Wolf Blitzer's on the injured list, left back in Washington to talk to TV critics via satellite while John King and company are here to talk politics in Beverly Hills.
This might not seem like a tragedy, but having done a Starbucks run just before the session, I can attest that it's pretty nice out here today -- a breezy low 70s in the 90210 zip code that's not often found in D.C. in July.
"I was running on my treadmill and I had a little pull on my hamstring," says Blitzer.
King, meanwhile, fields the first question -- about why it took a "Saturday Night Live" sketch to change the way CNN et al. covered Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.
King reminds us that Clinton first posed herself as the inevitable candidate, not the feisty underdog.
"We covered them as the Fortress Clinton," said King, who acknowledged some shift in coverage about the time of the famous "SNL" skit that showed Obama being treated with tender concern during debates while Clinton got battered by newspeople.
King and CNN's D.C. bureau chief, David Bohrman, and their boss, network president Jonathan Klein, keep describing issues-oriented political coverage that sounds a lot better than the coverage many of us are seeing, which often seems to be setting its own agenda for maximum drama.
Challenged by one critic to "screw the drama" in covering the conventions, King said, "I would argue not screw the drama [but] marry and challenge the drama," while agreeing that issues matter more.
"No question, if we fail that test, then we fail that great opportunity," he said.
- News | Sports | Business | What's Happening | Restaurants & Food | Entertainment | Living | Marketplace | Jobs
