Reporting from the basement
A long-time veteran of the Legislative Building (not with the media) sent these thoughts about reporters being banished to the basement:
“The dawn of a new legislative session spawned a kerfuffle about relocating the office space of the legislative press corps to an undesirable hole in the ground. Everyone’s complaining about how mean the Republicans are for this despicable act, but snark and pettiness in the ‘people’s building’ are bipartisan afflictions.
“When Democrat Dan Blue was House speaker in the early 1990s, his staff became so annoyed with the happy chatter and laughter of the public and lobbyists that he removed couches from public areas outside his office and demanded the relocation of the public telephone room, which had been conveniently located just outside the House chambers for three decades.
“The telephone room was moved to the first floor, and the wails and cries of pitiful lobbyists filled the hallways as they contemplated the torture and indignity of walking up a flight of stairs to do their deeds rather than take the usual ten steps from their comfortable lair.
“Over time, everyone adjusted to the new location, and now we understand it will be closed as well. Everyone will adjust to that, also.
“Rather than adjust and adapt, the press is on the warpath. WRAL wasted three minutes of precious air time the other night on the office space story trying to harass the legislative leadership about the issue. Good luck with that. Predictably, the story fell flat because people are not worried about the working conditions of the press or lobbyists. It’s an inside game, an inside story, lots of drama if you’re living it, but none if you’re not.
“Before you know it, legislative leaders will dream up something else that’s onerous, offensive or inconvenient.
“Over time, we’ll adjust and forget how onerous, offensive or inconvenient we thought it was.
“We always do.”
Reporting from the basement
A long-time veteran of the Legislative Building (not with the media) sent these thoughts about reporters being banished to the basement:
“The dawn of a new legislative session spawned a kerfuffle about relocating the office space of the legislative press corps to an undesirable hole in the ground. Everyone’s complaining about how mean the Republicans are for this despicable act, but snark and pettiness in the ‘people’s building’ are bipartisan afflictions.
“When Democrat Dan Blue was House speaker in the early 1990s, his staff became so annoyed with the happy chatter and laughter of the public and lobbyists that he removed couches from public areas outside his office and demanded the relocation of the public telephone room, which had been conveniently located just outside the House chambers for three decades.
“The telephone room was moved to the first floor, and the wails and cries of pitiful lobbyists filled the hallways as they contemplated the torture and indignity of walking up a flight of stairs to do their deeds rather than take the usual ten steps from their comfortable lair.
“Over time, everyone adjusted to the new location, and now we understand it will be closed as well. Everyone will adjust to that, also.
“Rather than adjust and adapt, the press is on the warpath. WRAL wasted three minutes of precious air time the other night on the office space story trying to harass the legislative leadership about the issue. Good luck with that. Predictably, the story fell flat because people are not worried about the working conditions of the press or lobbyists. It’s an inside game, an inside story, lots of drama if you’re living it, but none if you’re not.
“Before you know it, legislative leaders will dream up something else that’s onerous, offensive or inconvenient.
“Over time, we’ll adjust and forget how onerous, offensive or inconvenient we thought it was.
“We always do.”