Dem convention: What are 15,000 journalists doing?
By Lisa Vorderbrueggen
Wednesday, August 27th, 2008 at 12:44 pm in Political conventions.
Wiht 15,000 journalists in Denver for the Democratic National Convention, there ought to be no story unturned.
Or not.
Here’s a very funny look at the press by the Columbia Journalism Review: http://www.cjr.org/campaign_desk/the_15000.php?page=all
Justin Peters starts the column with this:
There are apparently 15,000 journalists attending the Democratic National Convention. Here is what some of them are doing:
14,000 are wearing terrible suits.
7,500 aren’t doing much at all. This isn’t surprising. Only a small number of reporters actually have a reason to be here. The rest are conventioneering—seeing old friends, eating Democratic-themed menu items (“Barack Obama’s Turkey Chili”) in pandering local restaurants, brandishing their press passes at all comers, looking for free things, and spending about 14 percent of their time trying to rustle up enough stories to justify their presence to their editors. These reporters are the ones mostly writing about themselves, or their friends, or their experiences exploring Denver with their friends (“I was enjoying some turkey chili with David Broder yesterday…”). At least they’re open about the fact that they’re enjoying themselves.
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