MEDIA—Little TV Coverage Hurts Effort to Enhance L.A.’s Image

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Los Angeles officials sought to host the Democratic National Convention largely because of the event’s global image-boosting power, but L.A. may get less exposure than it bargained for. TV coverage of the Democratic convention isn’t going to be much better than that received by its Republican counterpart. The three major networks devoted less than an hour each evening to that event, while Cable News Network spent anywhere from one to two hours a night on it. NBC didn’t even televise the event the first evening. Also, ratings weren’t great. While about 5.5 million viewers tuned in to NBC and CBS on the second night of the Republican convention, there were 21.4 million viewers glued to their sets that same night watching ABC’s “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire,” according to Nielsen Media Research. Still, there are other advantages to the convention from a media image-building standpoint. There will be hordes of journalists eager to explore Los Angeles and convey their images to readers, viewers and listeners around the world. And their experience of the city might just change their opinions about it when it comes to future stories.

“This isn’t about TV coverage,” said Jerry Swerling, an L.A. public relations consultant. “This is about having 15,000 reporters from around the world seeing the city first-hand, and who will be very well taken care of.” Cheese steak, the inside story There are also likely to be plenty of newspaper, magazine and TV feature stories about the city that have nothing whatsoever to do with the convention. After all, many people plugged into the coverage of the Republican Party convention in Philadelphia learned more about the Philly cheese steak than they did about George W. Bush or the Republican Party platform. That should give Los Angeles a clue to the coverage it can expect this week. With the Democratic nominations already sewn up, there is little for all the TV cameras to show other than a lot of dry speeches about politics, the economy, and the evil ways of the Republicans.

While the national press devoted reams of copy to the political maneuvering going on at the Republican convention, other scribes were out exploring the city. They were talking about the number of new hotel rooms built in downtown Philadelphia, about the new, improved City of Brotherly Love that had made a dent in urban decay, and the Philly cheese steak. Was it one word or two? How did you order it if you were from Philadelphia and how did you eat it? Oh, and where did you find the best cheese steak, make that cheesesteak, in Philadelphia? “Maybe the lack of convention coverage will benefit L.A., so that journalists look at other aspects of the city,” Swerling said. “They will maybe find that there are more cultural things to do here than they expected, like going to the new Getty (Center). They will see that things are happening in Pasadena and Santa Monica.” When the Democrats held their convention in Chicago four years ago, organizers weren’t sure what kind of image the Windy City would leave with TV viewers and delegates. Chicago’s previous experience with a Democratic convention was in 1968, when demonstrators stole the spotlight. “Our greatest fear was the fear of the unknown,” said Leslie Fox, who was appointed by Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley to head the host committee for the 1996 Democratic convention. “We were control freaks. We wanted to control the weather so that it was not beastly hot.

“We had piles of positive articles written about the 1996 convention,” said Fox, who met with Los Angeles officials two years ago to guide them through organizing a successful convention. “Even The Wall Street Journal, which had written a nasty story about us eight years before, wrote what was equivalent to a love letter.” Los Angeles should hope for as much. City officials are worried that protests will divert journalists from covering the more glamorous aspects of the city. Or that reporters will recycle old images left over from the Rodney King-triggered riots in 1992. The myth of L.A.

“Los Angeles is almost certain to be the center of attention in a way that Philadelphia was not, because L.A. is prominent in the mythos of the world,” said Barry Glassner, a sociology professor at USC and author of “The Culture of Fear.” “The question is, will the press be reporting the mythical L.A. or the real L.A.?” The mythical Los Angeles is the one of the tan, blonde surfer, the spacey actress standing on Hollywood Boulevard, the ultra-rich shoppers on Rodeo Drive, and the rough gangs on every inner-city street corner. The reality is a metropolis so diverse that it’s very hard to characterize.

“Within walking distance of the convention center there is no entertainment industry and a great deal of other economic activity,” Glassner said. “The real story downtown is about the development of a cultural center which is almost nprecedented internationally.” Such portrayals, experts said, could help entice more businesses to Los Angeles, which some have felt is not the ideal location for industry and workers. “A lot of these people attending the convention as delegates are important business people who wear many hats. They are fairly senior people who influence others,” Swerling said. “A positive image can add more convention business to L.A., more visits by executives and maybe more business deals.”

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