out of all this. We just don't know what yet.''
