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What Journos Really Do at the DNC

Hint: Most aren't covering anything

By Michael Foreman, Newser User

Posted Aug 28, 2008 12:29 PM CDT

(Newser) – A whopping 15,000 journalists arrived in Denver to cover the Democratic National Convention. The Columbia Journalism Review sent Justin Peters to find out what they're doing:

7,500 mostly mill about: "Only a small number of reporters actually have a reason to be here."
2, 294 pace the parking lot, "mournfully wandering around like Diogenes, looking for stories."
1,026 get drunk.

500 beg for credentials: "It’s Denver’s answer to the Island of Misfit Toys."
62 get massages.
7 take photos with rum mascot Captain Morgan.
1 tries to land an interview with both Morgan and "Democratic legend" Ted Sorenson: "That person is me, and, in this, I am a failure."

Follow the link below to see what the rest are up to.

[Quotes (1)]

Reporters interview a Barack Obama impersonator outside the Pepsi Center, Aug. 25, 2008. Many reporters are "mournfully wandering around like Diogenes, looking for stories." (AP Photo, file)

Journalists meet in one of the tents set up in the parking lot outside the Pepsi Center. (©Colorado Luis)

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Seven of them are having their photographs taken with Captain Morgan, the rum-loving pirate who, for some reason, was credentialed into the convention.
- Justin Peters, Columbia Journalism Review

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What Journos Really Do at the DNC

Hint: Most aren't covering anything