In days of circumspection,
We made no "love connection":
The girls said no
And off we'd go,
Relieved at our rejection.
- F.R. Duplantier
WALK QUICKLY
"Don't make eye contact," the Columbia Journalism Review's Megan Garber advises fellow reporters who trailed her from Denver's Democratic National Convention to the Republican powwow now under way in St. Paul, Minn.
As she puts it in a posting, the most powerful people at the conventions are not the various politicos assembled, rather the security guards who man the numerous checkpoints inside and outside the event venues and arenas.
"It was those guards who decided how far we - we low-on-the-totem-pole souls who were not delegates or 'honored guests' ... but simple storytellers - could go," she explains.
Therefore, the trick for reporters in St. Paul "is getting past the guards without them getting a good look at your press pass. Which comes down to behaving like an important person would.
"Which comes down to a combination of not making eye contact with the guards (important people are too busy to acknowledge non-important people); walking quickly (important people always need to be somewhere, you know, five minutes ago); and, of course, turning around your credential badge so the word 'press' isn't visible (since important people, with the exception of the aforementioned bigwigs, are generally not members of the press).
"Given the crowds and the controlled chaos of the convention floor, more often than not, doing that will get you where you want to go."
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