The Sidebar Convention

The candidate was not talking and his aides did not know. So the 5,500 reporters competing for scoops at the Madison Square Garden love-in were unable to find out in advance the identity of Jimmy Carter's running mate. Except for Gilbert Giles. By following up a tip from an associate of Edmund Muskie who was privy to the Maine Senator's pre-convention discussions with Carter, Giles made a shrewd guess and beat the rest of the press by a full day on the convention's one big newsbreak. IT'S OFFICIAL: MONDALE/CAR-TER! crowed the front-page headline. Explained Giles, 12, a reporter for Children's Express, the fledgling preteen monthly that published a special convention issue last week: "My main advantage is that adults don't think children listen or understand."

Dark Hall. Giles' adult colleagues had their share of problems in trying to bring to life a historically important but generally suspenseless convention. Some publications reduced the scale of their coverage from 1972's levels. The New York Times, for instance, put 15 reporters inside the hall, about half a dozen fewer than it had dispatched to Miami four years ago. Esquire, which in past years has recruited such literary lights as Jean Genet, Arthur Miller and William Styron to illuminate the proceedings, this time opted to leave the darkness undisturbed.

Unable to squeeze compelling copy from the desultory doings on the floor, reporters fanned out to interview delegates, their wives and children, hack-ies, bartenders, cloakroom attendants and even hostesses at the free convention-hall bar set up by the railroad lobby to mellow reporters. Gilbert Giles and his young colleagues at Children's Express were interviewed no fewer than 25 times by the convention's close. The New York Post devoted a column to California Governor Jerry Brown's remarks during a visit to a hamburger stand. Between 200 and 300 reporters asked for interviews with members of the Carter family. Daughter Amy was especially in demand--and not particularly enlightening. One who found out was the Washington Post's Sally Quinn, who has reduced formidable personages to objects of derision. "You're not very happy, are you?" Amy was asked. "No," she responded. "How come?" '"Cause I don't have any friends up here." "Not anybody?" "Only Chuck." "Who's Chuck?" "My cousin." "Are you tired of being interviewed?" "Yes."

For many newsmen, the Democratic Party paled in comparison with the not-very-democratic parties that went on behind closed doors at all hours. The Philadelphia Inquirer front-paged a story on the revelry scene. Its major disclosure: more beer and less Scotch was being offered than in 1972. Dozens of reporters on the liquid late-night beat and even some bona fide guests could not gain entry to a supper sponsored by Rolling Stone magazine because of unexpected crowds of gate crashers. The problem was that veteran Prankster Dick Tuck had printed thousands of counterfeit invitations in Reliable Source, an irreverent daily tabloid that he published during the convention.

Cliches rained on Manhattan like soot. "It's a star-spangled, sentimental, flag-waving, all-American fete," gushed the Atlanta Constitution. Of the million or so words filed daily by the desperate press, roughly half must have been variations of the word peanut. The Boston Globe captioned a picture of a delegate holding a large reproduction of a goober: "She's nuts about Jimmy Carter."

Gag Rule. The convention was not without its important stories: the vice-presidential selection, the unprecedented prominence of blacks, the sudden onset of party unity, the future direction of Carter's campaign. "A prime-time bore?" asked Columnist David Broder. "Baloney. For those who have a sense of history, this has to be a fascinating moment." Columnists even found aspects of the convention to abhor, notably the Carter forces' suppression of dissent. Fumed Mary McGrory: "It is a shocking thing for the Democratic Committee to adopt a gag rule."

Still, the lack of overt drama in the official proceedings forced editors to give prominent space to offbeat and sometimes irrelevant sidebars. The Atlanta Constitution ran an account by Columnist Celestine Sibley of how she breezed by security guards all over town by pinning on her raincoat an old laundry ticket that only faintly resembled an official convention pass. Chicago Daily News Columnist Mike Royko caught up with Carter's younger brother Billy,'39, in a hotel corridor and found out where he had been spending his time. "You know they got a law here that says the bars can't open until 9 in the morning," said Billy. "But I found a place that will let me in at 7:30."

In the search for sidebars, the convention was nearly upstaged by Convention City. Atlanta Journal Editor Jack Spalding used his front page to tell readers back home in the Big Peach how friendly he found the natives. "New York City wants to be part of us," he announced. One of Philadelphia Inquirer Editor Creed Black's first convention stories was a combination Manhattan travelogue, pub-crawl diary and first-person account of how he came to spend $21 for a hamburger (prixfixe at the 21 Club, where he also got an appetizer, soup and dessert).

Analytical Pieces. Sidebars may fall by the sideway when the nation's press descends on Kansas City next month to watch the still-divided Republicans. But some journalists think that the shape of convention coverage may have been changed for good. "We're realizing something that we should have known before, that television does the running story better than we ever could," says San Francisco Examiner Editor Reg Murphy. The Detroit News will start turning out sidebars a week before the convention. The Boston Globe plans to downplay its daily running story in favor of more analytical pieces. Other publications next month will be looking for ways to follow up on the lesson they learned at the Garden: coverage of a dull convention need not be dull.

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