no late-night comedy is bad news

I’ve been too busy to do be my usual news-junkie self lately. Plus, ’tis the season to be jolly, and all “news” leads to mud-slinging, which is not my cuppa, so I’m not paying attention. And no late-night TV makes it much easier to avoid.

I was wondering, though: if Stewart and Colbert and Leno and Letterman aren’t there to process and massage political “news” for their audiences–which, after all, are comprised of voters (and demographically desirable ones), what’s the effect of the strike on events on the ground?

Tom Maustad of the Dallas Morning News says that the strike is “cultural buzz kill.” Moreover, one of his interviewees says, the strongest effect is on the culture, not on the candidates.

“[T]his has definitely had the effect of pretty much deleting politics from pop culture,” says Rich Hanley, communications professor at Quinnipiac University in Connecticut. …

“Campaigns are great for comedy, that’s for sure,” Hanley says. “But the funny thing is, the strikes keep going, the campaigns keep going and there’s no breakdown, no crisis. If anything, I think the strike is showing how irrelevant, or at least disposable, this type of programming really is.”

So, yeah: obviously, the strike is bad news for those who deliver (and profit from) the “culture.” But Travis Daub suggests  the strike might also affects the candidates, in unexpected ways:

This year, fewer people will watch campaign ads

More people will watch the debates

No 24

No Leno or Letterman

No “Indecision 2008,” or Saturday Night Live takedowns of the candidates

Voters might be better informed

Bottom line, says Daub:

Taking TV out of the election will probably be a great equalizer. Suddenly, the ad dollars spent on Iowa and New Hampshire airtime are less valuable, and the underdogs have a chance to harness the Internet, the debates and other nontraditional outlets to get their messages across.

So what’s a campaign media strategist to do? Take advantage of other, nontraditional broadcasts where your candidate could be featured. Expect more candidates popping up at sporting events, on daytime talk shows, or even on the reality circuit. Will Mike Huckabee do a guest appearance on the Biggest Loser? We can only hope.

More from Daub here in an interview.

I find it pretty interesting that the candidates’ campaigns (and the observers of the phenomenon of the writers’ strike) don’t even pay lip service to the role of the traditional outlet for getting candidates’ messages out—namely, “the news.”

What’s the MSM, chopped liver? And if so, could it be because the broadcast arm of the MSM now contains hardly any traditional–i.e., “straight” news—outlets? because, well, infotainment (i.e., narrative-driven information dissemination) rules?