The Media Credentialling Process for the Democratic and Republican National Conventions, Summer 2004

11:00 A.M. EST

Real Audio of Briefing

MR. DENIG: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Washington Foreign Press Center, and a warm welcome to journalists in our New York Foreign Press Center. Today's briefing will be on practical arrangements for media coverage of the Democratic and Republican Party conventions that will take place in Boston and New York this summer.

The first practicality relates to hotel sign-up at the two conventions. The two parties have put out some information about how to sign up. We will have up front for you, if you haven't already seen it, sheets that give directions about signing up for both the hotels in Boston for the Democratic convention and hotels in New York for the Republican convention. So please take a look at those. By the end of the day, we should also have this information and the sign-up sheets on our website on our special page on Elections 2004, so that you can check that as well.

I'm very pleased to have long-time and real experts here to brief us today. In today's briefing we're going to focus on the credentialing for the two conventions, and I'm very pleased to be able to introduce: To my immediate left, Jerry Gallegos, the Superintendent of the House Press Gallery; then Tina Tate, the Director of the House Radio and Television Gallery; and Joe Keenan, the Superintendent of the Senate Press Gallery.

They'll have some opening remarks to make and then will be very glad to take your questions.

Jerry.

MR. GALLEGOS: Thank you, Paul.

For those of you who have never been to a political convention, it may seem daunting to go to one. We want to assure that from our end, we will make this as painless as possible.

As far as credentials go, if you have a Hill credential, your experience with us will last about five minutes in Boston and New York, and perhaps another five minutes on the 15th of March when you get a request for credentials online, or if you see one coming through the [Foreign] Press Center. It's simply a matter of filling that form out and submitting it to the Gallery.

You won't hear from us until some time after May, when the deadline ends, but, as I said, if you have Hill credentials, it's a slam-dunk. You won't have a problem getting credentials. If you do not have Hill credentials, I would suggest strongly that you get them.

We will go into more detail about what is to be asked on that form at a later time. And I don't want to take up too much time right now. So if I could turn it over to Tina.

MS. TATE: I handle the radio and television. And I just want to take a minute and introduce one of my staff people, Andy Elias, is with the House Radio TV Gallery, as well. And we'll be handling credentials for all broadcast media, foreign and domestic, and we will also handle your workspace and your broadcast space requirements. We have an online application that has been online since January 15th, and it is www.house.gov/radiotv. And if you go under Convention 2004, you can go to the online application.

One thing I want to encourage all of you as you're making your political plans, your coverage plans, it is very expensive to cover a political campaign -- a political convention. And for your economy and for your own budget, it really services you best to work within a group. It doesn't matter to me which group it is, but I would shop around for a group that can take care of your technical needs. Because to try to cover a convention on your own, putting in all of your own equipment and ordering all of your own tables and chairs and ISDN lines, or whatever it is that you're going to need, is very, very expensive.

If you're working within a group, whether it's one of the affiliate services that are domestic or one of the other companies that puts together groups, you are better served. That doesn't mean you will lose your identity because we keep records of all of the groups that come, so we will know every organization that shows up. But just for getting yourself on the air, if you're trying to do live coverage, that is by far the easiest way to do it. If you're not doing live coverage, then you would just go through the normal process of applying for credentials and any kind of broadcast space that you may need.

MR. DENIG: Jerry, can I ask you just to mention where they can find the applications for both credentialing and for workspace, and then also go through the deadlines procedures?

MR. GALLEGOS: We put a notice out on the web a week ago, February 5th, for workspace. I might say that for workspace, I don't think most of you are going to need that. The workspace applications that we put out was meant for large bureaus. Most of you probably will work out of your hotel rooms, certainly out of the Foreign Press Center [area], and maybe out of the general pressroom that is set up there.

So although we do have a workspace application that's out there, unless you're sending a number of people, there's really no need for you to even worry about that. Traditionally, we operate off of a list of organizations that have a large number of correspondents that are being sent. And some of those are foreign press, as well. They got an e-mail from us, and we have got a request for workspace back from them.

What I might suggest, since the issue of hotels came up, New York is not going to be a problem. New York has got a ton of rooms. But the truth is both political parties tend to handle the foreign press rather shabbily with rooms. You may see the room request. I think Paul has a copy.

MR. DENIG: Yeah, we have them out front.

MR. GALLEGOS: You may have seen the form before. The rooms that they have on here -- if you were to apply for any of these rooms -- my guess is you probably wouldn't get any of them. They're not top of the line rooms anyway. But there are other options. I would suggest, though, in Boston that if you do seek housing that's not a part of a block that's presented by the Democrats, at least stay on a subway line because Boston is a very compact city. Traffic is still horrendous and there will be no parking anywhere near the convention site.

There is an area located northeast of Boston that's kind of their beach resort area. There's a lot of rooms available there. They're less expensive. There's a sort of a Howard Johnson/Holiday Inn kind of rooms, but at least you're not going to go broke. It's normally about a 15-minute drive in from there if you -- unfortunately, I was looking around for a map and I couldn't find one handy. You might have a small version of it, but it doesn't show the complete area.

I have been in that area at one time, just to look at rooms, and there are a number of rooms there. You might want to go online and check for room availability because it is the summertime. It is a resort area. It's a beach community and you can expect people to be making reservations just as a normal course of their summer vacation.

For the request for credentials, we will put a notice out. It will go out over the wires. The best place for you to look, on March 15th, will be the AP wire, and that will give you all of the information that you need.

The form is very simple, as I've mentioned. It will take you all of maybe five minutes to fill out. I have extra copies of last convention's form, if you want to take a look at it. It may change from this, but at least would give you an idea of what it is you're looking for and I could leave this here with Paul. If it takes you five minutes then, you know, it's probably because you're having trouble with your terminal or something. Really, it's three to four minutes, done. It doesn't ask for that much information -- name, organization, contact, phone numbers, how many people will be applying for credentials from the organization, and if you need workspace not a press stand, telephone.

But March 15th, keep that date in mind and just keep an eye on the wires, AP and Reuters.

MR. DENIG: And we should have that up on our website, as well, I'm sure.

MR. GALLEGOS: And you'll get it on your website.

MR. KEENAN: Have most of you been to the conventions before?
So do you need a quick synopsis of what the credentials are and how they work?

Basically, they're in two basketball arenas. And for daily writing press, there are press stands usually on either side of the speaker. You can get credentials; you'll probably get a credential per organization that are inside the arena in that area.

Then there's a rotating thing where you can get a floor pass for about 20 minutes, half-hour, sometimes an hour at a time, depending on the need. Then, of course, there's a huge media city next door where the general workspace and the Foreign Press Center workspace will be.

You can get other credentials for other members of your organizations to work out of there and be in there and be there for press conferences and all the other events. So that's what that form is for. And that -- on the 15th it will be on the House and Senate websites, on the Foreign Press Center website and on the wire. And if you have any questions, you can, of course, call either of us.

MR. DENIG: And what is the deadline for sending this?

MR. KEENAN: May 28th, so you've got a lot of time.

MR. DENIG: And obviously, if any of you have sort of in-house questions, too, you can call Margaret Holwill on our program staff at 504-6321.

MR. GALLEGOS: For those of you that didn't go to the walk-throughs, the Republicans put out a media logistics handbook, which is very informative, has all the information you really need, and Paul, if you want to take possession of that --

MR. DENIG: Thank you.

MR. GALLEGOS: If you want to look through that later, if you want to copy that or whatever, that will provide you with all the information that you need to know for the Republican convention.

Unfortunately, both these walk-throughs were held in December. The Democrats held theirs first, and the news media walked away from it with no information at all. It was a complete waste of time. We're still not getting information out of them, in fact on workspace or housing, anything.

We keep hearing promises that information is forthcoming and so eventually it will, and their convention will be held, and things will eventually run smoothly for them, but it's not happening yet.

All right. I think we'd like to take your questions now --

MS. TATE: Could I -- before we start with questions, could I just say a little bit more about the electronic media? How many of you are electronic media? Okay.

There are very significant differences in both the application process and the timeframes because electronic media need more stuff: you need more wires, you need more cables; you just have a longer timeframe. So let me just give you some deadlines for radio and television.

March 1st is when you need to have all of your broadcast and workspace requirements in. And if you are going to work through a group, you need to get with that group and let them know what you're going to need so that they can put in for you.

Credentials, if you're just going to show up on your own and do your own thing and not be part of a group, the credentials deadline is not until May 28th. And the credentials for radio and television are different.

We don't have a stand to be on. We are in skyboxes and stand-ups or in radio seats or radio talk-show positions. Most of the radio talk-show positions, I think, are traditionally used by the domestic radio talk shows. I don't know that you have an equivalent. You certainly can apply for that, but I don't think you'd have equivalent programming to our radio talk shows here.

The radio broadcast seats in Boston are on the ninth floor. The regular radio broadcast seats are in the garden are on either side of, I think, the 300-level. We have not been given exactly how many we are going to get, but for radio, if you are broadcasting from the convention during the conventions, the radio broadcast seat is what you're looking for.

It does require that you order an ISDN line or some sort of telephone line for that position, and if you've got four people going, you wouldn't ask for four of these seats, you'd ask for one seat, and if you absolutely had to have an engineer, a second seat for the engineer, so keep that in mind. It's not a one-per organization, I mean, it's not a one per person because there are just not that many seats available in either place.

And for television, it is very important to get your broadcast requests in to the group that's going to handle you, because I really do need to know those requirements for sky boxes, and stand ups, and aggregate workspace by March 1st.

We will be starting to carve up a very small workspace arrangement in Boston just as soon as we get those requirements in, and I do encourage you to be thinking and going ahead and making those plans as soon as possible.

MR. DENIG: Tina, do you have something up already?

MS. TATE: Yes, our application is online right now. And the application, the basic credential application is Section A. If you're doing radio by yourself, that's Application B, and it's very self-explanatory and it's all online; and you will get an e-mail return that will tell you that -- what we have gotten from you. And Application C is if you're going to do big logistics with skyboxes and stand ups and that sort of thing.

MR. DENIG: Could you mention what your online address is, please?

MS. TATE: Www.house.gov/radiotv, and on the left-hand side, Convention 2004 will be on that page, and you click that and it'll take you right to the online application. And everything will be handled online. Your notification of whether you are getting credentials or how you pick up your credentials; all that will be online.

And there are different levels of credentials for the skyboxes, stand ups, radio seats. The only thing you're applying for at this point is for the basic credential to get you into the building. It's the number of human beings that you're bringing. And I will not need names at this time. We don't need names, social security numbers and passport numbers and date of births until you actually pick up your credentials. But at this point you're just talking about numbers of people who are coming.

Once you get broadcast positions assigned to you, then we'll work with your group to get you the proper credentials for that area.

MR. DENIG: Let me remind you to please use the microphone, identify yourself and your organization. Let's start of front with Mr. Adu-Asare.

QUESTION: I'm Mr. Adu-Asare, I report for AfricaNewscast.com. Could you mention the name of the area in Boston where you -- which you are talking about with the Howard Johnson? Is it a part of (inaudible)?

MR. GALLEGOS: It's Revere Beach. Right. Exactly. Did it show up on the map? It's Revere Beach.

QUESTION: Riviera Beach?

MR. GALLEGOS: Revere -- yeah, like Paul Revere.

MR. DENIG: All right. We'll take the lady up front here.

QUESTION: My name is Jennifer Bran from CBC Television. We just have a question about satellite trucks. Do you know how much space will be in either Boston or New York if we wanted to bring our satellite truck? And then I have other questions regarding standup space for foreign media in particular. We're trying to make a determination of whether or not we send our live correspondents with NBC or with ourselves, our own satellite truck

MS. TATE: The satellite truck situation in Boston is probably not going to be a problem. The cabling could be. The cabling could be very expensive, but there is a parking lot where you've got a good exposure to the southern sky, so we think that satellite trucks in Boston are not going to be a problem.

Now, New York's another question. New York satellite trucks, if you've been to the [Madison Square] Garden, you know the location. It's how close we could get any satellite trucks to the Garden that can still hit the southern sky. We did a few in '92 and a few in '96, so it can be done, but whether it's going to be more of a problem this time, it depends on how many are being requested and what Secret Service is going to do. Secret Service has gotten very antsy about any truck parking around the Garden itself, so I think the priority is going to be for pool parking, then network, and then individual groups. So around the Garden, it's going to be a serious problem.

One of the things we're looking at -- and I don't know if it will would for you -- is whether we can use anything from the roof of the Farley Building. The Farley Building is the main workspace area in New York. And if we can work out, if some groups can work from the roof of Farley, that's one of the things we're exploring to help with that.

QUESTION: And then what about the stand up locations? How many -- sorry -- how many specific foreign media posts have been designated? We want to be as close to the action as possible, of course.

MS. TATE: We don't have a ratio of foreign to domestic. Years ago, you had a foreign broadcast service that was handled separate from the galleries. Now we handle everybody because there is no foreign broadcast service. So most of the foreign groups work through domestic companies. And we would, you know, keep in mind each client that that domestic company has.

If Eurovision is putting together a group, you know, Eurovision, as a group, will probably work through someone like CBS Newscast. So if they are doing that, we will keep them in mind as an entity within the bigger group so they don't lose their identity, but they are serviced by being served through a larger group.

So there is not a 20 percent for foreign broadcasts. You know, I usually get about 700 people that are in the foreign broadcast group, out of about 5,000 that we handle. So that's the percentage. But you wouldn't be either discriminated against or given priority in selection of stand ups and skyboxes. It really has to do with who we can best situate in the arrangement.

I have not gotten final diagrams for where the skyboxes and stand ups are, or how many we're getting. So that's at that point, then we have to decide, you know, who goes into them.

QUESTION: Can I just ask one more question about the money?

MS. TATE: Yes.

QUESTION: You said, it was expensive.

MS. TATE: Yes.

QUESTION: So what are we talking about? If, like, for example, we do the fly-aways on the roof, or if we do the satellites, do you guys have a sense of how much?

MS. TATE: I don't for the fly-aways or for the cabling costs because they haven't gotten cabling costs up yet. The stand ups themselves, New York has actually put out figures for stand ups. The stand ups are $9,000 -- I think $9,600 in New York. That's an individual 12 by 5 stand up position. The skyboxes range from $28,700 to --

MR. GALLEGOS: $39,700.

MS. TATE: $39,700. That is for all different sizes. And I don't know which ones we're getting. Now, that's a huge commitment and a very -- and that's the basic, you know, that's before you start doing any cabling to get any signals out of anywhere.

Over and above that, Boston, I can't imagine them being more expensive. I would expect that they are going to be in that ballpark though. I doubt that they'll be any cheaper, but I would be surprised if they were more expensive than New York. New York has always been our most expensive city.

MR. DENIG: All right. Let's take the gentleman in the blue shirt, right here.

QUESTION: Carlos Solis, JiJi Press. I have a question about the workspaces. You've recommended that, you know, only a sizeable contention of journalists should apply, or will be able to get those. If we say, send, say, only perhaps three or five correspondents, is there going to be a problem with getting a workspace, or are we going to be prevented?

MR. GALLEGOS: I believe we sent a -- we sent you a notice on workspace.

MR. KEENAN: You've gotten it in the past, haven't you? Have you?

QUESTION: Yeah.

MR. KEENAN: We can -- sure. You can get workspace. No problem.

MR. DENIG: All right. Let's go to the lady in the pink there.

QUESTION: Hi, I'm Janet Silver, Australian Broadcasting. When you talk in terms of credentials, in the past how it's worked -- and I just want to clarify, it may not be the same -- if we've gone through an agency, i.e., Reuters or CNN news source, et cetera, we credential through them, is that not correct?

MS. TATE: Yes.

QUESTION: And we don't credential independently, is that correct?

MS. TATE: That's right. They will handle all of your credentials requests, and you will never see me again.

(Laughter.)

MS. TATE: This will be your only chance. It's not that we want to keep people from coming through. But if you've got 5,000 people, if I can have one person come and pick up 250, that's 250 people who don't have to stand in line. I don't have a staff of more than six. So it services you better if you can possibly work through a group comfortably and economically to let them handle your requests. I hope that they were able to supply you with the right credentials for everything you did, because we do work very closely with all of the affiliate services, to be sure that they have all the resources they need for the client lists they give us.

MR. DENIG: Okay. The gentleman in the second row here.

QUESTION: K.P. Nayar, from The Telegraph of India. If I have a colleague coming from the Publishing Center to cover the conventions, what would be the credentialing procedures because he won't have Hill credentials or even Foreign Press Center credentials? So would this be different? What would he have to do?

MR. DENIG: You have Hill credentials, right?

QUESTION: Yes.

MR. DENIG: And you'll be filling out the applications?

QUESTION: No, if he's covering it, then I won't be. I won't be associated with it. He'll be doing everything.

MR. DENIG: As long as your publication has credentials, it doesn't have to be you, but the publication.

QUESTION: Okay.

MR. KEENAN: I'm sure he has an ID -- something from the paper and something from, what, the UN or whatever. Is he in New York?

QUESTION: No, no, no, he'll be coming from India.

MR. KEENAN: Oh, it should be fine, just have him apply us. You might want to handle applying for him because of the mail to India is a little bit difficult.

QUESTION: All right. Okay.

MR. DENIG: Okay, the lady in blue, please.

QUESTION: Hi, Jenny Gertz, Tokyo's Mainichi Shimbun. We've had workspace in the past.

MR. GALLEGOS: Sure.

QUESTION: But we never got an e-mail about --

MR. KEENAN: Oh, okay. We'll -- will you remind me at the end? Give me your e-mail address and (inaudible) too.

The thing about workspace, it's also the charges involved. It costs a lot of money by the time you put up a rod and drape, and telephones, and phone lines, and computers and things. So if there is only two or three of you, most likely, you can work off the press stand and all the general press areas and save yourself a lot of money.

MR. DENIG: Okay. The lady in black here.

QUESTION: Olga Bakova, Slovak Radio. I have Hill credentials and I fulfilled something, I think it was in January. I remember it was this ABC or whatever, but I never got any answer. And as far as I know, it says that I will get response in May. Is it true? I hope I fulfilled what I had to.

MS. TATE: And you're which radio?

QUESTION: Slovak Radio.

MS. TATE: Would you see Andy after the fact because we --?

QUESTION: Okay. Thanks.

MS. TATE: You should have gotten an e-mail that said what you applied for.

QUESTION: Mm-hmm.

MS. TATE: And then you will get a response in -- we'll probably put a mass e-mail to everyone who has applied around May, to let them know when and where and how to pick up their credentials.

QUESTION: Okay.

MS. TATE: Actually, it won't be May. It will be the month before the -- each convention because you'll get a separate e-mail before each convention that will say the time and place to pick up your credentials. But if you haven't gotten an e-mail back from us, you need to check with Andy after.

QUESTION: It was like concluded for Republicans and Democrats together.

MS. TATE: Yes.

QUESTION: It was just the one thing.

MS. TATE: Yes, yes, yeah.

QUESTION: Okay.

MR. ELIAS: We do have your material.

MS. TATE: Yes, we did get yours, but you should have gotten something from us. So we'll check with you afterwards.

MR. DENIG: Okay, let's go to the gentleman on the left there.

QUESTION: Nicolai Zemin, Russian Weekly Magazine, Itogi. I just -- I would like to clarify one thing. We have been told that people who have the credentials with the Press Gallery will not any, you know, problems. So I don't have credentials with Press Gallery. And my question is, so does it mean I will have some additional hurdle with the getting the credentials? Thank you.

MR. KEENAN: You want to answer since he's yours?

MS. TATE: No, he said we could.

MR. KEENAN: Oh. You don't need Hill credentials to get credentials at conventions, but it's much easier. If you have Hill credentials, we just send you right through. If you're some unknown organization, we might have to get copies and bylines and, you know, talk to the State Department and make sure that you're a legitimate report for them. But Hill credentials just make it easier but they're not required by any means.

MR. DENIG: Okay. Let's go to Finland in the back, please.

QUESTION: This is Jyri Raivio, Helsingen Sanomat, Finland. I’m just curious, how many accreditations do you expect to give to the conventions? And small thing to clarify, the same accreditation is valid for both conventions. Is it true?

MR. KEENAN: The same accreditation is not valid for both. The parties, the credential itself will look different and you need to apply separately for each. But on the form that you will receive, it will ask you, are you applying for workspace at the Democratic Convention or the Republican Convention. You simply check off both boxes.

QUESTION: How many customers do you expect to buy -- (laughter.)

MR. KEENAN: There's about 3,000 daily newspapers.

MS. TATE: About 5,000 electronic, not including the major networks.

MR. KEENAN: Another thousand periodicals and probably another 500 photographers.

MS. TATE: So it's about 15,000 in all.

MR. DENIG: You add it up.

MS. TATE: It's about 15,000, they say.

MR. KEENAN: We're not counting the networks. The networks are as big a presence, maybe, as all --

MS. TATE: Oh, no. In my -- the 5,000 is much more than the networks, but I think, total of everybody included is about 15,000 press people.

MR. DENIG: Okay. The gentleman in the middle.

QUESTION: This is Fernando Silva, from TV Globo from Brazil. The stand upper for positions, can they be shared with other -- if we buy one, can we share them with other broadcasters?

MS. TATE: It would be unlikely for you to be able to purchase one, because we'll only -- for these 5,000 people, we will get maybe 28, maybe 30 stand up positions. So they have to be shared by groups completely. We would not have a standup assigned to one person who used it for one period of time. It would have to be a group that was going to use it almost 24 hours.

QUESTION: In this case, people like APTN, that they would --

MS. TATE: APTN, who would be servicing people through Reuters, NBC News Channel --

QUESTION: Rotation bases.

MS. TATE: CBS News Paths, any of those groups that would be putting people through that one position to get multiple users out of it.

QUESTION: In other words, we have to go to them, then, to --

MS. TATE: If you really are serious about wanting one, one -- I doubt that you're doing 24 hours at that stand up.

QUESTION: No, no, but --

MS. TATE: So, yes, you should talk with one of those groups, any group that you are comfortable with and have an economic arrangement with now. I'm not suggesting one group over another.

QUESTION: Thank you.

MR. DENIG: Let's take Thomas in the back.

QUESTION: Thomas Gorguissian, Al-Nahar, Lebanon. Sir, I got the impression, correct me if I'm wrong, that the request for housing, it's almost impossible for these conventions, through these papers?

MR. KEENAN: For the Democrats? Because we had talked about the Republicans.

QUESTION: I mean, Democrats, either Boston or New York.

MR. KEENAN: No, it's not impossible. It's not impossible to get housing. Housing is going to very tight in Boston. Most of the housing is located in the financial district, and when they come to doling out housing requests, the first group that gets housing are going to be the delegates. And then there are going to be the campaign contributors. Somewhere way down the line, probably towards the bottom of it, will be the news media.

(Laughter.)

QUESTION: I have been there before, I mean, in conventions, last time, at least.

Are these headquarters, or let's say, the working space and all these convention centers, are going to be remote areas? Because it's completely different neighborhood, you know. It's like -- or New York City and Boston.

MR. KEENAN: That's true. And the problem that we're going to have in Boston is, the Fleet Center is located up towards what's known as the north end. It's got water on the north side, government office buildings on the south and west, a residential neighborhood on the east, and commercial district on the south. There is one hotel that's within a very short walk and although it's a nice compact city and you can walk to a lot of hotels in about 10 minutes, all of those hotels are high-end hotels that the Democrats will use to house their delegates.

It will be, even though it's a compact city, with the Fleet Center located in one place, and its headquarters hotel, and the -- is probably going to be located about a 30-minute walk away -- now that's maybe a couple of miles. But you wouldn't want to make that walk continuously every day.

They have a very nice subway system and it will tie in nicely. It's the same line. I believe it's the Green Line. That is in the area called Copley Square. That is, aside from the theater, business district, that's the other really nice part of town. Beyond that, you're going to Cambridge, Somerset, places outside and a driving distance from downtown.

MR. GALLEGOS: I think -- one of the -- the answer is, if you go through the parties, they'll give you housing, but it won't necessarily be close though. You'll get housing, but it won't necessarily be really close to downtown

QUESTION: Yes. What about New York? Where it's going to be?

MR. GALLEGOS: There's hotels all over. It will be all over town. You'll be able to get relatively close. There's so many hotels.

MR. KEENAN: What I might suggest in New York, though, there's a hotel that's located right across the street. It's the old Pennsylvania Hotel. Is that the Ramada now?

MS. TATE: It's still the Hotel Pennsylvania.

MR. GALLEGOS: It's still the Hotel Penn -- they keep changing the name about every two years. And it's been renovated. I know the first conventions we went to, it was a dump.

(Laughter.)

MS. TATE: Oh, yeah.

MR. KEENAN: And it's probably been that way for all but the last couple of years. But you walk in now and it's not bad looking. And I would suggest, if you wanted a room that's very close in New York, try the Hotel Pennsylvania, but ask for the top floors. The top floors are the ones that have been most recently renovated and they've got high-speed cable modems there.

About half their rooms have been renovated, and this is a hotel with 1600 rooms or so, it's quite a number of rooms. It's inexpensive as New York goes and the best rooms are up on the higher levels, but you are just across the street, just across 7th Avenue from Madison Square Gardens.

MR. DENIG: Okay, let's take the lady up front here and then the gentleman in the middle. Go ahead.

QUESTION: Jennifer Bran, CBC-TV. Yeah, actually, I do have another question about the stand up locations. You said that there's 28? Is that for New York and for --

MS. TATE: That swings. It's usually between 28 and 32 and it has to do with how many people use stand ups and how many people use skyboxes. If fewer people take skyboxes, they'll give me more stand ups. But usually it's about 28 to 32 stand ups and usually 30 to 32 skyboxes that are made available to the broadcast media that are not networks.

QUESTION: That are not networks? Okay.

MS. TATE: Not, not -- you're not competing with the major networks; they get taken care of separately.

QUESTION: What about, like, I understand we wouldn't be competing with CNN and NBC, but would we be competing for those positions, CNN News Source, and --

MS. TATE: Yes, you would.

QUESTION: Okay.

MS. TATE: It's all the independents.

QUESTION: Got it. And what is the proximity to the floor? Like, will my correspondent, for example, be able to pull people off the floor, get down to the floor very easily? Because you said something that had me concerned about 20 to 30 minute intervals on the floor.

MR. GALLEGOS: That's a whole different thing. Sorry, that's only for writing press stands.

MS. TATE: That's the writing press, from the writing press stands. But your skyboxes are not close to floor. They're on a different level. You would have to take an elevator or an escalator down in both cases to get to the floor level, so it's a period of time that you would have to allow in order to have your correspondent go on the floor.

The stand ups in New York are going to be relatively close to the floor. They'll be built on a platformed area, but they haven't -- the ones in Boston are relatively close but not as close as the ones in New York.

QUESTION: But you'd have access. Like, we would, for example, my correspondent does one hit every half an hour. In between that time can he go roaming, looking for guests, talking to people?

MS. TATE: It will probably take him a half hour to get onto the floor.

QUESTION: Okay.

MS. TATE: Because the floor will be so packed. Floor access is one of the most overrated privileges at both conventions, because especially when you're doing television, by the time you have a crew and you're trying to move a two-person-crew and a correspondent to get someplace in order to do a hit, you almost can't stand there.

It is -- both places -- the Democrats, particularly, love a packed floor, so they give out a lot of floor passes. And it's just very difficult to work on the floor. The stand ups have a floor backdrop in most cases. Sometimes the Democrats do not give us all four views from the stand ups, and their floor, their particular arena this time is much smaller than the one they had before in L.A., so sometimes we get a series of stand ups that actually have views that are not directly the floor or directly the podium, but may be crowd views. It's still action, but it's not the best view, so we do get a mix of things like that.

MR. DENIG: Okay, let's take the gentleman in the middle here.

QUESTION: Jeisen Schuiter, Eurovision. Hello.

MS. TATE: Yes, how are you?

QUESTION: A question about Boston again, and the subway: Is it going to be operational 24 hours as we have a time difference to deal with?

MR. GALLEGOS: I don't believe the subway is open 24 hours. I think it closes about one o'clock, 1:00 a.m. They do have shuttle services, both the Democrats and Republicans. It's a good thing and a bad thing.

With the Democrats, they're going to run shuttles to venues, not to individual hotels, so they might from the convention site, the Fleet Center, they might run one shuttle late at night to the financial district and one to Copley and maybe one to Cambridge on a schedule until one or two o'clock in the morning.

But if you, if you're in the financial district, you're lucky enough to get a place in the financial district, they're going to drop you off at one place that may not be in front of your hotel.

The nice thing about Boston is you can walk around Boston all night long. It's a very safe city -- a really wonderful city. And they're very proud of the fact that it's as safe as it is.

I don't think you'll have a problem at all with New York, with the cabs and with their subway system.

I might also mention one little nugget about housing. I mentioned the Hotel Pennsylvania, but we talked yesterday, with the media logistics person in New York and he has suggested lower Manhattan around the financial district. He says housing down there tends to be cheaper than it is in midtown or uptown Manhattan.

It's actually only a few stops. As I remember when we went down there, it was only two or three stops to the financial district from Madison Square Garden, so you're close and it's really a very nice, nice part of town and inexpensive.

MR. DENIG: Okay, let's go to the second row here.

QUESTION: Jose Carreno, El Universal, Mexico.

This question is basically a very used to come from something. You said that there will not be any big problem in terms of credentialing, and my question is in terms of internal security in the convention. Is it going to be very much of a hassle?

MR. GALLEGOS: I think we're going to see this year the worst security situation we have ever seen. And I think everyone knows why. The first day, obviously, will be chaotic. It always is. It takes a day for things to shake out. So give yourself plenty of time to get to the convention the first day and expect a lot of problems.

In New York there will be a press area, and I'm sure you'll be located in it in the Farley Building, that will have a sky bridge that will be open only to convention participants. So that's a very secure location. You may have a checkpoint there, but I don't think you're going to see a number of checkpoints and holdups and bottlenecks getting from workspace to the convention arena.

Boston is, again, another major problem. The Fleet Center first floor has two rail lines. One's a commuter rail line, which will be closed down. The other is a subway line, which is used and will be used by Bostonians and people who need to travel through that part of the city.

They haven't decided yet, as far as I know, whether they're going to close that stop down and just keep the one up the street open. That would help a little bit, but the area still, it funnels you down through a chute that may be also available to the general public. So one of the problems they need to work out in Boston, one of the many problems they need to work out in Boston is just how they handle non-convention participants. Also, some of the workspace may be outside a secure perimeter, and they haven't figured an adequate way of getting people from outside the perimeter into the perimeter when they'll be commingling with the general public.

We expect problems in Boston -- in both cities, with security. In Boston, expect problems with housing and parking. New York --

MR. KEENAN: You won't need a car.

MR. GALLEGOS: You won't need a car in New York.

MR. KEENAN: Don't get a car. Leave it home.

MR. GALLEGOS: You probably don't need a car in Boston if you're downtown, but if you're at Revere Beach or someplace, you may need that to get transportation from your hotel to a subway line if you're not within walking distance of it.

MR. DENIG: Let's go to the gentleman in the middle again, and then we'll follow up here.

QUESTION: Jeisen Schuiter, Eurovision. Again, concerning parking, but for, say, engineers who have to bring equipment in, how is that arranged? With, say, small vans? Are they allowed to park?

MS. TATE: There will be loading -- they won't be able to park. They'll be able to come in and unload and take things back out. And that will be done on a schedule by the parties, once we get everybody assigned, once they know -- and you will work with them to get the schedule.

And I would be prepared to provide names, social security numbers, passport numbers, date of birth, how many kids you got, what color eyes they have -- I mean, every possible information, because as any of you who have been working on the Hill lately, it is just increasingly difficult to move around in any area that they consider a secure area and this will be a national security event.

So the security will be especially tight at both arenas. Moving from the workspace into the arena is probably going to be another checkpoint. And they'll probably have something for people with gear moving in between camera crews and that sort of thing but you will have to plan your scheduling to allow for the amount of time it takes these people to go through security. They won't be able to bypass it just because they have gear. So think that out as you're doing your scheduling.

MR. DENIG: All right, let's go up to front again.

PARTICIPANT: Just a minute --

QUESTION: I have a really quick question, sorry, about the workspace. Did we find out how much the workspace was?

MS. TATE: The workplace doesn't actually cost anything for the square footage, the amount of space that you're standing in. Everything you do to use it, both tables, chairs, telephone lines, computer lines, rod and drape, anything like that, is what you have to pay for. And that will be off a vendor schedule. And we don't have those lists yet but you will before you're required to pay anything.

QUESTION: Do you know how much around? Just because I need a --

MR. KEENAN: Think high. Sometimes, yeah, a phone line is three or four hundred dollars.

(Laughter.)

QUESTION: Oh, really?

QUESTION: Okay. I mean --

MR. KEENAN: Furniture, everything. They don't give you cheap rates.

QUESTION: They charge, yeah.

QUESTION: Okay. I have one more question about the space, the standup locations. You said 12 by 5.

MS. TATE: That's in New York. They haven't diagrammed them in Boston yet.

QUESTION: Boston. We have a French network and an English network that goes 24 hours. Could we potentially put both of our correspondents-- do you think that that is a, within the rules and would be feasible?

MS. TATE: When you get the skybox stand ups, when you finish filling out your form, we'll go through everybody who has applied for skybox system stand ups, we'll have a follow-up conversation with you for usage and we'll discuss with you what you're planning to do with it. In some cases, we can customize them, and if it makes sense to put two together that's cost-effective for you and it doesn't cost the parties anything to do, we'll have conversations with you about that, after we get all the applications in and see who's actually going to be -- usually, just by the price of it, it's sort of -- the people who are not serious don't usually end up with skyboxes or stand ups, just because they're so expensive.

MR. DENIG: Last question. Lady in blue. Elaine in the middle. Elaine.

QUESTION: Janet Silver, Australian Broadcasting. Hi. Do you know if we're going to be able to have telephone lines in the press stand seats again?

MR. GALLEGOS: Yes. Yes we will.

QUESTION: Great.

MR. GALLEGOS: Wi-fi, they think, is going to be so overwhelmed that everybody wants backup lines. So there will be press landlines.

MR. DENIG: Well, let me thank our briefers very much for coming. We look forward to working with you in the coming months. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen.