Ever wonder what would happen if politicians threw a convention and nobody covered it? Not that it matters since it's unlikely we'll ever find out in a 24 hour media age where even the most pathetic minutae is worthy of reportage (we use that term loosely), but it's something that Slate's Jack Shafer is advocating (he's also convinced the reason John Edwards isn't being given a speech slot this year is because "voters finally want to hear him talk").

If the political press corps were honest, they'd start every convention story with the finding that nothing important happened that day and that your attention is not needed...Instead, they satisfy themselves by being the co-producers of a bad reality-TV show about the coronation of a man who would be king.

It's like a vacation, only no spouses! There's free food, plenty of booze, nice hotels, lots of pals in the press and politics dishing gossip, and the assignment is easy to report. Ferguson concludes that political conventions exist only to make the second convention — the "journalists' convention" — possible.