GOP bets on 'convention jockeys'
After watching delegates dance to a jaunty version of "You're All I Need to Get By" at the opening session of the Republican National Convention, C-SPAN viewers saw former Detroit television host Tara Wall hoist a microphone and interview Michigan congressional candidate Myrah Kirkwood.
"What are you doing in Michigan to make sure we reelect President George W. Bush and Dick Cheney?" Wall asked.
Wall is not a political reporter. She's one of the Republican National Committee's "convention jockeys." They are a group of media-savvy staff members -- some with journalism backgrounds -- who are producing interviews and stories shown inside Madison Square Garden as part of the convention pageantry and propaganda. While they may be intended to rouse the faithful in New York, they have reached a much broader audience. C-SPAN is available in 88 million homes, and some of the jockeys' reports were also carried on the gavel-to-gavel coverage on "ABC News Now" that is available to 36 million online users, 6.5 million digital cable subscribers, and local affiliates with a digital signal.
Reaction to the jockeys is mixed. C-SPAN and ABC defend showing them as part of their complete convention coverage, but other networks are keeping them off the air, citing concerns about blurring distinctions between politics and journalism. There is a sense that operatives who look comfortable handling a microphone and conducting boosterish, on-message interviews represent a clever Republican strategy for spreading the party's convention themes.
"It's completely consistent with the Bush administration's approach to the news," said Matthew Felling, media director for the Center for Media and Public Affairs, a nonpartisan research organization. "The Republicans seem to have found their way around the 'liberal media filter.' . . . These 'faux-respondents' are the next step in media management."
"It's a nice idea both in the hall and outside the hall," says David Bohrman, CNN's vice president of news and production. Bohrman said the RNC made it clear to news outlets that the jockeys were nonjournalists working from scripts. He also said they will not be shown on CNN. "We have our own reporters," he said.
The jockeys' work has often looked slick and synchronized. After Christine Iverson, a former TV anchor who is the RNC press secretary, signed off from a tribute to veterans held aboard the USS Intrepid, the scene quickly segued to Mercedes Viana Schlapp interviewing a veteran in the West Virginia delegation. "Tell me about your experience in Iraq," she asked.
In explaining its decision to give such pieces air time, C-SPAN spokeswoman Shelly Siders said: "We are there to cover the convention . . . Whatever technique each convention uses, that's what's going on." Once C-SPAN staff members realized who the jockeys were, she added, it quickly identified the pieces as RNC-produced.
ABC spokesman Jeffrey Schneider also said the "ABC News Now" coverage was careful to identify the jockeys' work as RNC material. "We felt it was important to show some of that," he said, "because it's part of the Republican effort to get their message out."
Not every news organization agrees. "We would not put [the jockeys] on the air," said CBS spokeswoman Sandy Genelius. "They're not journalists and they're not working for CBS News, and it might be confusing to viewers."
Leslie Schwartz, a spokeswoman for MSNBC, said that cable news outlet would not air any of the packages "given the partisan nature of them."
Alex Jones, director of Harvard's Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy, said he found the jockeys' appearances "mildly disturbing."
"I think the idea would be that you're mixing journalists and nonjournalists and people would be confused," he said.
Blurring the lines between journalism and spin is not unfamiliar territory to the White House, Felling contended. In March, the Bush administration generated controversy when it produced a "video news release" for television newscasts that lauded the new Medicare law and featured a public relations representative posing as a news reporter.
