Allyson Bird - Internship Diary

Oct. 14:

Last night I helped out with Media General's debate coverage. My job was pulling the debate transcript off the Federal News Service Web site as it came in and compiling it. Then, if someone needed a quote or figure, I'd find it in the transcript. It was like the factory work of event coverage, and right at 11 p.m., I was completely finished -- no editing or quote-checking. Just finished.

Today I participated in a conference call with the Chairman of the South Carolina Republican Party and some 15 other reporters. My only other conference call experience was standing outside Republican National Committee headquarters in Boston during the Democratic National Convention, because the doormen wouldn't let us in to the actual conference.

Today the reporters could all hear one another. I don't think they all knew that initially, though, because several were coughing into the phone or saying things like, "I'm on conference call with Katon Dawson. Maybe it'll be something good, and it might just be stupid." Once it got to question time, the result was cacophonous at times and also detrimental to the Chairman.

He was releasing information about Democratic senatorial candidate Inez Tenenbaum's sparse attendance at events but couldn't tell reporters how much work Tenenbaum had missed as superintendant of education. The reporters chewed him up.

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