The Miami Herald’s Glenn Garvin writes about the advantage cable networks have over the broadcast networks in covering this 2008 presidential election.
Garvin notes, “when the polls close in Pennsylvania Tuesday night,” network television viewers can choose between ABC’s Dancing With The Stars, CBS’ Big Brother or NBC’s Saturday Night Live special. Besides cut-ins from the network anchors, cable will be the place to go for politics.
Garvin quotes FNC’s Chris Wallace, who has worked at all three broadcast network news divisions before moving to FNC in 2003. “Politics has always been the bread-and-butter story for network news,” he said. “I really don’t understand their reasoning.”
CNN’s director of political news Sam Feist cites the amount of resources and time. “We have the airtime to be able to take advantage of all that material. If you’re a broadcast network with half an hour a night, what are you going to do with all those correspondents? It’s not a fair fight.”