Lady Logician and I arrived at the Excel Center about half an hour ago and after much walking around reached the press section area which is the area that the noontime vidocasts on Ustream showed as “bloggers’ row”.
Not so.
The entire area is now marked at “CBS news radio affiliates.
Developing…
1:38PM Central
Email response:
Your credential gives you access to the 223 or 222 area to sit and watch the festivities inside Xcel, and to walk around it is General Admission. We talked about this yesterday when you picked up your credential. Please call me if you have any questions.
So of course I emailed the person who wrote this and politely advised her that the 223 or 222 area doesn’t even have an outlet, never mind a board to put a laptop on, and explain to her why this is not acceptable. So that person transferred me to a lady in charge of Spanish language media, who of course has her hands full with her job and has nothing to do with blogging facilities.
1:55
At least we have access to the media center. Which we don’t know where it’s located.
Developing…
4:15PM: Resolution
I’m now posting at the Press Filing center, which is in a separate building from where the Convention is being held. The Press Filing Center has free internet linkup, which costs $800 at the Press center. There is no video at all of any happenings at the Convention, unlike CPAC, which had live broadcast of the speeches. The only video avaiable comes from CNN and CSpan, which anyone could watch from their home. To see any of the Convention in real time we’d have to move to the regular seats at the Excel Center with no means of posting.
Bloggers, who use multimedia, sound and video are warehoused in a large room with no way of seeing what is happening. MSM radio, who use only sound, get 100 seats with full view of the proceedings.
Niiiice.
Or, as LL said,
Not exactly the live coverage we were told we would be able to provide.
Meanwhile,
Pamela was on the floor, really.
Except for the always impeccable fashion sense of our hostess how anybody be surprised that the scruffy bloggers are kept out of view. It’s only natural that, even if they are the smartest people around, when dressed like typewriter repairman the better sort will sniff, arrange more comfortable and distant facilities and hope that no one notices the mob.
I heard that one idea was to simply arrange a Star Trek convention to be in the Excel Center’s basement to kee the bloggers away from the better class of people inside the arena. Either that or free donuts!