Alternative Media Look to Cover All the Angles

PHILADELPHIA —  Nickelodeon producer Anastasia Kedroe spies George Stephanopoulos on the packed Republican National Convention floor and asks her reporter Josh Peck if he knows who he is.

Peck knows: Stephanopoulos is “Bill Clinton’s advisor.” A surprisingly knowledgeable answer, really, considering the 13-year-old was a young kid when Stephanopoulos gave up politics for a job at ABC News. Without further ado, Peck--better known for his role as Wayne in last winter’s Nickelodeon theatrical movie “Snow Day”--asks the ABC correspondent if he can interview him for his “Kids Pick the President” reports and then plunges in with an astute question about what it’s like to give advice to the president of the United States.

The big broadcast networks have cut back on their gavel-to-gavel coverage of the political nominating conventions, disappointing academics and others who fear an uninformed electorate. But as the 15,000 media attendees in Philadelphia and Los Angeles attest to, there are plenty of outlets clamoring for a piece of the action, or at least the spotlight. Then again, the alternative media might not be approaching the events with quite the same kind of gravitas as pundits would hope. As Comedy Central’s Jon Stewart put it at a Philadelphia press conference to promote his daily show from the conventions: “We’re a fake news organization and this is a fake news event. So I think we’re the only ones who should be here.”

But many others are. The E! cable network dispatched Joan and Melissa Rivers to report on convention fashions. Lifetime Television hosted events at both conventions, including a “Salute to Women Elected Officials . . . and the Women Who Elect Them” on Monday in Los Angeles. And in Philadelphia, MTV sponsored a voter registration event with wrestling’s “The Rock,’ while in L.A., nominee Al Gore’s daughters Karenna Gore Schiff and Kristin Gore were MTV’s celebrity attraction for a similar registration rally Tuesday.

In Philly, MTV’s “Choose or Lose” team, whose reports are seen during the popular “Total Request Live” as well as collected and folded into a longer special, tracked a 19-year-old delegate through his rounds of early-morning partying and his subsequent difficulty staying awake the next day during the official events. They focused on the bands the Republicans chose for their entertainment, the street protesters and even a little on the candidate himself.

And they were also tracking George P. Bush, the 24-year-old nephew of the candidate and “It Boy” of the Republican convention. MTV had first latched onto George P. Bush--telegenic, Latino (his mother is Mexican-born) and a newly minted “fourth most eligible bachelor” by People magazine--in the winter, when “Choose or Lose” team member Jason Bellini hung out with him during the California primary. The transformation since then, team members joked, left them feeling they had been eyewitnesses to the making of a celebrity.

Unlike in Philadelphia, Bellini recalled, there was no entourage and Bush had to show a driver’s license to one group to prove who he was. Bush even drove the car, says Bellini, who struck a deal with him then to do a video diary of the Philadelphia event.

By Philadelphia, Bush had acquired handlers and was harder to reach, so MTV didn’t get a sit-down interview. Instead, in went another “Choose or Lose” reporter, Julia Mejia, for an on-the-run interview, done in Spanish and English, that gave her a chance to catch her breath--and the camera to get a steady view--only on a short escalator ride. The interview, which producers liked because it felt less scripted, ended with a kiss on her cheek, perhaps for her tenaciousness.

Bellini, who swooped in afterward to ask a couple more serious questions, says he was nervously eyeing Bush’s handlers during the encounter, which ultimately paid off “because she broke him down in a way I couldn’t have.” It’s all part of the MTV approach to ask questions for themselves, not to impress other correspondents, and to try and reach the politicians where they are, says Bellini. “If you say ‘we have two minutes,’ we’ll take that.”

Back at Nickelodeon, Peck, although he has quickly become a pro at elbowing his way through the shoulder-to-shoulder crowd, has a more laid-back approach: He just asks interviewees the things he wants to know, he says, such as whether they are enjoying themselves, how they got to where they are and what advice they have for kids.

The reports are mostly fun--Peck wears a goofy hat while doing his filler material--but informative. CNN reporter John King and a California delegate decked out in an elaborate sequined red, white and blue dress are among his subjects on this night. He thinks it would be “cool to be able to talk to the Secret Service, but that’ll never happen.”