Why Matt Welch is covering the conventions:
Jarvis and Shafer both claim that C-SPAN is more than enough to handle whatever news there is this week, but that assumes, wrongly, that the news at any given time is limited to whatever’s being said from the podium–a concept that’s even less accurate about conventions than it is for Congress (where the horse-trading that seals deals happens exclusively off-camera). More importantly, these things are well and truly conventions, huge gatherings of professional practitioners, fans, and journalists who are constantly combining and producing noteworthiness far away from the arena.
I feel a little remiss for missing the convention. My own view is that these are television shows, and the best way to judge the show is to watch it on television. There’s other stuff to do onsite – parties, hob-nobbing, schmoozing, back-stage reporting, gossip, absorbing the anthropology of the crowd, all of which can add something. But all that really matters is on C-SPAN. And watching that is a lot cheaper than schlepping all that way to meet other bloggers.
The Dish 