15,000 reporters at the Convention? The media has waaaay to much time on their hands.
Convention space seen lacking for journalists
Fleet walk-through gives way to worry
By Mark Jurkowitz, Globe Staff, 12/11/2003
A week after members of the national news media took a walk-through of the FleetCenter, representatives of a number of news outlets are openly worried about the apparent shortage of work space for the estimated 15,000 journalists who will descend on Boston for next year's Democratic National Convention.
"It's a huge problem," said Jim Drinkard, a political reporter for USA Today and a member of the Standing Committee of Correspondents in Washington, D.C., which helps handle press arrangements for the convention. "I've got to say that the words on the lips of everybody leaving [the walk-through] was `how can they choose a site like this without thinking about this beforehand?' There's no clear place that meets all the requirements we have."
Carl Leubsdorf, Washington bureau chief of The Dallas Morning News, said: "We wondered why we had a walk-through when the people running the convention were not ready to show us potential work space. They clearly did not have answers to this at this point. I think if there had been a great option, we would have seen it, frankly."
Rod O'Connor, chief executive of the Democratic National Convention Committee, suggested that such fears were premature at this stage and said that news organizations will not make their formal requests for work space and technical needs until next March.
"We brought people here to Boston to give them a first look at the FleetCenter," he said.
Some of the work space "answers are known at this point in time, and some things we're still working out," O'Connor said. "If people are coming to you and saying, `We're not sure we know how this is going to work out,' that's a little strange. . . .
"We we want to make sure there's enough suitable work space for the media," he said. "I want to make covering the convention as easy as possible."
Finding space for the media is a crucial challenge. Convention organizers want to present a positive image for the Democratic Party and the city of Boston during the four-day convention.
Organizers of the two nominating conventions in 2000 had the benefit of a large area for tents and trailers near Philadelphia's First Union Center and a convention center conveniently located next to the main convention venue, The Staples Center, in Los Angeles. But the dense, heavily urbanized FleetCenter area provides no simple solutions.
The news personnel who participated in the walk-through said several sites -- including the North Station train platforms, a nearby building on Causeway Street, and the Fleet Center underground parking garage owned by the MBTA -- were discussed as possible media locations. But based on what they saw, some are worried that journalists will be scattered through the area and might be stationed outside security perimeters, a situation that would make quick access to the convention center more difficult.
"It's crucial for us to be inside the security perimeter at the Fleet Center; we have to keep people going in and out of the center quickly," said Marcus Stern, news editor in the Washington bureau of the Copley News Service. Stern said he has been attending conventions since 1984, "but I don't remember a situation like this."
Another unresolved issue is the possible use of the underground parking garage. Bob Dries, senior producer of special events for CBS Newspath, said: "We have a fairly big appetite for space. A lot of what they showed us is inadequate . . . The real key to this is that parking garage underneath. It will solve a lot of the ills we saw."
But Tom Steacy, deputy business editor of The Philadelphia Inquirer, said organizers conveyed the impression last week that the garage was not under serious consideration. "They said it would be too expensive, we're not doing it," he recalled.
Stern said it might take significant improvements to transform the garage into a media work area. He also pointed out that organizers "tried not to talk about the garage," adding that, "All of a sudden it wasn't on the table at all."
But O'Connor insisted that "nothing is off the table," although he declined to go into detail about potential media venues. "We're looking at all options" around the Fleet Center, including the garage, nearby office buildings, and lots in the area, he said.
Asked about the possibility that thousands of convention reporters could be unhappy with their work accommodations, he responded: "We're not going to let that happen."
The convention journalists' experience while in Boston is "a huge concern to the host committee," said Julie Burns, executive director of Boston 2004. "The host committee will care for them. We will feed them. We will water them. We will provide them every amenity we can get our hands on." But there was hope that ultimately things will work out."Both parties face similar logistical challenges at tight locations, and each party knows expanding costs are a real concern for media organizations covering conventions," wrote Greg Kohler, senior producer for NBC News Channel, in an e-mail to the Globe. "I think the DNC is looking hard at all the options out there."
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