You need more labor, you tap the ready supply overseas
Not that easy, DMA. TWT. Some funny bits on Iowa.
ABC's bus plan has tiny wrinkle: No place to tinkle
By BILL REITER and KEN FUSON - Des Moines Register
The good folks from ABC News are learning the advantages and disadvantages of leasing a gigantic bus, stocking it with the latest broadcasting technology, and traveling to Iowa to cover the caucuses.
The advantages include having a portable newsroom from which to do their work, being able to drive across the state with everything they need at a moment's notice, and telling friends they're riding the same bus once used by Dixie Chicks singer Martie McGuire.
One disadvantage: realizing you've turned the bathroom into a radio booth and, finding yourself in an emergency, having no place to go in a pinch.
Just ask weekend news producer Laiea Smith.
"It was 7 p.m. and I had to go to the bathroom, and I ran up to the Capitol and it was locked," she said. "I was like, "No!" Somebody had to drive me to their hotel."
But staffers stress that the 45-foot-long bus, one of three being leased by ABC News, is a godsend, despite a few minor inconveniences. They're able to produce every stage of radio, television and Internet journalism from the bus. They can take their newsroom to the news, which saves time and expense.
"It's a pretty big sacrifice," said Political Director Mark Halperin, who has done radio spots from the converted bathroom. "We can do everything ABC News does from this bus."
****
The reporters who were there swear that this happened:
After the National Public Radio debate in downtown Des Moines, a post-debate press room was set up for the Democratic candidates to talk to the media.
Cameras and reporters surrounded Dick Gephardt, but many of them left after he finished speaking.
Just then, Dennis Kucinich entered the room and began addressing three television cameras that were sitting on tripods. The only problem was, nobody was operating the cameras.
And that's not all. As one newspaper reporter muttered under his breath, "It's not like any of those cameras are on, congressman."
Hey, you never know.
****
Some of the hundreds of campaign volunteers who are invading the state are getting more than a political education. They're also learning about a Midwestern winter for the first time.
Kat Woodruff, for example, had seen snow before - from inside an office in Washington, D.C. - but the 24-year-old woman from Long Beach, Calif., had never traipsed through the stuff until she arrived in Iowa to volunteer for Howard Dean.
Her impressions of Iowa?
"Ummmm . . . it's very, very cold," she said.
"There have been lots of things that I never took into account, like driving in it and getting ice stuck on my car. I've fallen on the ice a couple of times."
Woodruff and two other California natives tried to get to The Des Moines Register's candidate debate in Johnston.
"We didn't make it," she said. "We ended up in a ditch."
****
Let's get to the real question: How old is David Yepsen?
That's the mystery that spurred a debate among a Washington-based journalist and a group of Howard Dean campaign staffers.
The journalist argued the Register's political columnist was around 60. The young Dean staffers disagreed, he said, putting Yepsen's age in the 40s.
Word from the Yepsen camp puts their man's age at 53.
The generous guess by the young Dean staffers at this point in caucus season could be interpreted this way: Please write nice about our man, Mr. Yepsen, sir, though we mean"sir" in the youngest of possible ways.
What do you say, Mr. Yepsen? Score one for the Dean camp?
****
And so it begins.
The inevitable Iowa bashing that comes with caucus-mania and the East Coast reporters sent to cover it is under way, compliments of syndicated columnist and television pundit George Will.
On "Imus in the Morning" on MSNBC Friday, Will had some thoughts about Iowa in the lead-up to the caucuses. Said Will, "Iowa's a dark, brooding, insular, medieval kind of state."
He later added some jabs at our immigrant forebears, and pronounced, "The past is still alive in Iowa."
He didn't exactly mean that in the most caring, supportive way.
No word yet on when Will himself will grace us with his presence, but we're hopeful our brooding, insular, medieval minds will still be able to conjure up a warm welcome for him.
And Will should remember that two can play this game. A former Register reporter used to be Will's paperboy in Washington, D.C. And the word on the street was that you couldn't get a tip at Will's house. |
