GOP Stifles News, Indy Media Shines

PHILADELPHIA -- According to the Philadelphia Weekly, one of the city's two "alternative" newspapers, the hip-hop kids and homeboys call their home town "the Illadelph." They must know something about what's "illing" the place that I don't.

"None of us are Republicans -- even when it behooves us to be," the Weekly's Joey Sweeney warns those who have come to the City of Brotherly Love to GOP it up. His paper's cover shows a sanitation man sweeping up dung from a departing elephant, the headline shouting "GO HOME." This savvy columnist suggests that "Dubya," a.k.a. presidential candidate George W. Bush, will only win the state of Pennsylvania if he starts "spreading cash" to the block captains in the local political machine. (He certainly has enough of it: This son of a Bush has raised $90 million so far, so "sharing" it is not out of the question. CBS reports that 1 in 4 delegates are millionaires.)

Philly may be unhappy with the Republicans, but it's happy to take their money and welcome them with one policeman on every corner and another on every bicycle. The city has been planning this for three years, adding 4,000 new hotel rooms with the hospitality wagon now out for 35,000 visitors.

Among these visitors are a few thousand protesters here to raise hell, and thousands of journalists ostensibly ready to cover any and all action. The city even threw a posh party for the visiting press corps. Photographer Elwin Williams gushed to the Inky (the name locals have given The Philadelphia Inquirer), "I've covered the Emmys. I've covered the Oscars, I've covered Super Bowls. I've never gotten a warmer welcome in my whole life." (This invocation of comparable entertainment extravaganzas is not off the mark.)

In all, a small media army of 15,000 is on hand to cover what The New York Times diplomatically calls an "exercise in political packaging." National Public Radio's Daniel Schorr denounces it as a "pseudo event," which he says he will not attend, while the Inky, the city's newspaper of record, admits delicately that the convention is "generally acknowledged as being past its prime in newsworthiness." It doesn't seem to matter! "And still they come."

This adds up to a lot of cheese steaks. The Wall Street Journal says this month's two political party rallies will cost $120 million to stage (compared with $14 million in 1976). "In other words, less happens, fewer people care, but more is spent."

I am not sure fewer people care. The parties simply don't want us to care.

Keeping Media (And Citizens) Out

Not everyone is here to be on the inside -- and not everyone can be. When I called the House and Senate press galleries, which have taken on the job of credentialing this media invasion, I was told I was too late to get a media seat. My application had to be in by February, which is a past lifetime to a fly-by-the-seat-of-his-pants guy like myself. But it may not have mattered, as I learned when I pressed the issue. It seems the Republicans have dramatically cut back on the number of press seats available inside the hall.

"We had 1,000 for the conventions in New York, 750 in San Diego and now only 350 allocated," one of the officials told me with some irritation. What this means is that the Republicans, who are planning a slick, on-time, "on message" TV sales pitch, are determined to limit the size and scope of the press corps. At least they admit it: They don't want any news that is not their news coming out, as they focus on what they call "message management" within their ranks.

They have designed an event not for those who are here, but for those watching at home. They are determined to keep the event "uneventful." In short, nothing happening in the hall is precisely the message they want people outside the hall to get.