TAMPA – The red-carpeted floor of the Republican convention hall is divided into three camps: each with their territory staked out and each, with backs turned, ignoring the others. At 6 a.m., the delegates are absent. The few elected officials on scene are getting miked up for interviews. TV holds the floor.
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By Robert Hanashiro, USA TODAY
George Stephanopoulos at the Republican National Convention Wednesday in Tampa.
By Robert Hanashiro, USA TODAY
George Stephanopoulos at the Republican National Convention Wednesday in Tampa.
George Stephanopoulos, co-host of Good Morning America, perches in a tall director's chair located opposite the podium, facing an array of cameras and staffers in headsets. At one end of the hall, Charlie Rose and Norah O'Donnell conduct CBS This Morning from behind a glass-topped desk; at the other sits Today's Matt Lauer. ABC News President Ben Sherwood approaches and gestures at Stephanopoulos, "The 50-yard line! Center court! Center ice!" Sherwood exclaims.
This is television, where executives can act hokey for fun. But like the rest of the enormous media contingent here, Stephanopoulos and his network are trying to provide interesting, insightful coverage of a highly-hyped event that can seem designed to provide little material for doing so. This year, a cutback by networks, and a competing story from Hurricane Isaac have again raised the question: Are conventions — and the reporters covering them — necessary?
Conventions "have been showpieces for a long time. The trick for us is to try to lift the veil a little bit,'' says Stephanopoulos, who also hosts ABC's Sunday chat show, This Week. "The most important thing we can do is to put everything else (viewers) are seeing in context. To make sure they understand how what they're hearing squares with what the candidate has said in the past, squares with what their opponents are saying, and how and whether it meets with where the country is right now."
This is Stephanopoulos' seventh convention as a television journalist. For four conventions before his TV job, he was a top political lieutenant for President Bill Clinton, a star of The War Room, a behind-the-scenes documentary of the 1992 presidential campaign, the White House communications director with a combative relationship with the press, and then the author of a bestselling memoir that gave a sometimes unflattering view of his former boss and then-first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton.
"I still do channel those feelings of what it feels like to come if you're a member of the team or the family and to know that this is your big moment,'' he says. "That clearly revs me up.''
But it's his first convention since he became co-host of Good Morning America and expanded his role from political inquisitor to breakfast-table companion. He gets stopped in public so often by fans — even among Republicans — that he has a security guy, Rocco Castellano, who walks alongside and sometimes ends up snapping the photos fans ask for. His shows are doing well: At the moment, Stephanopoulos is in a good place in the volatile world of television. GMA has overtaken longtime champ Today in total viewership (although not yet in the most desirable 25-54-year-old demographic), and This Week, the Sunday chat show which he has hosted for eight of the past 10 years, has become competitive with Meet the Press and Face the Nation.
Stephanopoulos' already challenging work schedule has ballooned at the conventions: He works an early-morning shift on GMA, then stays up way past his usual 8:45 p.m. ET bedtime to co-anchor the network's primetime convention coverage.
On Wednesday, he taped a 6:30 a.m. interview with Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, did his morning show, then rushed back to the floor in case he was needed for a special report about a plane hijacking — which turned out to be false. In the afternoon, after conference calls about his two shows, a briefing from the Romney campaign, "homework" for upcoming shows and a workout, he took a nap.
He gave interviews to the Extra entertainment show and to a local ABC affilliate. Both asked for his assessment of the presidential race. He does not hesitate to offer an analysis, based in part on his own experience at the top level of presidential politics.
"The line I try to draw, try, is I believe I owe it to the viewers to bring my reporting and my experience to bear on what they're seeing,'' he says. "That's not the same as blowing out opinions, and I try not to do that as well. But I do think one of the things, I hope, that sets me apart is that I have been in and around conventions for an awful long time.''
At 5:45 p.m., wearing a different tie and carrying iced coffee, he headed to the anchor booth built in a skybox in the convention hall to deliver a quick report on the evening broadcast with Diane Sawyer. He goes on the air armed with illegible notes on a legal pad. His iPhone is either in hand or at hand. He is usually chewing gum: Dentyne Ice Arctic Chill.
During the evening news, Stephanopoulos joins Diane Sawyer at the anchor desk. then sits quietly through remote reports from three correspondents along the Gulf Coast before delivering a minute-long report on Romney's need to improve his middle-class support and surprise convention guest Clint Eastwood. During a commercial break, he leaves the cramped anchor booth to make room for another reporter. When he comes out, he shakes his head and smiles. "45 seconds!" he says, with a bit of a wince. Afterward, he interviews former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum for the ABC News-Yahoo! live stream. They cram into the anchor booth with Santorum on the end "To the left of George Stephanopoulos!" the conservative favorite jokes about the ex-Clinton aide. Then Stephanopoulos moves back to the main booth for the hour-long primetime coverage with Sawyer.
By Robert Hanashiro, USA TODAY
George Stephanopoulos walks toward the Republican National Convention in Tampa on Wednesday.
The networks cut one night of coverage of the conventions. Hurricane Isaac has been a bigger story. Perhaps most significant, all three broadcast networks were walloped in ratings for the first two nights of coverage by Fox News Channel.
Stephanopoulos says he understands the networks' ambivalence toward covering political conventions. "We still should do it. I believe it, I know it, but it's also hard to argue with someone that points out a lot more people wanted to watch SVU,'' he says.
Some of the burden is with the parties, he says — and some is with the viewers. "If we put it on but no one watches … you can't blame network bosses for saying, 'Why do we do that?''
