Behind the show

Our caucus is long gone now — Jan. 19 is so ancient history — but I keep going back in my mind to a certain place on that day, a rare, ephemeral place that usually exists only in New York and Washington. Sometimes, though, like during a presidential nominating contest, this strange universe pops up in new places.

I'm talking, of course, about the mediasphere.

This time it took shape in a convention hall, a grey, dim space about as big as a football field. One half was filled with rows of tables where reporters hunched over laptops, scarfed sandwiches and chatted on cell phones. The other side had a big stage in front of three gigantic television screens that showed election results, and in front of the stage was a tri-level riser packed with television cameras and people.

It was actually a very quiet space. I imagine in days of yore these places were a lot noisier, with clanging phones, clacking typwriters, people shouting copy into phones to be heard over the chunk-chunk-chunk of wire service printouts. Laptops, wireless internet and mobile phones did away with all that.

Almost all the activity was on the TV risers, where well-coiffed correspondents filed updates almost continuously. I guess it's a glamorous job — some of them are on the road almost full-time for election season — but it didn't look like a lot of fun. They were lined up before banks of lights, sometimes standing on a utility case to add a couple of feet to their height, talking continuously to an audience they can't see who may or may not be paying attention.