GOP 2004: Journalists Get Luxury Treatment, Including Spa

By: Joe Strupp Attention GOP convention-bound journalists: If you were among those complaining in Boston about the portable toilets, crowded outdoor press filing area, and lack of decent food, get ready for something different. A spa, with free facials and manicures, for example. Not to mention a pool table.

Besides an army of antiwar and anti-Bush activists, New York's Republican National Convention is ready to greet you, directly across from Madison Square Garden, with a full city block of indoor media workspace, gourmet prepared-to-order edibles, and dozens of permanent bathrooms. And if that's not enough, there's the complimentary day spa, which will offer free massages, facials, manicures and shoe shines. Oh, did we mention the complementary cold beer?

"We will go through our 60 cases [of beer]," Kevin Dyson, senior vice president for Barney's New York, which is sponsoring the luxury services, said on Thursday as E&P toured the facilities. "This is all part of the experience of relaxing and lounging, which we want to offer. It's brutal (covering the convention) and we know some journalists will need a little escape."

Not that journalists ever needed an excuse for a beer.

Perched on a small loft above the second floor of the expansive Farley Building -- a former U.S. Post Office that has become the central media center for the convention -- the spa area was ready to go Thursday afternoon. If newsies don't want a rub-down, they can take advantage of the pool table, lounging couches, and television.

Just a few steps down from the makeshift masseuse center is the press restaurant. But don't expect mere hot dogs, soda, and popcorn. Yes, they have them, but they also offer made-to-order panini sandwiches, herb roasted chicken, eggplant and mozzarella, and mesclun salad, along with a refrigerator of drink options, ice cream, pies, and at least 15 different bagged munchies.

Several news organizations that have already set up camp also have well-stocked supplies of soda, fruit juices, and other edibles at the ready. There is even a concierge in the press center, set aside just for newshounds. In addition to the usual theater ticket service, dinner reservations, and airport transport links, these happy hosts will arrange for dry cleaning, laundry service, and replacement camera parts, according to a promotional brochure.

"This is the 11th convention I've been at and I've seen it a lot worse," said a smiling Alan Bernstein, deputy national editor for the Houston Chronicle, who spoke briefly Thursday from inside the large Hearst Newspapers headquarters, one of several press rooms on the second floor of the Farley Building. "In New Orleans in 1988 we were cut off from a lot of it and Atlanta in 1988 was a lot noisier. You couldn't hear yourself sneeze."

Like most of the space set aside for the major newspaper publishers, the Hearst center was nearly empty with only Bernstein and two other editorial staffers around Thursday. Name cards were in position at hooked-up computers, however, for those who would soon arrive, ranging from Washington bureau columnist Helen Thomas to San Francisco Chronicle cartoonist Don Asmussen.

Neighboring locations for The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Gannett Co. Inc. newspapers, among others, were practically empty. Some, like the Times, still had equipment in large crates as workers hooked up phone lines and unwrapped equipment. Others, however, were set up and ready, awaiting the flood of reporters expected to begin Friday.

The Associated Press seemed the busiest, with at least a dozen staffers on the phone and at keyboards, many having gotten there up to two weeks ago. "I don't know anything that has prevented us from doing what we need to do," said Tom Jory, AP logistics director, who spoke while working his keyboard in the room that will house at least 200 staffers. "It has been air conditioned from the start and all of our equipment got here from Boston with no problem."

Jory said the Boston convention was more difficult because the journalists had to wait longer for phone lines to go in and for equipment to arrive.

Elsewhere in the media center, a long row of 28 empty newspaper racks -- with names of publications that include the New York Times, the Washington Post and Newsweek -- spanned one wall, while the large Xerox copying center was positioned for the needs of the thousands of reporters who are expected.

Two blocks away, on the sixth floor of the Hotel Pennsylvania -- across 7th Avenue from Madison Square Garden -- you will find the media credential center. But unlike the press filing area, which covers two floors of an entire city block, the room set aside to distribute the 15,000 credentials for journalists is barely larger than a conference room.

Inside, the handful of workers -- none of whom would speak on the record -- was busy counting out press credentials or party passes (it was unclear which) and assigning them to individual manila envelopes. "Vanity Fair?" said one worker. "Six," replied another. "Us Weekly?" the person said. "Six," the other answered, adding "Weekly Standard gets 17."

The Weekly Standard is a conservative magazine loved by many Republicans.

A glance at the coveted list of credentialed news organizations listed publications as varied as Defense Week and Asia Week, along with the expected top 20 newspapers and broadcast outlets.

But the most important item for many convention correspondents may have been the restricted pass to Saturday night's Media Welcome party, sponsored by Time Warner. In some cases, news organizations have more spots for their employees inside the convention than inside that party.